I used to live in the dead center of the city, in the Ashbury Heights neighborhood. It took me literally 1 hour to get to work, down town taking muni (fastest time recorded is 40 minutes without any delays and essentially running the "last mile"). This was the longest commute of my life, and I lived 3 miles from work. It would take me just a little more time to walk there. Biking was faster, but more dangerous -- I got hit once (by another cyclist running a light) and that was it for me.<p>That, plus people assaulting my wife on the street, plus $3000 rent for a 1 bedroom, and I had it with the city. I loved it, it was a great experience, but I just couldn't take it anymore. Now I work from home in the central valley, where I can afford to rent a 3000 sq. ft. home (not because I'm paid much, but because housing is so cheap), and my commute is 1 minute. I'm much happier out here, yet I find when I tell people from SF where I live, some (not all, most people ask "Where the heck is that?") wrinkle their noses. I say, if you're tired of the city, give it a shot -- you might be happier.
This article really gets it. It's all about transportation. It will <i></i>never<i></i> be possible for everyone who wants to be in San Francisco to live downtown, or even adjacent to downtown. Just like the article said, Manhattan is much denser but no more affordable.<p>But we make it so hard for people to get around. You can take a bus for 45m or take the BART which is overcrowded, unreliable, and has trains that can be as much as 20m apart.<p>Plus using transit around here requires way too much knowledge. There are so many different major transit agencies that don't make any effort to connect (Caltrain, Muni bus, Muni metro, BART, etc) and they all have different pricing schemes (flat rate, monthly passes, pay by distance, etc).<p>Living 10 miles from your job shouldn't mean you live an hour from your job. NYC gets that. SF Bay Area does not.
Generally great. I live in DC and we suffer from similar troubles because of lack of regional planning integration (multiple states rather than just multiple cities, so in some ways it's worse).<p>That said:<p>> And we also probably don’t want high rise condos on the edge of Golden Gate Park. San Francisco isn’t New York.<p>Probably going to have to get over this objection for a plan like this to work. Transit and accessibility are great places to start, but transit-oriented development requires density to succeed. If people are going to be getting around via transit lines instead of by car, you need a lot of people to live within easy walking distance of each residential transit stop, and you need a lot of the places people are trying to get to (work, leisure, etc.) to be within easy walking distance of the stop on the other end of their trip. High transit ridership and neighborhoods comprised of single-family homes don't work well together, and while part of what makes the Bushwick example work well is the better transit, the density is a big part of the calculus as well (again, on both ends).
After 8 years in SF I have been seriously considering moving to NYC, largely over my commute to South Bay, but also for the substantial increase in density which brings with it a manifold increase in cultural opportunities and activities.<p>The weather is a drawback (in probably 200+ days in NYC over 10 years I can remember a single week of what I would consider nice weather). I have realized that crappy climate is a poor reason to avoid the move.<p>My one main concern is finding a job with similar pay and interesting work. 90+% of the job listings I see are for Java enterpise-type work paying a third of what my (admittedly more than comfortable) current total pay is.
So much here resonates with me. I’m sitting in a train right now taking me from a suburb into downtown Portland, OR...an easy commute...only $5 a day gets you unlimited transportation across all of the regional transit services (all part of the excellent TriMet system). I moved here from the Bay Area mainly due to affordability and sane public transit. The Bay Area is an amazing place but it’s imploding under the weight of its own popularity and lack of appropriate regional infrastructure response.
If these things interest you, consider learning more about the yimby party (sfyimby.com). We’re a group advocating for these policies at a local and state level. DM me for more details.
"Someone else should make the sacrifice."<p>There's the problem right there.<p>From the article:<p>"Brisbane ... is currently blocking a large housing development for local reasons."<p>"And we also probably don’t want high rise condos on the edge of Golden Gate Park. San Francisco isn’t New York."<p>I've voted in favor of every housing initiative available to me, but you can't make your favorite part of the Bay Area sacred and expect everyone else to give up theirs.
How can he sit there and deny the benefits of larger supply? Obviously, if supply increases vastly enough the prices will come down. Sure, maybe not in the first thousand units, but you've gotta build baby build! It'll probably take 10s of thousand of units or even 100s of thousands of units, but it's gotta be done. And sure, it won't be as cheap as the suburbs, but if we get rid of regulations and allow SV to innovate enough, we can automate the building of these tall buildings and allow the price to come down to levels never before seen.<p>Allowing commuters to cover even longer distances is just another bandaid. One that will just add more environmental damage. The least environmentally damaging commute is the one that happens on foot.<p>Increasing supply to reduce costs to where EVERYONE can afford the city is the ultimate solution we should strive for, not more lotteries for a tiny percentage.
