[dimondpark]

San Jose's population hits 1 million; Mayor Reed says 'size does matter'

By Mike Swift

Mercury News
Posted: 04/30/2009 03:09:58 PM PDT
Updated: 04/30/2009 06:18:14 PM PDT

San Jose has hit another major population milestone — becoming the first West Coast city north of Los Angeles to notch its one millionth resident.

Actually, it's 1,006,892 residents, according to figures released Thursday by the California Department of Finance that had city leaders pleased.

"Size does matter," said a proud Mayor Chuck Reed. While not the only important thing, the mayor explained, "it does matter when I'm in Washington or Sacramento trying to get state or national policy changed on a Silicon Valley issue. I don't know if the absolute number counts, but being the 10th largest city in the country and over a million puts us in a category that people will pay attention to, even though they've never been to San Jose."

No longer does it matter that San Jose lacks the skyline of the biggest American cities, and that it continues to be the geek living next door to the Angelina Jolie of urban centers. Long the Bay Area's biggest city, it is now the 10th U.S. city with a seven-digit population, a threshold that may urge it to leave behind its long rivalry with the cultural Parthenon to the north.

"San Francisco certainly is a beauty queen," the mayor said. "But if San Francisco is a beauty queen, we're the class valedictorian."

With a 2.1 percent, 21,000-person population jump in 2008, San Jose recorded its biggest annual percentage population growth so far this decade. About half of the city's housing growth last

year was due to annexation of unincorporated land.

To be sure, population estimates, particularly nine years removed from the last comprehensive headcount of the 2000 Census, have a significant degree of uncertainty, and many demographers may look to the 2010 Census to ratify San Jose's new status. Mary Heim, the state demographer, said the finance department decided to assume housing vacancy rates were holding constant even as the recession took hold last year, because that method for population estimates has proven the most accurate in the past.

Still, the new population figures are official government statistics, ones that will be used to apportion state tax revenues to cities, and that will likely appear on highway signs at city limits across the state.

Compared to the nation's nine other million-population cities, San Jose looks a lot more suburban in many ways.

San Jose has the lowest rate of violent crime, the lowest poverty rate and the highest median household income. Given that this is Silicon Valley, it has the highest ratio of men to women between the ages of 15 and 44. It certainly doesn't have the most impressive skyline, but it's not the least impressive: San Antonio has even fewer buildings over 15 stories high.

Kevin Starr, a professor of history at the University of Southern California and a former state librarian, said one million people is a distinct urban threshold.

"When a city reachs a million, it reaches a certain transformative population," Starr said. "You are dense enough then to get anything done that you want to get done. So let those people that don't want San Jose to be a big city move to Redding — seriously. This place was destined to be an important American city right from the beginning."

The geographic borders of San Jose have expanded dramaticaly through land annexation over the decades, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s when the city swelled from 17 to 136 square miles under former city manager Anthony P. "Dutch" Hamann, who longed to transform San Jose into Los Angeles north.

Long-time residents like Dwight Bentel, a reporter for the San Jose Mercury from 1929 to 1941, said the changes were dizzying in a town that had fewer than 60,000 people when he arrived in 1927.

"It was a country town, without any question," said Bentel, who recently celebrated his 100th birthday. "It was a good town. It still is a good town. But naturally a town that grows how San Jose has grown is going to pick up some bad habits along with the good."

After city leaders began to attract IBM and other defense and tech companies that helped seed Silicon Valley, and San Jose's population hit half a million people during the 1970s, the city also became a global magnet for immigrants and refugees from Mexico, Vietnam, China, India and many other countries.

For all those reasons, San Jose is distinctly Californian, said Starr, one of the most prominent California historians.

"Given the fact that San Francisco is its own distictive type of place and given the fact that San Diego is politically dysfunctional," Starr said, "after Los Angeles, San Jose is the representative California city." Hans Johnson, a demographer with the Public Policy Institute of Califoria, agreed that San Jose's evolution has mirrored the Golden State.

"Look, San Jose grew rapidly when California grew rapidly. San Jose experienced an increase in the diversity of its population just as California did," Johnson said. "It's got suburban areas and it's got urbanized areas, yet it's a fairly fresh new place, so in a lot of ways it does stand in for the experience of California."

Mercury News Researcher Leigh Poitinger contributed to this story. Contact Mike Swift at 408-271-3648 or mswift@mercurynews.com

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12265169?source=most_emailed

[dimondpark]

Its actually not inconceivable at this point to say SF will probably hit 1 Million sooner than later.

According to the California Department of Finance Released April 30, 2009

Largest Cities(300,000+) 2009 Annual Percentage Change
1 Los Angeles 4,065,585 +1.1%
2 San Diego 1.353.993 +1.5%
3 San Jose 1,006,892 +2.2%
4 San Francisco 845,559 +1.2%
5 Fresno 495,913 +2.2%
6 Long Beach 492,682 +0.6%
7 Sacramento 481,097 +1.4%
8 Oakland 425,068 +1.4%
9 Santa Ana 355,662 +1.2%
9 Anaheim 348,467 +0.9%
10 Bakersfield 333,719 +1.9%
11 Riverside 300,430 +1.4%

[Gordo]

"Given the fact that San Francisco is its own distictive type of place and given the fact that San Diego is politically dysfunctional,"

Is San Diego really that more politically dysfunctional than any other California city?

BTW - we do have another thread on the recently released CADOF population estimates:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=168559

[PA Pride]

San Jose - Alpha.World.City.

[krudmonk]

That's an awfully large jump over the last estimate.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Love the huge drop in population between #4 and #5. Then again, half the cities on that list are within spitting distance of the larger cities.

California also has a large number of 200k and 100,000+ cities surrounding the bigger counterparts.

[hudkina]

It helps to have 140 sq. mi. of dense western-style suburbs within your city limits.;)

[dimondpark]

Love the huge drop in population between #4 and #5. Then again, half the cities on that list are within spitting distance of the larger cities.

California also has a large number of 200k and 100,000+ cities surrounding the bigger counterparts.


Speaking of the drop between 4 and 5, Fresno is now 5th having surpassed Long Beach.

[dimondpark]

It helps to have 140 sq. mi. of dense western-style suburbs within your city limits.;)

I think San Jose is one of the smallest cities as far as physical size among the US Cities that have 1 Million+ residents.

[fflint]

It is indeed a population milestone, but one that has very little of the meaning one might expect. San Jose is a big Riverside, not a small LA.

Even compared with similarly sprawling suburban California cities like San Diego and Sacramento, San Jose is utterly lacking in significant urbanity.

