6 ms·

That sounds great in theory, but then you remember that the Bay Area is a metropolitan area of fiefdoms. Why are Daly City, South San Francisco, Brisbane, San B

That sounds great in theory, but then you remember that the Bay Area is a metropolitan area of fiefdoms. Why are Daly City, South San Francisco, Brisbane, San Bruno all separate entities? Why are Palo Alto, Atherton, Cupertino, Mountain View, Sunnyvale all separate cities? I can't even begin to list all the Peninsula fiefdoms... and all of Marin County? And yet they all rely on a few job centers (San Jose, San Francisco, Silicon Valley megacampuses...)? Should they really be separate cities, and why do they get a pass on building housing when they're essentially parasitic communities that could not exist without the larger metropolitan areas yet don't support them via city tax money (and in some cases, like Atherton, with a minimum residential lot size of 1+ acre, actively hold back the entire region in the case of CalTrain electrification because they don't want the "inconvenience of more frequent trains" disrupting their community) This isn't just a problem specific to the Bay Area, but all of California. Los Angeles –– and the fact that even within the city of Los Angeles, the legal concept of Neighorhood Councils splits the city itself into political fiefdoms even in the same city council district – and SoCal (especially Orange County) are arguably worse, coming from someone who has lived in both cities. EDIT / Anecdote: I grew up in Dallas (and I still consider it my home), and while that city has its own set of problems, one notable problem it does NOT have is a lack of supply of housing due to red tape around zoning. Dallas, unlike Houston (which has no zoning), is a zoned city, but requesting a zoning exemption takes only a few months rather than a few years, and the overall result is more homes, denser development, newer buildings, and cheaper housing stock. My childhood neighborhood has experienced a lot of nearby development, but would I say the character has notably changed? No.

birdyrooster 6y ago
San Jose is truly one of the least scaled out major cities in California with capacity for multiples of its current residency. Ignore those insular cities up the peninsula and lets build up San Jose and get benefits of scale from being colocated.
- api 6y ago
  The benefits of scale come with the cost of unaffordability and inability for the middle class to build wealth. I have also come to see it as overrated in general. Concentrations bring benefits but also groupthink and tunnel vision, which is part of why SV works on the same things all the time and Hollywood can only make one movie.
  - thebradbain 6y ago
    "Scale comes with the cost of unaffordability" is an opinion, and one that's contrary to the widely shared opinions of experts in the domain, at that.
    - api 6y ago
      What places have massive scale and are affordable? Please don't suggest tiny residences. This is fine when you're single, but throw in some kids or other extended family and it becomes highly stressful.
mrkstu 6y ago
Being a unified county/city doesn't seem to have helped San Fran overcome NIMBYism and related ills.
- thebradbain 6y ago
  You're right. Being a unified county/city doesn't mean that a city will still necessarily get everything (or even most things) right. However, I think it's safe to say that SF and Oakland are doing the most of any other "city" in the Bay Area to add more housing -- though that bar is low, and it's still nowhere near enough.
lokar 6y ago
What I'm suggesting is that the state enforce a balance between jobs and housing. Tell Mountain View "if you want to allow another 500 seats for Google, you need to zone 350 more housing units (or whatever), or convince Cupertino to add them"
- api 6y ago
  But adding more office space than housing drives up home prices, which benefits existing owners. That’s what I meant by cartel. The whole thing is really unsustainable and doesn’t work. I don’t think it can be fixed. There is no political will and even if there were there is not enough room in the Bay to cram all of tech and engineering into one city. There is an entire nation and an entire planet folks.
  - thebradbain 6y ago
    If the Bay Area (population density 1,113/sq mi) were as concentrated as Paris (8345/sq mi), the Bay Area would have a population of roughly 68 million, rather than 7.5. Yeah –– we could technically fit 20% of the US Population in the Bay Area if we wanted to! I say Paris because it's a dense city, yes, but it's also designed at such a human scale so that it doesn't feel "crowded" (and, at a uniform imposed building height, looks more like SF than Manhattan, because we know Californians love their sunlight). Even if the Bay Area couldn't realistically be as dense as Paris, the point is that the Bay Area is nowhere near not having "enough room". There's plenty of work to be done, and I think the whole Bay Area could easily densify from 7m to 14m without even a notable change in layout or roads. There's a whole country, yes, but the rich should not be the only ones who can afford to live comfortably in a city when so many other people want to (and have, before they were displaced), too.

birdyrooster 6y ago

San Jose is truly one of the least scaled out major cities in California with capacity for multiples of its current residency. Ignore those insular cities up the peninsula and lets build up San Jose and get benefits of scale from being colocated.

api 6y ago
The benefits of scale come with the cost of unaffordability and inability for the middle class to build wealth. I have also come to see it as overrated in general. Concentrations bring benefits but also groupthink and tunnel vision, which is part of why SV works on the same things all the time and Hollywood can only make one movie.
- thebradbain 6y ago
  "Scale comes with the cost of unaffordability" is an opinion, and one that's contrary to the widely shared opinions of experts in the domain, at that.
  - api 6y ago
    What places have massive scale and are affordable? Please don't suggest tiny residences. This is fine when you're single, but throw in some kids or other extended family and it becomes highly stressful.

mrkstu 6y ago

Being a unified county/city doesn't seem to have helped San Fran overcome NIMBYism and related ills.

thebradbain 6y ago
You're right. Being a unified county/city doesn't mean that a city will still necessarily get everything (or even most things) right. However, I think it's safe to say that SF and Oakland are doing the most of any other "city" in the Bay Area to add more housing -- though that bar is low, and it's still nowhere near enough.

lokar 6y ago

What I'm suggesting is that the state enforce a balance between jobs and housing. Tell Mountain View "if you want to allow another 500 seats for Google, you need to zone 350 more housing units (or whatever), or convince Cupertino to add them"

api 6y ago
But adding more office space than housing drives up home prices, which benefits existing owners. That’s what I meant by cartel. The whole thing is really unsustainable and doesn’t work. I don’t think it can be fixed. There is no political will and even if there were there is not enough room in the Bay to cram all of tech and engineering into one city. There is an entire nation and an entire planet folks.
- thebradbain 6y ago
  If the Bay Area (population density 1,113/sq mi) were as concentrated as Paris (8345/sq mi), the Bay Area would have a population of roughly 68 million, rather than 7.5. Yeah –– we could technically fit 20% of the US Population in the Bay Area if we wanted to! I say Paris because it's a dense city, yes, but it's also designed at such a human scale so that it doesn't feel "crowded" (and, at a uniform imposed building height, looks more like SF than Manhattan, because we know Californians love their sunlight). Even if the Bay Area couldn't realistically be as dense as Paris, the point is that the Bay Area is nowhere near not having "enough room". There's plenty of work to be done, and I think the whole Bay Area could easily densify from 7m to 14m without even a notable change in layout or roads. There's a whole country, yes, but the rich should not be the only ones who can afford to live comfortably in a city when so many other people want to (and have, before they were displaced), too.