4 ms·

Honestly, the Bay Area shouldn't have municipalities smaller than counties.

jkking 7y ago
This is kind of like what New York did in the 1800s by consolidating all the towns around it into a giant metropolis. And that's clearly what many people wish the Bay Area were today - a giant megalopolis from San Jose to Petaluma. The problem with that is that while it would be a great idea for getting one's way on a given issue, there are a lot of people that don't want to live in that kind of place, and are fighting to maintain their towns as the small towns they want them to be.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
mktmkr 7y ago
You think everything from Berkeley to Patterson should be under unified government? Everything from Palo Alto to Los Banos? That's not obviously wrong but it's not obviously desirable either.
- Redoubts 7y ago
  > You think everything from Berkeley to Patterson should be under unified government? Everything from Palo Alto to Los Banos? Berkeley is in Alameda County, while Patterson is in Stanislaus County, so no. Palo Alto is in Santa Clara County, while Los Banos is in Merced County, so no.
opportune 7y ago
I don't know if that level of consolidation is necessary but the core area could definitely be consolidated into like 6-8 municipalities or even boroughs: San Rafael-Sausalito SF + Daly City + Colma + Brisbane + South SF San Bruno - RWC Palo Alto - SV San Jose + Santa Clara and assorted surrounded munis like los gatos. Honestly you could probably include the Palo Alto-SV area with this one if you wanted. No idea how to split up the east bay, guessing you will run into issues with nobody wanting to absorb the poor munis. Anyway, the benefits of this is that it would be easier to align incentives at a regional level rather than creating adversarial, counter productive squabbling fiefs that keep acting optimally at a local level, but very sub-optimally at a regional level. The regions are also big enough that a much larger portion of people would actually live and work in the same area
- Redoubts 7y ago
  > I don't know if that level of consolidation is necessary but the core area could definitely be consolidated into like 6-8 municipalities There are 9 Bay Area counties, so we agree?
  - opportune 7y ago
    Note I said core area, I didn't mean to include most of the east bay. The areas I was thinking were only in 5 (SF, Marin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda) of the 9 counties
    - kaikai 7y ago
      You counted Marin but not Fremont as part of the “core” Bay Area?
      - opportune 7y ago
        That is in alameda county which I listed
- eitally 7y ago
  Put Menlo, Mountain View & Atherton with Palo Alto and keep it separate as the "mid-peninsula" entity. Move Sunnyvale, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and Campbell into the San Jose / Santa Clara group as the "south bay" entity. Then you have your RWC through San Bruno entity for "north peninsula", and everything from South City through SF get lumped into the "SF" entity. That keeps it relatively simple and puts similar NIMBY categories into like groups (I'm mostly looking at the PA / Menlo / Atherton / Los Altos folks here).

This is kind of like what New York did in the 1800s by consolidating all the towns around it into a giant metropolis. And that's clearly what many people wish the Bay Area were today - a giant megalopolis from San Jose to Petaluma. The problem with that is that while it would be a great idea for getting one's way on a given issue, there are a lot of people that don't want to live in that kind of place, and are fighting to maintain their towns as the small towns they want them to be.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

mktmkr 7y ago

You think everything from Berkeley to Patterson should be under unified government? Everything from Palo Alto to Los Banos? That's not obviously wrong but it's not obviously desirable either.

Redoubts 7y ago
> You think everything from Berkeley to Patterson should be under unified government? Everything from Palo Alto to Los Banos? Berkeley is in Alameda County, while Patterson is in Stanislaus County, so no. Palo Alto is in Santa Clara County, while Los Banos is in Merced County, so no.

opportune 7y ago

I don't know if that level of consolidation is necessary but the core area could definitely be consolidated into like 6-8 municipalities or even boroughs: San Rafael-Sausalito SF + Daly City + Colma + Brisbane + South SF San Bruno - RWC Palo Alto - SV San Jose + Santa Clara and assorted surrounded munis like los gatos. Honestly you could probably include the Palo Alto-SV area with this one if you wanted. No idea how to split up the east bay, guessing you will run into issues with nobody wanting to absorb the poor munis. Anyway, the benefits of this is that it would be easier to align incentives at a regional level rather than creating adversarial, counter productive squabbling fiefs that keep acting optimally at a local level, but very sub-optimally at a regional level. The regions are also big enough that a much larger portion of people would actually live and work in the same area

Redoubts 7y ago
> I don't know if that level of consolidation is necessary but the core area could definitely be consolidated into like 6-8 municipalities There are 9 Bay Area counties, so we agree?
- opportune 7y ago
  Note I said core area, I didn't mean to include most of the east bay. The areas I was thinking were only in 5 (SF, Marin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda) of the 9 counties
  - kaikai 7y ago
    You counted Marin but not Fremont as part of the “core” Bay Area?
    - opportune 7y ago
      That is in alameda county which I listed
eitally 7y ago
Put Menlo, Mountain View & Atherton with Palo Alto and keep it separate as the "mid-peninsula" entity. Move Sunnyvale, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and Campbell into the San Jose / Santa Clara group as the "south bay" entity. Then you have your RWC through San Bruno entity for "north peninsula", and everything from South City through SF get lumped into the "SF" entity. That keeps it relatively simple and puts similar NIMBY categories into like groups (I'm mostly looking at the PA / Menlo / Atherton / Los Altos folks here).