Despite a few brights spots and some random flecks of new urbanity (you can live above the swanky upscale mall at Santana Row!), it remains a sprawling, low-density carpet of one and two story houses, wide expressways clogged with traffic and channeled through high blank walls, shopping plazas, office parks and chintzy strip malls.

There are few cyclists and even fewer pedestrians in 95% of San Jose, and the anemic, low-slung, low-energy 'downtown' that never recovered from the urban renewal bulldozers of the mid-20th century is one of California's most depressing.

[krudmonk]

Be more bitter.

[fflint]

I'm not bitter, kiddo, but I understand why you don't care for my opinions of San Jose. The only good things about that place, IMO: proximity to interesting places, the near-perfect weather, and a police force that is by far the most professional in California, perhaps the nation.

[krudmonk]

1. Quite a few people bike. The flat land and warm weather are very conducive to it. They may not be couriers on fixed gears, but those don't comprise the entire cycling community. It is a much more commonplace method of transport in the Asian and Latino populace.

2. Nobody would ever consider Santana Row to be the urban core or the epitome of city living. It successfully fills a niche market here, but it's still just a niche. Most SJ residents have the same disdain for the place as detractors up north.

[Crawford]

These are not Census numbers, and so have no official value. They're just state estimates, and likely use a very small sampling frame.

The numbers also can't be compared to any city outside of CA, because no city outside of CA is using the same methodology.

San Jose may or may not have one million residents, but it's still a suburb of The City to the north.

[krudmonk]

San Jose may or may not have one million residents, but it's still a suburb of The City to the north.
So Santa Clara County has the highest per capita income because of Silicon Valley jobs or because of jobs in "The City" (presumably the only city on Earth)?

Correction: San Jose metro, not Santa Clara County

[Gordo]

These are not Census numbers, and so have no official value. They're just state estimates, and likely use a very small sampling frame.

The numbers also can't be compared to any city outside of CA, because no city outside of CA is using the same methodology.

San Jose may or may not have one million residents, but it's still a suburb of The City to the north.

These estimates may not be comparable to estimates from other places, but they absolutely have "official" value, as they are the official estimates used by the state, which uses CADOF estimates for determining funding and other issues, rather ACS estimates, which have been found by the state to be extremely unreliable (CADOF estimates in the past have been closer to actual census numbers than ACS estimates have).

Most of San Jose is a suburb of the job centers of Silicon Valley, not San Francisco really. Part of SJ could be considered Silicon Valley, but most of the job centers are slightly to the north and west of SJ.

[dimondpark]

Most of San Jose is a suburb of the job centers of Silicon Valley, not San Francisco really.
True. Very few San Joseans commute to San Francisco.

[Crawford]

I think San Jose is one of the smallest cities as far as physical size among the US Cities that have 1 Million+ residents.

It doesn't have 1 million residents, at least not officially. And if the same sampling methodology were used in other states, cities like Detroit might also have one million residents.

As for size, you could fit four San Franciscos into San Jose, so I would say it is pretty big and sprawling, though quite dense for American standards if you consider it just a suburb.

[JDRCRASH]

I don't really pay much attention to the Census numbers. Los Angeles, for example, hit 4 Million several years ago.

[fflint]

San Jose is noteworthy as one of the only 'big cities' in America that actually loses population during the workday to smaller suburbs nearby.

San Joseans drive out of their subdividions on big wide roadways and cross out of San Jose city limits to their jobs in Santa Clara, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and other Silicon Valley office parks. Then, they flood back in to their driveways at the end of the workday.

[krudmonk]

It doesn't have 1 million residents, at least not officially. And if the same sampling methodology were used in other states, cities like Detroit might also have one million residents.

As for size, you could fit four San Franciscos into San Jose, so I would say it is pretty big and sprawling, though quite dense for American standards if you consider it just a suburb.
You could fit SF into a lot of cities. San Jose is only the 44th largest municipality in the country. It's also more dense (by the simple calculation) than Cincinnati, Las Vegas, Sacramento, St Petersburg, Louisville, Portland, San Diego, Denver, Dallas, Columbus, Houston...

The proximity to San Francisco is your only argument and what skews perception. San Francisco is more the anomaly in size, density and "vibrance" (or insert your own fluff word) than San Jose is at the other end of the spectrum. By calling San Jose a suburb, you actually degrade what SF offers as if it is the lowest tier of the respect ladder and anything below sucks.

[PA Pride]

Yakumoto's awesome San Jose panorama:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=153526&highlight=jose

[dimondpark]

It doesn't have 1 million residents, at least not officially.
I suggest you write a stern email to the San Jose Mercury News demanding that they retract their story.

And if the same sampling methodology were used in other states, cities like Detroit might also have one million residents.

But this article is not about Detroit or about the Census. Its about San Jose and the State of California.

And your assuming that California is automatically wrong in its estimates when its been proven over and over again that the Census woefully undercounts many, many cities.

As for size, you could fit four San Franciscos into San Jose,
What does that have to do with a count or even an estimate of population? Nothing at all. This isnt an estimate of population density or sprawl.

Just population.

[fflint]

The annual California estimate of city populations is the product not of merely different methods than those employed by the federal Census, but Census methods plus additional sources of information, such as California driver's licenses. The CA estimate is Census-Plus. And it's more accurate because of that extra work. I don't doubt for one minute that there are a million people living within San Jose's sprawling borders.

[Crawford]

The annual California estimate of city populations is the product not of merely different methods than those employed by the federal Census, but Census methods plus additional sources of information, such as California driver's licenses.

No, it isn't. The Census only does decennial counts. The two annual estimates (American Community Survey and PUMA estimates) are unofficial, and are based on different sampling frames.

The CA estimate is Census-Plus. And it's more accurate because of that extra work.

I don't know what this means, but even if you are 100% sure the CA estimates are accurate, and better than actual counts, it's still useless as a basis of comparison with anyplace that isn't in California.

[Crawford]

So Santa Clara County has the highest per capita income because of Silicon Valley jobs or because of jobs in "The City" (presumably the only city on Earth)?

Correction: San Jose metro, not Santa Clara County

I do not understand this. What does per capita income have to do with issues of population, density or distinctions between city and suburb?

And, while San Jose is a bedroom community, I wouldn't say that alone makes it more a suburb than a central city. Detroit is technically a bedroom community, but nobody would claim that Detroit is a suburb of Oakland County, MI (the big job center in metro Detroit).

[krudmonk]

I do not understand this. What does per capita income have to do with issues of population, density or distinctions between city and suburb?
My point is that San Jose exists under the influence of the greater valley, not of a city 50 miles up the road.
And, while San Jose is a bedroom community, I wouldn't say that alone makes it more a suburb than a central city. Detroit is technically a bedroom community, but nobody would claim that Detroit is a suburb of Oakland County, MI (the big job center in metro Detroit).
So you admit that your criteria shift arbitrarily to match whatever words you've already let slip from your head?

