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  #41  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 12:50 AM
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Originally Posted by JManc View Post
You could be describing Phoenix or Houston. Younger cities without the benefit of widespread pre-war development are going to have the same dynamic and urban fabric as San Jose. They are going to empty out after weekday business hours (because what else is there to do) and not have the history or charm as San Francisco. Baltimore is just much older thus has history but doesn't make it more of a city than San Jose but in 2020, San Jose is probably more relevant economically.

Cupertino or Palo Alto may be more important economically than Baltimore, that doesn't make them independent cities though.
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  #42  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 12:56 AM
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San Jose is a San Francisco satellite that happens to also include a lot of the SF area's sprawl. Silicon Valley is the tech hub of the whole SF area.
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  #43  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 12:58 AM
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Originally Posted by SIGSEGV View Post
Cupertino or Palo Alto may be more important economically than Baltimore, that doesn't make them independent cities though.
Combined, Cupertino and Palo Alto have about an eighth the population of San Jose.
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  #44  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 1:02 AM
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Originally Posted by JManc View Post
Combined, Cupertino and Palo Alto have about an eighth the population of San Jose.
Right, but that's just an accident of city limits. There is a contiguous tech sprawl from San Jose to San Mateo.
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  #45  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 1:20 AM
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Originally Posted by yuriandrade View Post
But then it's a matter of definition: is the city of São Paulo the old Downtown, or the Paulista Avenue, or the new shining towers by Pinheiros river 10 km southwest from Downtown?

That's the same with San Francisco: the fact of people being employed in its suburbs doesn't change the fact that's a single urban area, as much as those several nodes are all part of the city of São Paulo and are only there because São Paulo has grown over these areas.

San Jose just happened to have an unusual big city proper, while Oakland County, MI is divided in several cities. In both cases, we're talking about classic suburbs with strong job markets.
This doesn't really explain San Jose. San Jose (and Silicon Valley) grew because of the military contractor companies located around Stanford University in the WW2 era. I don't think this had much to do with San Francisco at all. It's really just been in the past couple of decades that tech has sprawled up the bay back into San Francisco.
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  #46  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 1:20 AM
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Originally Posted by SIGSEGV View Post
Right, but that's just an accident of city limits. There is a contiguous tech sprawl from San Jose to San Mateo.
Houston has 2.3 million people mainly because it's a massive sea of sprawl that gobbled up everything in its wake but it's still a city. Ditto for Phoenix, San Antonio and a host of other Sunbelt sprawlers. They are products of the eras they developed in. At almost a million people, San Jose is in a different league than the much smaller surrounding SV cities.
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  #47  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 3:37 AM
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Originally Posted by SIGSEGV View Post
Downtown San Jose looks more like downtown Palo Alto or downtown San Mateo than downtown San Francisco. Oakland has a much more impressive downtown. I know part of that is because of the airport, but it certainly doesn't help San Jose like a big independent place.
What does Oakland having an airport have to do with it having a more impressive downtown? San Jose has an airport, too - a relatively busy and clean one at that.
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  #48  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 3:41 AM
Will O' Wisp Will O' Wisp is offline
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Originally Posted by JAYNYC View Post
What does Oakland having an airport have to do with it having a more impressive downtown? San Jose has an airport, too - a relatively busy and clean one at that.
The flight path into San Jose's airport goes directly over downtown San Jose. It limits the buildings there to ~250'.

