4 ms·
Why hasn't SV built out towards the west and the pacific ocean and instead built downwards? There seem to be big swaths of unused space there, and for such an
by elai 16y ago
Why hasn't SV built out towards the west and the pacific ocean and instead built downwards? There seem to be big swaths of unused space there, and for such an expensive place it seems a bit strange.
- iamwil 16y agoI don't know for sure, but as I understand it, California is mostly a desert, and the further inland you go, the more readily apparent it is.
- chipsy 16y agoSouthern California is a desert. The north-to-middle areas have several non-desert areas that are defined by distance from the coast. The northern coast is more like a milder version of Oregon. Redwood tree habitat continues all the way down to around Monterey along the coast. Foothills separate the coast from the Central Valley, which is ideal agricultural land but tends toward extremes of weather. Go farther east and you hit the Sierra foothills - the center of the Gold Rush. It becomes forested again and you'll see a fair number of one-street towns and two-lane highways. And then going over the mountains gets you to Nevada.
- akeefer 16y agoMuch of it is owned by groups like the Peninsula Open Space Trust or is otherwise an official county or state park. The open spaces along 280 might seem under-utilized, but they're also one of the critical things that keeps the Bay Area from turning into LA, and one of the biggest reasons why the peninsula feels so different from San Jose.
- mtviewdave 16y agoLook at a map of the Bay Area using Google Maps in "terrain" mode. Everything between I-280 and the Pacific Ocean is basically mountains.
- elai 16y agoI've lived on mountains. Other than having to worry about your soccer balls going into snowball mode it isn't bad at all.
- _delirium 16y agoQuite a few people do live in the mountains, it just isn't particularly high-density, and a relative lack of good roads reduces the area where even that low-density development can happen. The Hwy-9 corridor probably has about 50,000 people along it, as the main concentration (if you include Scotts Valley and the upper part of Los Gatos). There are other people scattered about, but once you're off the main roads, it starts to get remote enough that nobody's going to commute to San Jose daily. Lots of interesting "weird" folks, though, ranging from the lefty types (hippies, pot farmers, etc.) to the righty types (gun-toting mountain libertarians). Also, Robert Heinlein built a geometric house up there: http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&q=37.058811,-122.158461&ie=UTF8&ll=37.058593,-122.158452&spn=0.001785,0.001998&z=19 http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&q=37.058811,-122.158461&...
- wooster 16y agoMuch of that area is game preserves, forest land, county parks, open space trusts, under conservation easements, in Williamson Act contracts, etc, such that it can't be developed for housing.
- jfarmer 16y agoThe Santa Cruz Mountains are in the way.