The standards by which San Jose is a "bedroom community" are those which state San Francisco has no airport and only half the Golden Gate bridge. That is, it's quite extreme.

[fflint]

No, it isn't. The Census only does decennial counts. The two annual estimates (American Community Survey and PUMA estimates) are unofficial, and are based on different sampling frames.
If I confused you, then let me clarify--I was discussing methodology. The state issues an annual estimate, and as I understand it the state bases its estimates on the Census Bureau model but adds additional sources of information, like state driver's licenses, that the feds do not include in their decennial "counts."

I don't know what this means, but even if you are 100% sure the CA estimates are accurate, and better than actual counts, it's still useless as a basis of comparison with anyplace that isn't in California.
You're the only one wishing to compare this San Jose estimate with cities outside California. Maybe I'm wrong, but this still leaves San Jose at the same rank it held in the 2000 Census, doesn't it?

[TWAK]

Sacramento could get near that if they would annex the older unincorporated areas of sac county that are basically "Sacramento".
Well nobody cares besides the sac local forum :)
It's always cool to have another million city, while my army friends state's second largest citys aren't as big as Fairfield or Elk Grove...haha

[fflint]

The standards by which San Jose is a "bedroom community" are those which state San Francisco has no airport and only half the Golden Gate bridge. That is, it's quite extreme.
San Jose bleeds population during the workday to smaller suburbs nearby; I suppose one can define 'bedroom community' as a community that loses daytime pop to nearby locales. I don't consider San Jose a central city but I also don't know if 'bedroom community' quite fits, either.

I don't see how you can claim, however, that San Francisco has no airport. What other entity can claim San Francisco International Airport? Granted it is not contiguous with the rest of the city, but SFO is nontheless under jurisdiction of SF municipal courts, subject to all SF county laws and no laws from any other county, and is served by San Francisco municipal services such as the SFFD and SFPD.

[vid]

San Jose is noteworthy as one of the only 'big cities' in America that actually loses population during the workday to smaller suburbs nearby.

It's San Francisco's Hamilton! :D

[krudmonk]

San Jose bleeds population during the workday to smaller suburbs nearby; I suppose one can define 'bedroom community' as a community that loses daytime pop to nearby locales. I don't consider San Jose a central city but I also don't know if 'bedroom community' quite fits, either.
While not the standout job center, the county administration facilities are located on North First, a few blocks from downtown. It is where the valley is governed, hence "The Capital of Silicon Valley" as opposed to "The Heart of Silicon Valley" (Sunnyvale). Nonetheless, SJ still has the greatest number of jobs simply by being so big.

Many heavy jobs centers within SJ city limits are away from downtown, just as those in other municipalities. It's the demand of industry itself. They want sprawled campuses and the city abides so they get tax dollars. I wouldn't say this negatively impacts the urban core, though. It still has far more people walking the streets at all times of day than Tasman Bouelvard. I doubt you'd say SF's financial district is inherently less urban with the rise in office vacancy.
I don't see how you can claim, however, that San Francisco has no airport. What other entity can claim San Francisco International Airport? Granted it is not contiguous with the rest of the city, but SFO is nontheless under jurisdiction of SF municipal courts, subject to all SF county laws and no laws from any other county, and is served by San Francisco municipal services such as the SFFD and SFPD.
I didn't say another city could claim it. That's my point. In one case, it is pointed out that people in SJ will sometimes cross over to Santa Clara or Cupertino for work, but the same is not said when San Franciscans leave the county to catch a flight. Is either one a huge trek, though? Nope. Neither is going to Sunset Strip from LA, the Vegas Strip from LV proper or Miami Beach from the city of Miami.

A double standard arises when speaking of city limits. Population is scoffed at but density is heralded. They're both functions of the same boundaries, though. Do you calculate San Francisco's density including SFO or not? It's not going to change much, but I think you get my point.
It's San Francisco's Hamilton! :D
No, Hamilton doesn't have the NHL.

Okay, that was harsh.

[alexjon]

Oh good, then let's send that BART money back to SF since SJ is its own little province.

[hudkina]

To be fair Detroit lost that status within a few years of the Census. Also, in the case of Detroit it had more to do with poor city residents commuting to retail/service jobs in the suburbs and not being replaced by enough suburban residents commuting to downtown offices. Detroit's lack of a large retail base is the primary reason it lost daytime population. Granted, with the move of Compuware downtown, the opening of the three casinos, six new hotels, etc. the miniscule daytime loss was easily reversed.

Also, I don't think anyone would argue that San Jose is a direct suburb of San Francisco, but San Jose exists primarily because of the Silicon Valley, which primarily exists because of Stanford University, which primarily exists because of San Francisco. So while few San Jose residents actually commute to San Francisco, a big part of the reason they're living there is the original capital and influence of San Francisco.

[krudmonk]

Oh good, then let's send that BART money back to SF since SJ is its own little province.
Bay Area Rapid Transit or San Francisco Rapid Transit? The system already extends into three counties besides SF. It is analogous to Caltrain, not Muni.
Also, I don't think anyone would argue that San Jose is a direct suburb of San Francisco, but San Jose exists primarily because of the Silicon Valley, which primarily exists because of Stanford University, which primarily exists because of San Francisco. So while few San Jose residents actually commute to San Francisco, a big part of the reason they're living there is the original capital and influence of San Francisco.
They're both suburbs of somewhere in Spain. San Jose only boomed because of Silicon Valley. It exists because it was founded by settlers in 1777, when SF was primarily a military installation with no roads or rails between them.

[hudkina]

But seriously. San Jose would be another Modesto or Fresno if it weren't directly on the Bay. The irony is that if San Jose was closer to 30 sq. mi. people would probably view it as a major urban node in the Silicon Valley sprawl. But since it was able to annex a large amount of the land, it is more known for its suburban nature.

[holladay]

I agree with the notion in the article that the larger San Jose becomes the more it can function independently of San Francisco. That is, in spite of all the arguments people have against its suburban nature, in time it will only further diversify and develop its own character. I've never been there but I am sure there are things to like about the place, and I am more than certain that it is continuing to evolve. Having 1 million + residents only helps the city, as it gives them access to an increasingly larger tax base. Coupled with the proper vision that translates to positive progress in terms of city services, development incentives, and long-term planning.

[alexjon]

Bay Area Rapid Transit or San Francisco Rapid Transit? The system already extends into three counties besides SF. It is analogous to Caltrain, not Muni.

Hint: Most people don't even realize San Jose exists unless they're humming Dionne Warwick. "Bay Area" means San Francisco and Oakland.

