It really bums me out to see Silicon Valley in the state it is today. I got a chance to visit Korea, and one of the things that really impressed me was the rate and scale they were building high-rise apartments:
In addition, public trans is extensive and incredibly well-planned and executed.
Unfortunately, I realize this can only happen when the government has sufficient power to make these kind of changes. This will never happen in Silicon Valley as far as I can tell since local homeowners have the upper-hand.
It wouldn't all be so bad if the transportation infrastructure in the bay area wasn't such a joke. When I first moved here I was surprised that a region known for it's innovation, had roads and public transportation systems that looked like people just gave up trying in the 80s.
At least you have public transit like rail or BART. There is nothing like that down in LA and OC. My commute is only 11 miles one way and it takes me 45 minutes to 1 hour thanks to the traffic. The trains here have enough stops that it would be just as long as if I had driven.
I do not like living in high-density areas. I like being able to drive and park wherever I need to go - work, the grocery store, restaurants, etc. One of the things I like about being in the South Bay is that it allows me to live this way.
I welcome additional investment in our transportation infrastructure - both rail, bus, and road - but I take issue with the idea that everyone would prefer to live and work in a high-density environment. I don't see why we can't accommodate both preferred lifestyles.
The reality is that the majority of the areas of the United States are like the environments that you prefer -- low-density environments built around the car. Personally, I prefer a high density, walkable city, yet really my only option in the United States is NYC (where I live), as other cities that come close (SF, Chicago, Boston, DC, etc) don't run their transit 24 hours, or require some use of a car as neighborhoods aren't well connected by that transit.
I think it's completely reasonable to want to have a second city in the United States that can compare to NYC and all the benefits that come with a high density, multi-zoned, well connected city. Whenever I think about where else I could find this if I were to leave NYC I end up finding it really would mean moving abroad.
Because that lifestyle conflicts with being an economic powerhouse and if you fight against it lower income people foot the bill. If that's the lifestyle you want, why not move to the midwest?
It's really hard to accommodate both in one place. Quality high-frequency, low-cost (to ticket-payers and taxpayers) transit requires a certain amount of density. Otherwise you won't have frequent bus service within walking distance of every residence. Also, the infrastructure that is necessary for low-density living—parking lots (especially setbacks), wide (6-lane) roads with high (40-45mph) speed limits and few crosswalks, long (1/2 mile) blocks, highways—hurts walkability. Part of this is subjective but still legitimate imo (pedestrians prefer businesses on the street with no setback), and part of this is objective (long blocks makes crossing hard, lots of parking means places become farther apart and therefore less amenable to walking).
I'm curious what you think about this as someone who presumably lives in South Bay. Do you consider South Bay a place where people can get around just walking and using transit? What changes do you think could be made there that increases support for walking/transit without impeding car travel or increasing density?
But you don't. You live in a low-density area, then drive your car to the high-density area to get to work. The high-density inhabitants end up paying for your car habit.
The Bay Area is not the same as Silicon Valley. The East Bay (bay side of the hills) and SF have been building upwards. The South Bay and the past-the-hills East Bay are ruining things with sprawl. San Jose/SC/MV/etc are horrendous in terms of upward building and it comes down to an extremist form of NIMBYism passing laws preventing proper upward development.
The San Jose urbanized area is the third most densely populated in the country, at 5820 people per square mile. That's only slightly behind the San Francisco-Oakland urbanized area, which is #2 at 6266 people per square mile. (#1 is Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim at almost 7000 per square mile).
Another solid example of regulatory capture. The nouveau riche in the bay area have begun piling on the poor.
Feels quite horrible to look at people who work retail jobs commuting 1hr each way to work. Just because soccer-moms who have no business organizing cities are now in charge of exactly that.
I mean just look at Cupertino - world capital of the soccer mom. So much money and they have managed to make it look like a giant walmart.
We need a Robert Hooke type to come in and take a good look at the problem. And deliver to us a London or a Rome.
