Is San Francisco The Brooklyn To Silicon Valley's Unbuilt Manhattan?

[M II A II R II K]

Is San Francisco The Brooklyn To Silicon Valley's Unbuilt Manhattan?


January 8th, 2013

B Ken Layne

Read More: http://www.theawl.com/2013/01/is-san-francisco-the-brooklyn-to-silicon-valleys-unbuilt-manhattan

.....

In 2013, the bigger tech companies are still in Silicon Valley, but the people working there—from Mark Zuckerberg to the newest $100K hires straight out of college—want to be in San Francisco. Zuckerberg is a part-timer, with a fancy apartment in the Mission. The rest are part-timers in Silicon Valley, commuting to and from work on immense luxury buses run by Google, Apple, EA, Yahoo and the rest. This has caused problems, notably for San Francisco residents unlucky enough to survive on less than a hundred-grand starting salary.

- Talk of raising the city's skyline is met with anger. People argue endlessly over the appropriate comparisons to New York. Is Oakland the Brooklyn to SF? What about Berkeley, or Marin, or the Outer Sunset? And what does that make Bayview or Burlingame? All of this assumes that urban San Francisco equals Manhattan. It does not. San Francisco, with its leafy parks and charming row houses and distinct villages and locavore restaurants and commuters fleeing every morning to work, is the Brooklyn to an as-yet-unbuilt Manhattan.

- There are tech companies in San Francisco, with Twitter's takeover of an unloved chunk of Market Street at the foot of Polk Gulch the most conspicuous new example. But there's no room in the city for anything like Apple's 176-acre spaceship headquarters being built in Cupertino, and there's no reason for the whole of Silicon Valley to gaze up at the peninsula, and the whole problem in San Francisco today is there's not enough housing for humans when they're not at work.

- As disappointed visitors and new employees discover, Silicon Valley is a dull and ugly landscape of low-rise stucco office parks and immense traffic-clogged boulevards. The fancy restaurants are in strip malls, like you'd find in Arizona or something. There is nothing to do, nowhere to go. Massive arcologies like the new Apple campus are where the tech giants are headed, but until there are living urban neighborhoods connecting these monstrosities, anyone with hopes for a life outside of work will pay a ridiculous premium to live in San Francisco and spend two hours of every day sitting on a bus.

- Meanwhile, the areas around and in between the tech giants of Silicon Valley are mostly ready to be razed and rebuilt. There are miles and miles of half-empty retail space, hideous 1970s' two-story apartment complexes, most of it lacking the basic human infrastructure of public transportation, playgrounds, bicycle and running and walking paths, outdoor cafes and blocks loaded with bars and late-night restaurants. This is where the new metropolis must be built, in this unloved but sunny valley. And then the new supercity gets linked to San Francisco by an existing boulevard of run-down old malls and decrepit car lots that pours right into the Mission District and downtown SF, 40 miles north.

- The boulevard is El Camino Real, or California Route 82, the one-time king's highway that could be a new corridor of high-rise apartments and HQs and restaurants and museums filling in the long gaps between downtown San Jose and Apple/Google/HP/Yahoo/Intel and Stanford University and San Francisco. With local light rail at street level and express trains overhead or underground, the whole route could be lined with native-landscaped sidewalks dotted with pocket parks and filled on both sides with ground-floor retail, farmers markets and nightlife districts around every station. Caltrain already runs just east of Route 82, and BART already reaches south to Millbrae now.

- El Camino Real is already the focus of various plans to connect Silicon Valley and San Francisco, from Caltrain's own future scenarios to the Grand Boulevard Initiative, the dozens of cities and towns and jurisdictions on the peninsula are beginning to figure out the old way of just building cheaper crappy suburbs all the way to the Central Valley is not going to work any longer. Nobody wants to move to the Bay Area for work and then discover they actually have to live in a completely different climate an hour's drive (without traffic) from the actual bay. The magical part of the Bay Area is really confined to the Bay Area, with its relatively green hills and foggy mornings and cool ocean air. And in the post-automobile era, where else would you look to expand your metropolitan area other than the underused sections in the middle of your metropolitan area?

.....

[tech12]

No SF is not the Brooklyn to Silicon Valley's "unbuilt Manhattan".

The entire premise of this article is dumb. The Bay Area already has a "Manhattan", and that's SF, which is by far the largest single center of business in the Bay Area. And if there's a Brooklyn equivalent here, it's Oakland/Berkeley. SF gains far more commuters from the rest of the Bay Area every day than it gives to Silicon Valley...those google-bus riding techies from SF are a small percentage of SF's population (and SF is part of "silicon valley" anyways going by some definitions). And the tech industry is currently booming in SF proper as well.