I wouldn't expect you to know anything about Bellevue anymore than you should expect people to acknowledge San Jose.

[Evergrey]

To be fair Detroit lost that status within a few years of the Census. ... Granted, with the move of Compuware downtown, the opening of the three casinos, six new hotels, etc. the miniscule daytime loss was easily reversed.


Do you have a link to an updated daytime population figure? The Census Bureau released its first, and to my knowledge... only daytime population figures in 2005... based upon Census 2000 data. That data revealed that San Jose and Detroit were the only two major core cities to experience daytime population decreases at -5.6% and -0.1% respectively.

[Gordo]

I agree with the notion in the article that the larger San Jose becomes the more it can function independently of San Francisco. That is, in spite of all the arguments people have against its suburban nature, in time it will only further diversify and develop its own character. I've never been there but I am sure there are things to like about the place, and I am more than certain that it is continuing to evolve. Having 1 million + residents only helps the city, as it gives them access to an increasingly larger tax base. Coupled with the proper vision that translates to positive progress in terms of city services, development incentives, and long-term planning.

Actually, the "increasingly larger tax base" is one of the problems that SJ politicians often bring up. Because of prop 13, a large reliance on a residential tax base is disastrous in the long term. San Jose hosts a disproportionate supply of Silicon Valley housing. All of the other smaller cities of Silicon Valley try and prevent new housing for a reason - having an oversupply of jobs and undersupply of housing is the KEY way to having good schools, well-funded public services, good infrastructure, etc. More residents provide no real long term benefit to cities in California, unless the city is isolated and needs the residents to bring in the tax base (retail and commercial). SJ isn't in this position, because it's just one city in a sea of others.

On the surface, Santa Clara looks roughly the same as bordering areas of San Jose, but Santa Clara is a rich city (I'm referring to the city coffers, not necessarily the residents) with no budget problems anywhere on the horizon, because they happened to zone land commercial at the right time and snagged some giant office parks, while pretty much giving the finger to SJ at the time over traffic concerns, since most of the workers were likely going to be living in SJ (SJ was concerned about increased traffic on 101 - Santa Clara told them to screw off).

The problem is lack of coordination within the county, metro, whatever. Each city operates as their own little kingdom - and counties do the same further up the chain, of course.

[hudkina]

Do you have a link to an updated daytime population figure? The Census Bureau released its first, and to my knowledge... only daytime population figures in 2005... based upon Census 2000 data. That data revealed that San Jose and Detroit were the only two major core cities to experience daytime population decreases at -5.6% and -0.1% respectively.

There are no official estimates, but it's only logical that the number has reversed since 2000. In 2000, the number of people who lived in the city but worked outside of the city was 164,516. The number of people who lived outside of the city but worked in the city was 163,857. That means the difference was just 659.

Since then thousands and thousands of new jobs have been created in the city with the addition of three casinos, several new hotels, a new stadium, as well as a handful of major corporate relocations. (Compuware alone moved several thousand jobs downtown.) That doesn't even include all of the retail/service jobs that have been created in the city in the last 10 years.


BTW, the outflow data shows the number of Detroiters who work outside of the U.S. (just 140), however the inflow data doesn't show the number of foreigners who work in Detroit, particularly Canadians from Windsor. While I doubt the number of cross-border workers is high, there are a number of Canadian residents who do work in downtown Detroit as well as at the DMC and Wayne State.

[krudmonk]

Hint: Most people don't even realize San Jose exists unless they're humming Dionne Warwick. "Bay Area" means San Francisco and Oakland.

I wouldn't expect you to know anything about Bellevue anymore than you should expect people to acknowledge San Jose.
I thought "bay area" referred to the area around the bay. God damn intuition...

As for Bellevue, it is a small city with a big skyline, just 14 miles from Seattle. That does not make it analogous to San Jose at all.

[bricky]

Actually, the "increasingly larger tax base" is one of the problems that SJ politicians often bring up. Because of prop 13, a large reliance on a residential tax base is disastrous in the long term. San Jose hosts a disproportionate supply of Silicon Valley housing. All of the other smaller cities of Silicon Valley try and prevent new housing for a reason - having an oversupply of jobs and undersupply of housing is the KEY way to having good schools, well-funded public services, good infrastructure, etc. More residents provide no real long term benefit to cities in California, unless the city is isolated and needs the residents to bring in the tax base (retail and commercial). SJ isn't in this position, because it's just one city in a sea of others.

On the surface, Santa Clara looks roughly the same as bordering areas of San Jose, but Santa Clara is a rich city (I'm referring to the city coffers, not necessarily the residents) with no budget problems anywhere on the horizon, because they happened to zone land commercial at the right time and snagged some giant office parks, while pretty much giving the finger to SJ at the time over traffic concerns, since most of the workers were likely going to be living in SJ (SJ was concerned about increased traffic on 101 - Santa Clara told them to screw off).

The problem is lack of coordination within the county, metro, whatever. Each city operates as their own little kingdom - and counties do the same further up the chain, of course.

This was the only interesting thing to come out of this thread. Everything else was straight up, "city equal good, detached house equal bad" stuff we usually get on SSP.

[alexjon]

I thought "bay area" referred to the area around the bay. God damn intuition...

As for Bellevue, it is a small city with a big skyline, just 14 miles from Seattle. That does not make it analogous to San Jose at all.

For homers and wonks, San Jose might exist as part of the Bay Area (note the caps), but like Bellevue, it's nowhere near important enough in the american hive mind to matter.

[fflint]

San Jose is part of the Bay Area.

[krudmonk]

For homers and wonks, San Jose might exist as part of the Bay Area (note the caps), but like Bellevue, it's nowhere near important enough in the american hive mind to matter.
Eh, I'm not arguing that SJ has an extremely low profile. I do dispute the new, exclusionary meaning of a term that people here define.

[bearflagger]

I really don't understand why there's so much hatred for SJ. Is it because it doesn't fit the mold of a stereotypical "city?" I think the fact that one million choose to live in SJ speaks for itself. SJ is a wonderful city that has its own unique attributes and strengths and it will only continue to grow and shape itself in the coming years.

I second that Bricky. That is a huge problem that I hope the San Jose and Santa Clara County governments continue to address. Although SJ has many jobs and tech companies, we should no longer have to subsidize the surrounding communities with housing for their workers.

[fflint]

SJ is a wonderful city that has its own unique attributes
Can you give some examples of San Jose's own unique attributes?