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  #49  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 3:42 AM
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Originally Posted by JAYNYC View Post
What does Oakland having an airport have to do with it having a more impressive downtown? San Jose has an airport, too - a relatively busy and clean one at that.
Sorry I didn't express myself clearly. I think San Jose has height limits downtown due to the location of SJC.
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  #50  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 4:15 AM
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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
This doesn't really explain San Jose. San Jose (and Silicon Valley) grew because of the military contractor companies located around Stanford University in the WW2 era. I don't think this had much to do with San Francisco at all. It's really just been in the past couple of decades that tech has sprawled up the bay back into San Francisco.
A university in a satellite town usually has a lot to do with the central city, no matter the arbitrary administrative lines.
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  #51  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 4:30 AM
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Originally Posted by mhays View Post
A university in a satellite town usually has a lot to do with the central city, no matter the arbitrary administrative lines.
Stanford is located on the former farm of Leland Stanford (SF-based industrialist). That's why Stanford is sometimes known as "The Farm." I assume Leland Stanford put his farm there due to proximity to SF, but I don't know for sure.
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  #52  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 4:56 AM
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I think we can all agree that San Jose is not at the same urban level as San Francisco, in history and overall significance. But the tech industry is centralized in Silicon Valley, a distinct economic region within the Bay Area. I think in a long ago thread I started, there was discussion on metros that were more poly-nodal than others. The Bay Area is a perfect example of that.

Maybe long ago, SF was the most dominant city and most of everyone commuted there for business, fun, etc. But now, SF is just one of the major nodes of business in the Bay Area, the others being Oakland in the East Bay, and SJ in the South.

It isn’t like the NY Tri-State area where a higher proportion of people from the outer reaches of Jersey, Connecticut, Eastern Pennsylvania, and Long Island all congregate for work in the island of Manhattan. Or in Chicagoland where the Loop is by far the largest CBD and cultural center of the region by a wide margin ( if I’m correct).

If we’re focused on the Bay Area as is today, SJ is not just a bedroom suburb of SF. It’s a fellow satellite city, in the way St. Paul is to Minneapolis and maybe even how Baltimore always was for DC.
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  #53  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 5:04 AM
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Originally Posted by SIGSEGV View Post
Sorry I didn't express myself clearly.
All good. Now I understand what you were trying to say.
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  #54  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 5:09 AM
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[bangs head into wall]

People are clearly missing the point.

San Jose would not exist in it's current form (for certain), if at all, without San Francisco.

Baltimore has always functioned as a significant independent city and economy long before becoming a part of its current CSA.

Why is that so difficult to comprehend / accept?
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  #55  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 5:13 AM
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Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp View Post
The flight path into San Jose's airport goes directly over downtown San Jose. It limits the buildings there to ~250'.
Yeah thanks, I know. Flown there several times.

But SIGSEV's comment implied Oakland's airport was somehow at issue, not San Jose's (he / she has since clarified).
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  #56  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 5:24 AM
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Originally Posted by jd3189 View Post
I think we can all agree that San Jose is not at the same urban level as San Francisco, in history and overall significance. But the tech industry is centralized in Silicon Valley, a distinct economic region within the Bay Area. I think in a long ago thread I started, there was discussion on metros that were more poly-nodal than others. The Bay Area is a perfect example of that.

Maybe long ago, SF was the most dominant city and most of everyone commuted there for business, fun, etc. But now, SF is just one of the major nodes of business in the Bay Area, the others being Oakland in the East Bay, and SJ in the South.

It isn’t like the NY Tri-State area where a higher proportion of people from the outer reaches of Jersey, Connecticut, Eastern Pennsylvania, and Long Island all congregate for work in the island of Manhattan. Or in Chicagoland where the Loop is by far the largest CBD and cultural center of the region by a wide margin ( if I’m correct).

If we’re focused on the Bay Area as is today, SJ is not just a bedroom suburb of SF. It’s a fellow satellite city, in the way St. Paul is to Minneapolis and maybe even how Baltimore always was for DC.
I think the closest comparison is to Boston and the Route-128 tech corridor. That wasn't quite as far away but that is probably due to geography.
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  #57  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 6:39 AM
Will O' Wisp Will O' Wisp is offline
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Originally Posted by JAYNYC View Post
[bangs head into wall]

People are clearly missing the point.

San Jose would not exist in it's current form (for certain), if at all, without San Francisco.

Baltimore has always functioned as a significant independent city and economy long before becoming a part of its current CSA.