[M II A II R II K]

But perhaps if this new urban paradise is built in Silicon Valley the current Manhattan would be overtaken to become the new one.

He suggests that in order for Silicon Valley to remain relevant it must become more than just a suburb with wealthy people where everyone moves to SF and drives all the prices up there. And not enough roads and an already stressed transit infrastructure to be the base of the current Silicon Valley industry.

[aquablue]

A ridiculous article, trying to compare two completely different urban areas.

I think it's the tech companies fault that they wanted to locate their offices in the suburbs rather than build urban buildings. Now they have to pay the consequences of that decision, a boring surrounding area that employees don't like and prefer the soul of a real city.

Perhaps they should all have built skyscrapers in fresco, or if that wasn't possible due to nimbies, another less fussy urban center rather than an empty sprawl. Pity San Jose wasn't an option to house all these companies downtown, that would have created a critical urban mass.

[fflint]

The way I understand it, when you call someplace you're in "the Brooklyn to" some other place, you're saying everyone works over there and then comes back here at night and on weekends. While we all love to pay inordinate attention to the pampering of high-tech whiz-kid commuters, and the number of San Franciscans who work outside the city is not insignificant, the statistics belie the "Brooklyn" theory of San Francisco.

Brooklyn and Kings County are one and the same, ditto for Manhattan and New York County. According to the Census Bureau, of the 1,071,549 workers in Kings County, some 494,455 are employed in some other county. That means 46% of employed Brooklynites leave the borough for work.

San Francisco city and county are one and the same. According to the Census Bureau, of San Francisco County's 437,125 workers, some 94,318 of are employed in some other county. That means 21% of employed San Franciscans leave the city for work.

Again, that is not an insignificant number--but it's nothing like the numbers who flood out of Brooklyn to work elsewhere, presumably most of them in Manhattan.

[dc_denizen]

I don't get the hate for Silicon Valley and the South Bay built environment in this article. Far from 'phoenix strip malls', I found it to be kind of an extremely pleasant, prosperous, clean, and hilly version of a northeastern close-in suburb.

This article makes SV out to look like north Atlanta suburbs or Plano TX or something.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

I don't get the hate for Silicon Valley and the South Bay built environment in this article. Far from 'phoenix strip malls', I found it to be kind of an extremely pleasant, prosperous, clean, and hilly version of a northeastern close-in suburb.

This article makes SV out to look like north Atlanta suburbs or Plano TX or something.

Seems like the Silicon Valley became "relevant" in the first place without any of the urban amenities that this article suggests are an absolute necessity for remaining "relevant". I don't think the "relevant" players in the Silicon Valley are struggling to find creative employees willing to work there. That is just so much hogwash. SF and the Silicon Valley will both continue to grow and prosper just so long as the economic product produced there continues to to be profitable.

[Roadcruiser1]

It's stupid to imply that Silicon Valley will grow into a large city which this article is implying, and have people from San Francisco commute from their homes to Silicon Valley to work. Silicon Valley is it's own place. It isn't a city, but a suburb. It's like saying Nassau would become a large city and people in New York City would commute to Nassau County to work. It's not going to happen. People see the suburbs as a place to live not a place to work, and the people that do commute out of San Fransisco to work like my aunt who lives there, travel to Oakland. It's technically another city. To say that people would commute from the city to the suburbs is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I haven't heard such nonsense since the Robert Moses era.

[Segun]

Brooklyn is not the center of employment, tourism and civic engagement in metropolitan NYC, SF is and will always be, so that comparison falls flat.

SF has a complex series of neighborhoods that range in scale and density, from bedroom communities to wall to wall buildings. Outside the geography comparisons, it bears very little resemblance to Manhattan, which has almost no traces of its former past as a city, and maintains a consistent density throughout the whole island, flowing off into the other boroughs.

You can't compare a slice of a city's geography to an entire city.

[Private Dick]

[jd3189]

^^^ This has been a comparison that I have dwelt upon for a couple of years.

[Rail Claimore]

The comparison to NY is stupid. The better comparison is to DC: with SF being the District and SV being NoVA.

[MolsonExport]

Is Ottawa the Montreal to Toronto's unbuilt Edmonton?
Inquiring minds want to know.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

I don't get the hate for Silicon Valley and the South Bay built environment in this article. Far from 'phoenix strip malls', I found it to be kind of an extremely pleasant, prosperous, clean, and hilly version of a northeastern close-in suburb.

Where exactly did you see this in Silicon Valley?