[bearflagger]

On a personal level, my family came as refugees from Vietnam in 1975; when they arrived in SJ they had a chance to rebuild their shattered lives. My grandparents opened up a restaurant in downtown when most people had left it for the surrounding suburbs. There my dad and his brothers played music to entertain the relatively small Vietnamese population. Since those times the Vietnamese population has boomed and SJ has one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the world. I know the media likes to portray the community as crazy people who fight over the name of what outsiders may see as "strip malls," and I'm sure San Franciscans scoff at us. But the community is so passionate because we have pride in what we've built here in San Jose.

San Jose has given my family and many other families from all over the world a chance to rebuild their lives. You may not think that's unique, but for the many people who call this place home it is. In my opinion, pretty buildings and tourist attractions don't make a city great. But again, you may disagree with me and that's okay. SF is a great place and is famous across the world; all San Joseans understand this. But the people here also love our city and that energy will help it continue to grow and define itself.

[holladay]

You're right, bearflagger. A city is a place where people live their lives. It is a place of experiences, memories, and dreams. San Jose is no less a city than any other in this aspect. It is inevitably unique.

[fflint]

On a personal level, my family came as refugees from Vietnam in 1975....But the people here also love our city and that energy will help it continue to grow and define itself.
I went to Mitty. Where did you go?

[KB0679]

As Texas officially welcomes California to the "States with three cities with 1 million+ residents" club...

[edluva]

split los angeles into fourths and we can add three more 1million pluses

[WonderlandPark]

Bearflagger, welcome to the forum, by the way. I just read Catfish & Mandala and just got back from Vietnam. My first bowl of pho was in San Jose in the early 80's and its still one of my favorite meals. In fact, some of my best meals have been in those scoffed at strip malls.

My dad taught a year at SJSU, so I know the city well. In the fact that San Jose is an immigrant magnet makes it a great city, like Los Angeles. But San Jose is NOT Los Angeles light. It is really a pleasant place with a kick-ass climate near some of the most beautiful places in the nation. It is the center of a vibrant tech industry, it is a bedroom community, it is a light industry city, its lots of things.

As for that skyline, well, San Jose would have a quite a healthy skyline if it weren't for the airport. Then again, the airport is probably the closest airport to any downtown in America, its right there.

[jodelli]

It certainly doesn't have the most impressive skyline, but it's not the least impressive: San Antonio has even fewer buildings over 15 stories high.



It perhaps has a fewer number of +15 story buildings but San Antonio's skyline is much more impressive than San Jose, including spires back to the 1920's.

Maybe that matters on a forum named SkyscraperPage. But a year or two back I asked a couple going to visit San Jose 'why?'. They apparently had a good time.

[LMich]

With a 2.1 percent, 21,000-person population jump in 2008, San Jose recorded its biggest annual percentage population growth so far this decade. About half of the city's housing growth last year was due to annexation of unincorporated land.

Out of genuine curiosity, how much land have they annexed since 2000? San Jose is relatively small as cities of its kind go, but I had no idea they were still physically expanding. At least for 2000, San Jose was relatively close in land area with Detroit, Atlanta, and Philly as large cities go.

[blade_bltz]

If the A's move to SJ, I might have a reason to go down there.

[pizzaguy]

It is indeed a population milestone, but one that has very little of the meaning one might expect. San Jose is a big Riverside, not a small LA.

Even compared with similarly sprawling suburban California cities like San Diego and Sacramento, San Jose is utterly lacking in significant urbanity.

Despite a few brights spots and some random flecks of new urbanity (you can live above the swanky upscale mall at Santana Row!), it remains a sprawling, low-density carpet of one and two story houses, wide expressways clogged with traffic and channeled through high blank walls, shopping plazas, office parks and chintzy strip malls.

There are few cyclists and even fewer pedestrians in 95% of San Jose, and the anemic, low-slung, low-energy 'downtown' that never recovered from the urban renewal bulldozers of the mid-20th century is one of California's most depressing.
You say that like it's a bad thing.

[The Agonist]

It may not be true anymore, but I saw data circa 2000 that showed more commuters from SF metro to SJ metro than the reverse (which probably just shows how much more people would rather live in SF/East Bay over SJ).

Here is a recent article that makes it seem like not such a bad place. http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/travel/escapes/17Amer.html?scp=2&sq=silicon%20valley&st=cse

WHILE on a bike ride in the hills behind Stanford University, I was helping a fellow cyclist fix a flat tire when a rental car full of lost Italian tourists pulled over. Clutching a map in his hands, the driver beseeched us, “Can you tell us where we can go to see Silicon Valley?”

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/04/17/travel/escapes/0417-esc-webAMERICANmap.jpg

The cyclist, Tony Fadell, an Apple engineer who led the iPod and iPhone design teams, and I grinned at each other, but we had to sympathize with the driver’s plight. Perhaps more than any region, Silicon Valley has transformed the world in the last half century. Yet exploring — or even finding — this patchwork quilt of high-tech research and development centers, factories and California suburbia can be baffling. That’s because the valley is as much a state of mind as it is a physical place.

Consensus has it that Silicon Valley — a phrase first used by the journalist Don C. Hoefler in the early 1970s to describe the home of an emerging chip industry — is defined as the southern half of the San Francisco Bay Area. It stretches north of Palo Alto toward the San Francisco airport, spills over the Santa Cruz Mountains to the southwest, and sprawls to the east and south of San Jose.

But in a tangle of freeways and low-slung technology design and marketing campuses, trying to find the real Silicon Valley is no easy task. Certainly, there are the corporate headquarters like those of Apple, Cisco, Google, Intel and Yahoo that line Highways 101 and 280, but viewing them from a distance only brushes the surface of what is the nation’s — and the world’s — high-tech heartland.

The region has given us the semiconductor chip, the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet and Google, and yet there remains an ethereal quality about Silicon Valley — fitting, as the workings of a computer are essentially the invisible flow of electrical pulses. Even so, it’s possible — and enjoyable — to find touchstones of the valley’s history, and explore the technology that has emerged from it.

The technological powerhouse that displaced Santa Clara County’s fruit orchards grew in part from the vision of Frederick Terman, the dean of engineering at Stanford, who as early as the 1930s sought to create an industry so his students wouldn’t have to leave the valley for electronics firms in the East.

Once defined by its factories, Silicon Valley is now more synonymous with product design and interactive digital media. The digital technologies incubated there have transformed each industry they touched — music, Hollywood, newspapers and books, to name a few.

Riding the exponentially increasing power of the computer chip, the valley has demonstrated the ability to reinvent itself relentlessly. And each new generation of technology has been quickly cannibalized by the following one, in a perfect enactment of the economist Joseph Schumpeter’s notion of creative destruction.

In the Silicon Valley creation story, mainframe computers begat minicomputers, which begat personal computers, which begat laptops and today’s “smart” cellphones.