Why is that so difficult to comprehend / accept?
Not to be pedantic here but San Jose is older than San Francisco, and until the latter part of 19th century was the larger city as well. It took a good deal of time for San Francisco to develop as anything more than a deepwater port, where cargo was transferred from seagoing vessels to smaller craft for transport around the bay and across the California coast. By the time it began to resemble the major city it is today San Jose, much like Oakland, had already developed into a full grown city with its own civic culture and an independent economy based primarily on agriculture.

To an outsider that difference might be indistinguishable, but to someone from the bay area it would be like saying Newark and Manhattan are "basically the same thing" (and let me tell you, as a born and raised Californian NY and NJ seem pretty much the same to me)
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  #58  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 8:10 AM
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San Jose is an independent suburb

Growing up in San Francisco Bay Area, San Jose has always felt and looked like a suburb. It was never referred to or considered a city. Oakland is actually more of a city than San Jose. When going out to hangout or party with friends, we would meet somewhere in The City (SF) or in Downtown Oakland. But if we decide to go out in San Jose, we would go to the mall - Valley Fair/Santana Row.
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  #59  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 8:31 AM
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Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp View Post
Not to be pedantic here but San Jose is older than San Francisco, and until the latter part of 19th century was the larger city as well.
No, the data show that San Francisco is older than San Jose and was larger throughout the 19th century.

Spain established the Presidio of San Francisco on June 29, 1776, and Mission San Francisco de Asís in today's Mission District on October 9, 1776. source.

San Jose was founded on November 29, 1777. source.

Per Wikipedia:

San Francisco:

1848 - 1,000
1849 - 25,000
1852 - 34,776
1860 - 56,802
1870 - 149,473
1880 - 233,959
1890 - 298,997
1900 - 342,782
1910 - 416,912
1920 - 506,676
1930 - 634,394
1940 - 634,536
1950 - 775,357
1960 - 740,316
1970 - 715,674
1980 - 678,974
1990 - 723,959
2000 - 776,733
2010 - 805,235
Est. 2019 - 881,549

San Jose:

1870 - 9,089
1880 - 12,567
1890 - 18,060
1900 - 21,500
1910 - 28,946
1920 - 39,642
1930 - 57,651
1940 - 68,457
1950 - 95,280
1960 - 204,196
1970 - 459,913
1980 - 629,400
1990 - 782,248
2000 - 894,943
2010 - 945,942
Est. 2019 - 1,021,79

Quote:
It took a good deal of time for San Francisco to develop as anything more than a deepwater port, where cargo was transferred from seagoing vessels to smaller craft for transport around the bay and across the California coast. By the time it began to resemble the major city it is today San Jose, much like Oakland, had already developed into a full grown city with its own civic culture and an independent economy based primarily on agriculture.
I'm not sure I understand what you are asserting here. If you'd like to explain it, I'd love to hear it.

Quote:
To an outsider that difference might be indistinguishable, but to someone from the bay area it would be like saying Newark and Manhattan are "basically the same thing" (and let me tell you, as a born and raised Californian NY and NJ seem pretty much the same to me)
I went to grade school and high school in San Jose, and then lived for 24 years in San Francisco. Not sure where you are getting your theories about these cities.
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  #60  
Old Posted Jun 1, 2020, 1:30 PM
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As an outsider, one of the big things that really raises the profiles of the bay area's 3 major cities is the naming of the pro sports teams.

You got the giants and 49'ers repping SF (even though the niners now play 38 miles outside of SF down in Santa Clara).

You got the sharks and quakes repping SJ.

You got the A's repping Oakland (and the raiders as well, until very recently).

And then you have the warriors, with the somewhat nebulous "Golden State" locational moniker, who used to play in Oakland, but now play in SF.


Coming from a hyper-centralized metro area where ALL major league teams are branded as "Chicago" (and play within the city limits as well) the bay area's sports team naming and locating has always stuck out to me as a good indicator of just how pulled apart it is.
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Jun 1, 2020 at 2:59 PM.
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