Uh, 1hr each way to work is entirely standard for $150k tech professionals when they have families (my senior colleagues, manager, and his manager), and for entry-level engineers when they want their own 1-bedroom apartments and cars (me).
Commute times for the actual poor are going to far exceed that.
The overwhelming response you'd receive is "we don't want to be Rome". At this point I'm rooting for the tech industry to declare bankruptcy and found a new city somewhere ala NYC and the transatlantic trade.
It feels like the other major issue is that the housing isn't on those hubs. Everyone wants to live in the same three parts of SF - the parts near Caltrain.
Like LA, it seems like there needs to be another train line. For us it's Hollywood/Beverly Hills. For the Bay, it'd be, maybe Sunset down the 101.
But maybe I'm wrong, and two options just mean you're more likely to be incorrect on either side?
Another train line would be a waste -- take the window seat on Caltrain and look how utterly empty it is the second you leave SF. The whole way down the peninsula the train is flanked by flat, low-density construction spotted with breaks of wide open space. You don't see any real high-density housing until you get to San Jose.
Being a photographer and also someone who tends to do a lot of Maker and gardening projects I find SF near impossible to live for my lifestyle. It's really hard to load and unload photo gear when you have to make 4 trips to the truck that is a 5 minute walk away and go up 10 stories each time. Not to mention paying $40 for parking. I couldn't do what I do without a truck and SF is extremely unfriendly towards cars.
I do like being able to walk to lunch from an office though. When I was working in downtown Sunnyvale I found it really convenient. The parking back then was decent but now it is overcrowded and you're lucky if you can find a spot. You have to wait in long lines for lunch now too. It's gotten much worse IMO.
When I worked in Redwood City I tried to take Caltrain but it adds another 2 hours to your commute every day and the train schedules are extremely limited the further south you live. Ended up getting a motorcycle just for commuting.
With electric cars coming along, and already here in many Silicon Valley parking lots, is this really a problem?
Downtown Redwood City has suddenly become very urban. The city is well over a century old, but until five years ago, had few tall buildings. Now, 5 to 10 story buildings are filling up downtown blocks. The downtown redevelopment plan actually worked.
The same thing is happening to downtown Sunnyvale (4-5 story condos going up on top of street-level retail) and Mountain View (10 story towers going up around San Antonio, with the giant strip mall being converted into mixed-use condos + shops). The same may happen with North Bayshore - Google's building its new tent campus, and the plan includes up to 10-story residential buildings on street-level retail. There's still a lot of resistance from local residents, but the development tide seems to have turned.
With everybody complaining about how expensive SF is and how terrible the commute is, it seems to me like a more likely solution is to bring the city to Mountain View rather than bring all the workers from the city to Mountain View.
I hadn't been there in 10 years until last weekend and was shocked at how transformed it had become. It has definitely kept up with the times. (I was also a fan of the weekend parking at Box Inc. Parking with validation at stores.
You don't have to be a bystander in this process... the incentives might be for cities to listen to their current homeowners and to add more parking and prefer office parks, but we can organize for change and more density.
Here are some steps you can take:
- The Brisbane City Council is deciding whether to build 4400 units of housing on 600 acres south of San Francisco, about the same number of units SF built in total last year. The Brisbane Planning Commission recommended building an office park instead. Contact them and ask them to build the housing version of the project.
- The Mountain View City Council is deciding whether to build 2000 units or 8000 units of housing next to Google. They are leaning toward the low end - 2000 units would be tough to support a grocery store or frequent transit. Contact them (or show up to their board meeting - tonight!) and ask them to build the high-housing version of the plan.
- The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering a plan to require 28% of all new developments to be below market rate. When you consider the unit costs to build in SF, that would make it _extremely_ difficult to justify new housing starts here. Please contact your Supervisor and ask them to oppose the Peskin/Kim Prop C plan.