When I was growing up in Palo Alto in the 1950s, Santa Clara County still retained much of its original agricultural spirit, which early on had led it to be known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight. The county once produced a large percentage of the nation’s prunes, and orchards and pastures occupied a meaningful percentage of the space between Palo Alto and San Jose.

The temperature always seemed to be somewhere near 70 degrees, the fog that so often drenched San Francisco during the summers was held at bay by the Santa Cruz Mountains that are the backbone of the San Francisco peninsula, and traffic still hadn’t reached Los Angeles proportions.

A strong regional conservation movement that has preserved tens of thousands of acres has made it possible to enjoy some of the region’s original pristine quality. Two favorites for short hikes are Windy Hill and Monte Bello, open space trusts in the hills above Portola Valley and Palo Alto.

But it is what has taken place indoors that has secured Silicon Valley’s place in the nation’s folklore. Images of Bill and Dave (Hewlett and Packard) and the two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) tinkering in their garages are emblematic of how teams of inspired inventors and entrepreneurs can create entirely new industries.

Today it is possible to drive down a quiet street in the Palo Alto neighborhood known as Professorville, just off the Stanford campus, where at 367 Addison Avenue, you can then peek over the fence at the 12-foot-by-18-foot garage where Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard, both Stanford graduates, with the encouragement of Mr. Terman, built an audio oscillator for Walt Disney Studios in 1939. The spot, however, is marked only by a modest plaque.

Another, more cerebral way to observe the forces that power Silicon Valley is to drive through the Googleplex in Mountain View and see the Googlers — most of whom appear to still be of college age — tooling around on their bicycles and Segways. Then, cross town to Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park and watch the venture capitalists come and go in their BMWs and their Porsches.

For a more conventional interpretation, drive south a few miles along the 101 freeway to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Now ensconced in a splashy high-tech building that was originally occupied by Silicon Graphics, once a valley high-flier (and recently sold off out of bankruptcy to Rackable Systems), the museum is perhaps the best way to actually touch and feel Silicon Valley history.

A copy of the original Babbage Engine, arguably the first computing machine ever designed, is now on display, as well as a room full of early computers. My favorite is the Alto, the Xerox PC that is the forerunner of our modern personal computers.

Thirteen miles south in San Jose, the Tech Museum of Innovation offers a hands-on experience for younger visitors. For more tech history, Intel has an in-house museum, as does the NASA Ames Research Center.

Over the last four decades, the dream of being the next Jobs or Wozniak has captured the world’s imagination and turned the valley into a global crossroads.

Nowhere is that more clear than on a visit to the Naz 8 Cinemas in Fremont, the manufacturing community southeast of San Francisco Bay. Billed as the first multicultural entertainment multiplex, it shows Bollywood movies from India as well as films from Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Taiwan, Korea and the Philippines on eight screens with 3,000 seats and 5,000 parking places.

That diversity is immediately apparent almost anywhere in Silicon Valley. You can see it on Castro Street in Mountain View, dotted with a proliferation of ethnic restaurants. Elsewhere, you can turn down a street seemingly at random and find the shop signs are all in Chinese or Spanish or Vietnamese.

Standout restaurants include La Costeña, a hole-in-the-wall grocery in Mountain View that has great burritos (and a Guinness World Record claim for making the largest), and Evvia in Palo Alto, which serves a spectacular version of arnisia paidakia, or lamb chops.

Given the cycles of boom and bust, and innovation and imitation, perhaps the favorite sport of valley-watchers is trying to predict the Next Big Thing.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, when new obstacles to immigration were erected, it appeared the United States was on the verge of stanching the flow of the region’s most precious resource: intellectual capital.

But eight years later the valley continues to thrive, even in a deep recession. There are hints that the green technology fad that has swept the venture capital community here in recent years may translate into a return to manufacturing. Heavily financed startups like Nanosolar in San Jose and MiaSolé in Santa Clara are building factories. A co-founder of PayPal, Elon Musk, is designing the battery-powered Tesla automobiles in San Carlos.

The future of Silicon Valley can probably best be pondered from the terrace of Thomas Fogarty Winery & Vineyards, on Skyline Boulevard in the Santa Cruz Mountains, with all the valley spread out beneath you.

From there, a glass of wine in hand, you can gaze down at the unremarkable patchwork of offices and suburbs that has changed the way the world works. It’s obviously the place I should have directed the lost Italians.

[dktshb]

Hint: Most people don't even realize San Jose exists unless they're humming Dionne Warwick. "Bay Area" means San Francisco and Oakland.

I wouldn't expect you to know anything about Bellevue anymore than you should expect people to acknowledge San Jose.
San Jose is more recognizable than Bellevue. I would assume most people think of San Jose too as part of the Bay Area. Hell, San Jose even has its own airport and professional Hockey team.

[krudmonk]

Out of genuine curiosity, how much land have they annexed since 2000? San Jose is relatively small as cities of its kind go, but I had no idea they were still physically expanding. At least for 2000, San Jose was relatively close in land area with Detroit, Atlanta, and Philly as large cities go.
The land annexed is largely pockets within. The borders aren't really expanding outward because it's either hills, bay or other cities in the way.
It may not be true anymore, but I saw data circa 2000 that showed more commuters from SF metro to SJ metro than the reverse (which probably just shows how much more people would rather live in SF/East Bay over SJ).
More people go from New Jersey to Manhattan than vice versa. Think about how desperate your rationale looks now. "SF metro to SJ metro" could easily be Frmont to Milpitas or Menlo Park to Palo Alto. No need to bring your usual European vibrant diversity culture crap into another thread.

[JSantos]

This thread is so misled. First of all, San Jose is completely autonomous from SF and that becomes more apparent each year. Different city, different culture.

Second - "Most of San Jose is a suburb of the job centers of Silicon Valley, not San Francisco really. Part of SJ could be considered Silicon Valley, but most of the job centers are slightly to the north and west of SJ."

The largest technology cluster in the entire world is in San Jose (The Golden Triangle). There isn't a single other tech cluster anywhere that is even 1/3 the size of the one in SJ. Most of the technology allowing you to browse this thread right now (or do most of the things you take for granted) would not be possible without the semiconductor technology developed in SJ.

Third - I go to downtown San Jose almost every weekend, and it seems to become more vibrant and culturally significant every time I go. There is plenty to see and do. Hundreds of restaurants representing every ethnic background you can think of, comedy clubs, dozens of bars/nightclubs/lounges, diverse foot traffic... all within easy walking distance. While retail space is closing down in other cities, you're seeing more infill in downtown each month. I know this is difficult for people in SF to understand because for as liberal as you guys are, it's funny how you stick with stereotypes and prejudices of SJ that are far outdated. If you stepped outside your bubble and came to SJ during a Jazz festival, comedy show, or heck even stopped by on a Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun... maybe you would be a little less naive about your neighbor.