I mean, where in Silicon Valley would you feel like you're in some West Coast version of a Montclair, Great Neck, or Bronxville? There are some downtown-focused enclaves like Palo Alto, but it still looks much more Newport Beach or Scottsdale than Greenwich.

To me, Silicon Valley feels very Sun Belt, which makes sense to me, given the geography, history, and development history.

And, yeah, the premise of the thread is silly. SF will always be the employment center and primary core of the Bay Area.

[sofresh808]

I like the idea of El Camino Real being redeveloped into a "grand boulevard", though am not holding my breath on seeing any major changes to the area in my lifetime. These are some of the nicest suburbs around, pretty uniformly safe and upscale, with some of the best weather in the nation. Not really the type of place open to tabula rasa redevelopment. The Brooklyn-Manhattan comparison just doesnt work, BK is just across the East River from Manhattan, connected by numerous bridges, subway lines and is part of the same city. Silicon Valley (lets say Redwood City to San Jose) starts a good 25 miles south of SF. While SF has a much more significant core, the rest of the region probably better resembles LA than NYC.

[goat314]

Originally Posted by Roadcruiser1

It's stupid to imply that Silicon Valley will grow into a large city which this article is implying, and have people from San Francisco commute from their homes to Silicon Valley to work. Silicon Valley is it's own place. It isn't a city, but a suburb. It's like saying Nassau would become a large city and people in New York City would commute to Nassau County to work. It's not going to happen. People see the suburbs as a place to live not a place to work, and the people that do commute out of San Fransisco to work like my aunt who lives there, travel to Oakland. It's technically another city. To say that people would commute from the city to the suburbs is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I haven't heard such nonsense since the Robert Moses era.

San Francisco and New York City are outliers and don't represent the average American city in terms of demographics, built environments, or centralization. There are numerous major metropolitan areas where people commute from the city to the suburbs for work. Most of the jobs in the average major metropolitan area are located in sprawling office parks on outerbelt highways thanks to Robert Moses. Not saying that downtowns don't generally represent the largest concentration of jobs in any given region, just saying that most central cities are not the economic spoke hub they once were. Jobs are flung all around the place and unfortunately most companies are still choosing to build sprawling suburban campuses because that is where their "middle class, middle age" workforce and customer base lives. Boring....I know!

[Chicago103]

I saw the article title and was like WTF?

Actually this sounds to me like San Francisco NIMBY propaganda. They don't want more skyscrapers built in San Francisco, heck the word and fear of "Manhattanization" has it's origin in San Francisco I believe. So the NIMBYs were scratching their heads and a light went off in their heads "I know, if we label some other nearby place as the Bay area's Manhattan and label us here in San Francisco as the Bay Area's Brooklyn then people will associate SF as a trendy yuppy bedroom community and they will build all the skyscrapers in Silicon Valley or anywhere but here, perfect!".

Of course the reality is that San Francisco is not even as dense as Brooklyn, in fact it is slightly less dense than Queens!

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by tech12

No SF is not the Brooklyn to Silicon Valley's "unbuilt Manhattan".

The entire premise of this article is dumb. The Bay Area already has a "Manhattan", and that's SF, which is by far the largest single center of business in the Bay Area. And if there's a Brooklyn equivalent here, it's Oakland/Berkeley. SF gains far more commuters from the rest of the Bay Area every day than it gives to Silicon Valley...those google-bus riding techies from SF are a small percentage of SF's population (and SF is part of "silicon valley" anyways going by some definitions). And the tech industry is currently booming in SF proper as well.

Basically.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Is Ottawa the Montreal to Toronto's unbuilt Edmonton?
Inquiring minds want to know.

No, Toronto is clearly the Halifax to Hamilton's unbuilt Yellowknife.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Where exactly did you see this in Silicon Valley?

I mean, where in Silicon Valley would you feel like you're in some West Coast version of a Montclair, Great Neck, or Bronxville? There are some downtown-focused enclaves like Palo Alto, but it still looks much more Newport Beach or Scottsdale than Greenwich.

To me, Silicon Valley feels very Sun Belt, which makes sense to me, given the geography, history, and development history.

And, yeah, the premise of the thread is silly. SF will always be the employment center and primary core of the Bay Area.

I was thinking more of the effect you get flying over north jersey into newark airport - patchworks of grid-aligned dense single family housing interspersed with town centers. I had a similar feel flying over SF.

In south bay, I mean places like redwood city, palo alto, mountain view and the whole el camino real strip.

certainly more east coast than say Garden Grove or Scottsdale, with their monotonous 1/2 mile square grid formats no?

although perhaps farther south toward SJ you get more of an OC, LA or Phoenix style vibe.