> In the Bay Area, you’re unlikely to have easy access to San Francisco at all if you’re not in San Francisco proper.<p>Eh? It is pretty easy to get to San Francisco from Oakland or Berkeley. Hell, its easier to get to fidi or soma from Oakland than from parts of San Francisco.<p>Edit: For the downvoters, I’m genuinely curious how BART from Oakland to San Fran is considerd hard? I was simply contesting the point that there is nowhere in the bay with easy access to San Francisco! Now San Jose to San Francisco? Maybe not.
San Francisco's population density:
18,573/sq mi<p>Manhattan's:
71,998.9/sq mi<p>It's difficult to look at this without thinking that the initial problem to be solved is density in the urban core.<p>Eventually, yes, you need much better transit to outlying areas. This will take decades even with iron clad political will, which isn't happening short of a takeover by house of Bourbon.
Is it beneficial for the rest of US to save SF? Won't its demise actually improve the lives in the rest of the country/world as businesses spread out after workers or allow remote work?
The idea of having a Bay Area "Mayor" sounds like an idea that could have solve a lot of the problems in the Bay Area. The issue would be trying to make that transition happen, seems almost impossible.
I've long thought that having a regional government be the governing authority for the Tacoma-Everett-Kirkland region would be the proper system to have: turn the cities into bouroughs and have a Puget Sound Metropolis Government (that encompasses Seattle).<p>This would politically solve many intractable problems that are being naturally caused by local tribes sparring. I think it's likely the proper solution to the urban/suburban donut problem we have in many regions in the US.
The real solution is for companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc to have the COURAGE to create large work epicenters outside of the Bay Area. Create headquarters for tens of thousands of workers in more remote areas with a strong infrastructure, with great benefits for working families. Do what Amazon wants to do with a second HQ, and create demand outside of the Bay Area.<p>If Google created a new HQ in Kansas City, with it's fiber links, and low cost of living, and added really great benefits like free day care, etc, then won't software engineers move there, especially those that are ready to start a family? I bet you they would. I definitely would. Then it would create a new ecosystem of economic prosperity there, and then it would take a lot of pressure off the Bay Area.
Better transit and a unified representative government is a great idea.<p>It's also never going to happen. Or if it will, it's decades away.<p>I've become convinced that if we want real change, it needs to be done by technology. Lyft for example could solve the transit problem if they figure out how to lower the cost of a ride, perhaps with automated drivers. Then you wouldn't need to build too much more infrastructure -- no need to get the entire bay rallied around a hundred billion dollar public transit system that's just going to get outdated again. We might need to make another bridge though...<p>Housing is another problem though. I've been wondering if technology can help there too but I haven't come up with any good ideas yet.
I agree with everything that the article writes. That said, if you work in SF and are looking for a concrete way to improve your commute today without adding another car to the road, consider purchasing an electric bike or scooter. I've been commuting from San Bruno to SOMA (14 miles each way) for the last 3 months on an electric bike and I vastly prefer the experience to the available alternatives. If you live closer in, it's even more of a no-brainer.
Those of us who grew up in less desirable environments (where they have real winter) are perfectly content with living out farther, and commuting in on the BART.<p>I personally live out by the Delta surrounded by fresh air, fresh fruit, and nice people (we have a strong community and frequently see people we know out and about, it's great). My commute into SF is about 90 min one way, and it is the easiest, least stressful commute I have had in my life.
> Do we want to be a white-washed Disneyland for software developers, or do we want to be a vibrant, diverse, integrated (and bigger) city?<p>What if people actually prefer the former? I mean, sure, their "stated preference" can be later but the "revealed preference" can actually be a myopic selfish one; which is not that abnormal and totally in line with basic human nature (claims of "being progressive" notwithstanding!)
His proposal is two-fold, for those who want a summary.<p>1) Build better transit to connect areas that are affordable (or areas at all i.e. San Jose / Oakland) to central business districts<p>2) To accomplish this by creating a centralized governing authority for the whole Bay Area.<p>I wonder if this kind of consolidation has ever happened before. Did New York City absorb areas that it now controls as it evolved, or did the parties agree afterward to some symbiotic relationship?
tl;dr Uses excellent maps to visualize just how dramatically worse our regional mass transit is vs. New York. Makes the point that Manhattan is very dense but still not affordable. What makes New York more affordable is the accessibility of less expensive boroughs.<p>Wackier highlights: calls for politically reorganizing the bay area into a metropolitan government, and confuses regional work commutes with "diversity and inclusion."
Would you bet on the rail network being greatly improved before robocars greatly improve the experience on the road network? That’d be good, but I wouldn’t.
Finally, empirical evidence that San Francisco sucks without just coming off as a pretentious New Yorker.<p>SF masquerades as a world class city because there is literally nothing else for Northern California to compare it to.