- Call your CA State Assemblymember and ask them to oppose AB 915 (makes it harder to build affordable units)
- Call your CA State Assemblymember and ask them to support AB 71 (higher property taxes on second homes, money goes to affordable housing)
- Call your CA State Senator and ask them to support SB 167, which would put teeth in the state's Housing Accountability Act. (for more on this see carlaef.org)
- Call your CA State Senator and ask them to support SB 35 (would remove the ability of local government to block projects that meet certain criteria - near transit, have a high % of affordable units, use union construction labor)
- Email your VC's and C-level executives and tell them how hard it is to find housing in the area and how ridiculous the parking requirements are. Tell them about your awful commutes and the difficulty of finding good school districts for your kids. Ask them to get more involved politically in pro-housing causes. Ron Conway is a good example here.
NIMBY's are really well organized and things don't change unless we do something about them. All of these changes listed above will go a long way to support the development of housing in the Bay Area, which should help lower prices, and help keep families here and teachers in our neighborhoods.
https://kev.inburke.com/kevin/sf-housing-politics/
I say joke, but I feel that many people feel it is true. In that if the Bay Area builds any of that housing, that in a few years they will be forced into living in it against their will.
For existing property owners, this is not a problem. They have their single family separate household. And yet it's those people that put up the most opposition to people who want to live in a different way. To me, an apartment on a rail line is far more valuable than a house that's only accessible by car. That's what I want, yet the market is not allowed to meet that demand because of zoning restrictions and NIMBY actions.
Not as bad as many other metro areas in the US. It's just that in the upper parts of a bubble (e.g. now), the infrastructure can't cope with the traffic.
[+] [-] atarian|9 years ago|reply
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/09/17/asia-pacific/soc...
In addition, public trans is extensive and incredibly well-planned and executed.
Unfortunately, I realize this can only happen when the government has sufficient power to make these kind of changes. This will never happen in Silicon Valley as far as I can tell since local homeowners have the upper-hand.
[+] [-] JustAnotherPat|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agitator|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] squiguy7|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dopeboy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kylec|9 years ago|reply
I welcome additional investment in our transportation infrastructure - both rail, bus, and road - but I take issue with the idea that everyone would prefer to live and work in a high-density environment. I don't see why we can't accommodate both preferred lifestyles.
[+] [-] mtalantikite|9 years ago|reply
I think it's completely reasonable to want to have a second city in the United States that can compare to NYC and all the benefits that come with a high density, multi-zoned, well connected city. Whenever I think about where else I could find this if I were to leave NYC I end up finding it really would mean moving abroad.
[+] [-] ng12|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sid-kap|9 years ago|reply
I'm curious what you think about this as someone who presumably lives in South Bay. Do you consider South Bay a place where people can get around just walking and using transit? What changes do you think could be made there that increases support for walking/transit without impeding car travel or increasing density?
[+] [-] revelation|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidw|9 years ago|reply
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/04/28/cupertino-adopts-proce...
[+] [-] mmanfrin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tzs|9 years ago|reply
Source: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010_censu...
[+] [-] shriphani|9 years ago|reply
Feels quite horrible to look at people who work retail jobs commuting 1hr each way to work. Just because soccer-moms who have no business organizing cities are now in charge of exactly that.
I mean just look at Cupertino - world capital of the soccer mom. So much money and they have managed to make it look like a giant walmart.
We need a Robert Hooke type to come in and take a good look at the problem. And deliver to us a London or a Rome.
[+] [-] closeparen|9 years ago|reply
Commute times for the actual poor are going to far exceed that.
[+] [-] hkmurakami|9 years ago|reply
It certainly has a good intent ring to it, though i suspect there are additional reasons for using that party line.
[+] [-] ng12|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RangerScience|9 years ago|reply
Like LA, it seems like there needs to be another train line. For us it's Hollywood/Beverly Hills. For the Bay, it'd be, maybe Sunset down the 101.
But maybe I'm wrong, and two options just mean you're more likely to be incorrect on either side?
