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That's an oversimplification of the differences between San Francisco and New York. To begin with, it's a lot easier to travel between boroughs in New York than

That's an oversimplification of the differences between San Francisco and New York. To begin with, it's a lot easier to travel between boroughs in New York than it is to travel between cities in the bay area. The coverage and availability of the public transportation system is much better in New York (the MTA runs 24 hours). In addition, the bridges are shorter and thus easier to bike or walk over. The length of the Bay Bridge is a kilometer more than the combined lengths of the Brooklyn, Manhattan & Williamsburg bridges, all of which connect Brooklyn & Manhattan. And that's without even mentioning the ease of travel between Manhattan & Queens or Manhattan & the Bronx. And there's also the lack of new housing development in San Francisco that is a function of public policy. There is tons of new housing going up in the affluent parts of Brooklyn and the prices are rising in spite of that. In short the bay area structurally is not fit to be as unified as New York is for citizens & commuters and San Francisco has policy changes it could make to accomodate the rising population that it has not taken.

lambdasquirrel 12y ago
If you were to color in the sparsely populated hills and mountains of the Bay Area as water, you would get an interesting map that makes the place look almost like a bunch of island chains. There are breaks in places like Hillsdale and San Bruno Mountain that disconnect the peninsula from SF, and that is not as obvious a gap as the bay. What you say about the bridge length is interesting because I think most people don't realize the scale of distance between these island chains.