[fflint]

You say that like it's a bad thing.
You ask that question as if cycling doesn't successfully work to reduce our record rates of obesity and associated chronic diseases, our air pollution, our rate of global warming, our murderous Middle Eastern oil wars, and the rate at which 40,000 are slaughtered annually by motorists in the US.

I understand how it is in sprawlburbia--cycling from a low-density subdivision to a low-density office park across 30 miles of motor speedway is unsafe and impractical. It's a legitimate criticism of places like San Jose--it is built for private motorized transportation, not for public transit, cycling or walking. San Jose's physical design strongly incentivizes the most wasteful, polluting, unhealthy and irresponsible of transportation modes.

Thank you for asking me to explain that point.

[bearflagger]

Thanks WonderlandPark for the welcome, and cheers to the Angelenos in this thread. Although we're 300 miles away I think our two cities have many similarities, although of course we can only dream to be the economic and cultural titan that your great city is.

And I also understand that this is a website about skyscrapers, which is why we're on here. SJ is sorely lacking in a postcard perfect skyline, but within the last 20 years it has improved greatly. Even with our height restrictions, I'm optimistic that our city will only continue to densify and create an interesting and vibrant core. We're starting to create the building blocks like the expansion of lightrail, BART extension, and HSR all converging downtown. Once our downtown was completely abandoned but we're starting to have people move into the newly built condo towers and apartment buildings. And of course, we're hopeful for the coming of MLB. I know these are small steps, but cities take time and energy to grow, and SJ is doing the right things.

[Gordo]

It may not be true anymore, but I saw data circa 2000 that showed more commuters from SF metro to SJ metro than the reverse (which probably just shows how much more people would rather live in SF/East Bay over SJ).

Depending on what data they were using, SF metro would include San Mateo County and possibly Alameda County. It's not a stretch at all to assume that more people from San Mateo-San Francisco-Alameda-Contra Costa-Marin commute south over people from Santa Clara-San Benito commute north. Commuters from places like Menlo Park (which borders Santa Clara County but is 40 miles for San Francisco) are more likely to "leave" the SF metro than commuters from places like Palo Alto.

The primary job centers in the SF metro are in downtown SF and downtown Oakland. The primary job center in the Santa Clara metro stretches to the borders of the county on both sides (up against San Mateo County and Alameda County).

There is a decent amount of reverse commuting (SF-Silicon Valley), but in the whole scheme of things it's pretty minor. SF and Silicon Valley were always job destinations themselves - Silicon Valley never developed as a "suburb" of SF (though certainly proximity to SF, Stanford, and Berkeley helped).

[Gordo]

Second - "Most of San Jose is a suburb of the job centers of Silicon Valley, not San Francisco really. Part of SJ could be considered Silicon Valley, but most of the job centers are slightly to the north and west of SJ."

The largest technology cluster in the entire world is in San Jose (The Golden Triangle). There isn't a single other tech cluster anywhere that is even 1/3 the size of the one in SJ. Most of the technology allowing you to browse this thread right now (or do most of the things you take for granted) would not be possible without the semiconductor technology developed in SJ.

Okay dude, I said nothing negative about San Jose and stick by my assertion (based on facts, you know) that more jobs in Silicon Valley are outside of SJ rather than in it. It's just because of random municipal boundaries.

On top of that, pull out a map and take a look - the "Golden Triangle" is the area bordered by 101, 880, and 237. I'll let you get back to me on how much of that is within the boundaries of SJ. On top of that, I would guess that now there are more jobs outside of the Golden Triangle than there are within it. Many of the biggest companies of the last 30 years aren't based or have operations within that area, yet are still within what most people would call Silicon Valley.

[hudkina]

As of 2000, 15.8% of the jobs in the San Jose MSA were held by residents of the San Francisco MSA. That represented 152,196 jobs.

On the flipside, only 4.3% of the jobs in the San Francisco MSA were held by residents of the San Jose MSA. That represented 89,639 jobs.

Granted, that only shows how important the Silicon Valley is for jobs. Many of the people who work in the Silicon Valley live in the southern portions of Alameda and San Mateo Counties as well as the city of San Jose.

[fflint]

As of 2000, 15.8% of the jobs in the San Jose MSA were held by residents of the San Francisco MSA. That represented 152,196 jobs.

On the flipside, only 4.3% of the jobs in the San Francisco MSA were held by residents of the San Jose MSA. That represented 89,639 jobs.

Granted, that only shows how important the Silicon Valley is for jobs. Many of the people who work in the Silicon Valley live in the southern portions of Alameda and San Mateo Counties as well as the city of San Jose.
It also shows San Francisco's pull extends to workers all the way down in Silicon Valley. I know a few people with jobs in Cupertino, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara who are willing to 'go the extra mile'--long commutes, high rents--in order to live in San Francisco proper.

[leftopolis]

You ask that question as if cycling doesn't successfully work to reduce our record rates of obesity and associated chronic diseases, our air pollution, our rate of global warming, our murderous Middle Eastern oil wars, and the rate at which 40,000 are slaughtered annually by motorists in the US.

I understand how it is in sprawlburbia--cycling from a low-density subdivision to a low-density office park across 30 miles of motor speedway is unsafe and impractical. It's a legitimate criticism of places like San Jose--it is built for private motorized transportation, not for public transit, cycling or walking. San Jose's physical design strongly incentivizes the most wasteful, polluting, unhealthy and irresponsible of transportation modes.

Thank you for asking me to explain that point.
Oh please! You're being a bit melodramitic...and exagerating, about the very place you evidently grew up in, to make your point. Really, you're losing your most likely supporter--for more than 2 decades, I biked around Silicon Valley, refusing to own/use a car. I even rode over-the-hill (to Santa Cruz for non-locals reading this--60 mile round trip w/ a climb to 2,600ft), on many occasions.

Point being, either you haven't been around San Jose recentlly, or you want to paint a picture of it based on the past: Very few of the typical bicycle commuters, have a 15 mile one way trip. In SJ itself--which this thread is about--it might be possible, but unlikely. San Jose is roughly a 10 by 15 mile rectangle.