[+] [-] ng12|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bcheung|9 years ago|reply
Being a photographer and also someone who tends to do a lot of Maker and gardening projects I find SF near impossible to live for my lifestyle. It's really hard to load and unload photo gear when you have to make 4 trips to the truck that is a 5 minute walk away and go up 10 stories each time. Not to mention paying $40 for parking. I couldn't do what I do without a truck and SF is extremely unfriendly towards cars.
I do like being able to walk to lunch from an office though. When I was working in downtown Sunnyvale I found it really convenient. The parking back then was decent but now it is overcrowded and you're lucky if you can find a spot. You have to wait in long lines for lunch now too. It's gotten much worse IMO.
When I worked in Redwood City I tried to take Caltrain but it adds another 2 hours to your commute every day and the train schedules are extremely limited the further south you live. Ended up getting a motorcycle just for commuting.
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
Downtown Redwood City has suddenly become very urban. The city is well over a century old, but until five years ago, had few tall buildings. Now, 5 to 10 story buildings are filling up downtown blocks. The downtown redevelopment plan actually worked.
[+] [-] nostrademons|9 years ago|reply
With everybody complaining about how expensive SF is and how terrible the commute is, it seems to me like a more likely solution is to bring the city to Mountain View rather than bring all the workers from the city to Mountain View.
[+] [-] e40|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hkmurakami|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kevinburke|9 years ago|reply
Here are some steps you can take:
- The Brisbane City Council is deciding whether to build 4400 units of housing on 600 acres south of San Francisco, about the same number of units SF built in total last year. The Brisbane Planning Commission recommended building an office park instead. Contact them and ask them to build the housing version of the project.
- The Mountain View City Council is deciding whether to build 2000 units or 8000 units of housing next to Google. They are leaning toward the low end - 2000 units would be tough to support a grocery store or frequent transit. Contact them (or show up to their board meeting - tonight!) and ask them to build the high-housing version of the plan.
- The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering a plan to require 28% of all new developments to be below market rate. When you consider the unit costs to build in SF, that would make it _extremely_ difficult to justify new housing starts here. Please contact your Supervisor and ask them to oppose the Peskin/Kim Prop C plan.
- Call your CA State Assemblymember and ask them to oppose AB 915 (makes it harder to build affordable units)
- Call your CA State Assemblymember and ask them to support AB 71 (higher property taxes on second homes, money goes to affordable housing)
- Call your CA State Senator and ask them to support SB 167, which would put teeth in the state's Housing Accountability Act. (for more on this see carlaef.org)
- Call your CA State Senator and ask them to support SB 35 (would remove the ability of local government to block projects that meet certain criteria - near transit, have a high % of affordable units, use union construction labor)
- Email your VC's and C-level executives and tell them how hard it is to find housing in the area and how ridiculous the parking requirements are. Tell them about your awful commutes and the difficulty of finding good school districts for your kids. Ask them to get more involved politically in pro-housing causes. Ron Conway is a good example here.
NIMBY's are really well organized and things don't change unless we do something about them. All of these changes listed above will go a long way to support the development of housing in the Bay Area, which should help lower prices, and help keep families here and teachers in our neighborhoods. https://kev.inburke.com/kevin/sf-housing-politics/
[+] [-] valuearb|9 years ago|reply
What would we lose?
[+] [-] epistasis|9 years ago|reply
I say joke, but I feel that many people feel it is true. In that if the Bay Area builds any of that housing, that in a few years they will be forced into living in it against their will.
For existing property owners, this is not a problem. They have their single family separate household. And yet it's those people that put up the most opposition to people who want to live in a different way. To me, an apartment on a rail line is far more valuable than a house that's only accessible by car. That's what I want, yet the market is not allowed to meet that demand because of zoning restrictions and NIMBY actions.
[+] [-] hkmurakami|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CalRobert|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devopsproject|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eru|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mmagin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mnmnt|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cletus|9 years ago|reply