SJ evolved during an era of the hight of low density suburbia. Roughly 2 generations ago, in 1950, it's population was 95,000 people--not even in the 100K+ club(which CA now boasts around 70 such cities). It's been at least a decade since that kind of development has been practical or even possible(we're locked in by hillls/mtns, urban growth boundry, and legislated greenspace...there's no room to grow, but up). The most typical developments of today, revolve around tearing up 1 and 2 story buildings, and replacing them with 4-8 story structures that tend to be mixed-use and/or if not, residential(in that same hight range) within close proximity to offices(of that same hight range). SJ has been the strongest local advocate in creating an environment in The Golden Triangle and North First Sreet areas...which balances the live/work locally environment, including public transportation options. Yeah, we've got a ways to go--but what city doesn't? Sure, there's a main grid of wider avenues, but SJ and other SV cities were among the first advocates of incorporating bicycle lanes as a matter of policy, going back to the '70s. We've also got some long residential streets that bicyclists tend to favor, while avoiding expressways and blvds. Furthermore, wide sidewalks for walking, are the norm, here. They just don't exist on a few 50mph expressways, but then most people wouldn't want to walk there.

The typical bicycle commuter around here these days, is able to take care of most transportation needs, within a few miles at most(including getting to light-rail or commuter train)...It's disengenuous to claim otherwise. Current Development Planning is also an indicator of the future evolution of the area: it's all geared towards the no-car-needed utopia that you speak of.

[leftopolis]

Out of genuine curiosity, how much land have they annexed since 2000? San Jose is relatively small as cities of its kind go, but I had no idea they were still physically expanding. At least for 2000, San Jose was relatively close in land area with Detroit, Atlanta, and Philly as large cities go.

It's not expanding outward...just filling in by annexing numerous, smallish pockets (of 50-150 acres typically), which had been unincorporated yet surrounded by city. If you're looking for an exact figure--it probably hasn't added much to the 178.2 sq. mile figure I'm familiar with--maybe a mile or two at most.

Here it is from the source (San Jose's Website):
County Island Annexations (http://www.sanjoseca.gov/planning/annex/) -- At the link, you'll find charts including acreage and maps of the locations.
In April 2006, the San José City Council launched a three to five year program in which the City of San José will annex the remaining “islands” (or “pockets”) of less than 150 acres of unincorporated County of Santa Clara land. Unincorporated islands are governed by and receive services from the County even though they are completely or substantially surrounded by incorporated, or City lands.

[plinko]

On an interesting note, San Jose is suprisingly 2X as dense as either San Antonio or Phoenix.

To me personally, the area has always born a substantial resemblance to LA's San Gabriel Valley cities, with San Jose being similar to Pasadena. But I don't know it well enough to really say so.

[krudmonk]

A lesson in fflint think:

- San Jose is a suburb because many people there commute to neighboring cities in Silicon Valley

- San Francisco is so great that many people there choose to commute all the way to Silicon Valley

[fflint]

A lesson in fflint think:

- San Jose is a suburb because many people there commute to neighboring cities in Silicon Valley

- San Francisco is so great that many people there choose to commute all the way to Silicon Valley
If you'd like to engage in a rational debate on the merits of the points raised in this thread, you just let me know.

Or, you know, you can just keep throwing fallacies like a toddler throws a fit. Your choice.

[krudmonk]

If you'd like to engage in a rational debate on the merits of the points raised in this thread, you just let me know.

Or, you know, you can just keep throwing fallacies like a toddler throws a fit. Your choice.
Fallacies? I just pointed out a clear double standard. Calling me a baby first won't win you any debates.

[JSantos]

Since you guys are bringing up biking. You should take a look at this article: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12203581?source=most_viewed.

Not all of those projects are in SJ, but it shows that the region is investing in bicyclists. Here is a quote I like:

"The most visible — and most expensive — new addition is the 500-foot-long, 16-foot-wide bridge linking Mary Avenue between Cupertino and Sunnyvale over I-280. It cost nearly $15 million and will be the lone bicycle bridge running over a state freeway held up only by cables — 44 of them that connect to white, almost diamond-shaped, 90-foot, 65-ton steel towers on each end."

I have driven by this bridge a few times and it looks amazing. Unfortunately the image below is the only one I could find:

http://transbay.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/mary_ave_bridge1.jpg?w=250&h=333

[krudmonk]

Here's a group of SJ people who bike around town just for fun, but I suspect they're actually in cars made to look like bikes.

http://www.sjbikeparty.org/

[JSantos]

If you'd like to engage in a rational debate on the merits of the points raised in this thread, you just let me know.

Or, you know, you can just keep throwing fallacies like a toddler throws a fit. Your choice.

I have nothing against SF, but I have to say you aren't representing your city well and your rationale is weak.

[fflint]

I even rode over-the-hill (to Santa Cruz for non-locals reading this--60 mile round trip w/ a climb to 2,600ft), on many occasions.
You're a strong guy. I've never even tried that.

Point being, either you haven't been around San Jose recentlly
All last weekend.

or you want to paint a picture of it based on the past: Very few of the typical bicycle commuters, have a 15 mile one way trip. In SJ itself--which this thread is about--it might be possible, but unlikely. San Jose is roughly a 10 by 15 mile rectangle.
I don't have any numbers on typical bike commuters in San Jose--can you share what you've got?

I did find these findings from a Portland State University study I found hosted on UC Davis' website:

[T]here are some cities with higher than average bicycle infrastructure, but lower than average bicycle commuting – San Diego, San Jose, and Riverside, CA, for example. All three cities have low rainfall, which should be conducive to cycling. However, they also have lower than average densities and higher than average auto ownership rates. This might imply that providing bicycle lanes and paths in more auto oriented cities may not correlate well with increased bicycle commuting. However, Sacramento, CA and Portland, OR have similar population densities and higher than average vehicle ownership rates, yet much higher bicycle commuting and infrastructure.

http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/handy/ESP178/Dill_bike_facilities.pdf

So I'm not ready to concede the larger point: San Jose does appear to have relatively few cyclists compared to other western cities. Why that is, if not city layout and street design, I cannot say.

The typical bicycle commuter around here these days, is able to take care of most transportation needs, within a few miles at most(including getting to light-rail or commuter train)...It's disengenuous to claim otherwise.
Let's see the data you've got on typical bike commuters in San Jose, and discuss why there are so few overall, and perhaps I'll be shown to be disingenous--perhaps not. It may very well be that SJ has a lower proportion of cyclists than Oakland, Portland, SF, Seattle, Sacramento and so on precisely because long-haul commuters avoid the bike altogether. Or that might not be why. I can't say for sure.

I found an article on Silicon Valley bike commutes and I'll post that in its own post.

[fflint]

Bicycle commute not easy in Silicon Valley

Aug 20, 2007
Oakland Tribune
Mike Swift

The morning commute is winding down when Caltrain 233 reaches Redwood City on its way to San Francisco, but Gui Shearin, toting a worn black leather briefcase, a laptop and a bicycle, still struggles to find a place in the train's bike car.

A 14-year veteran of a daily bike-train commute, the transportation planner leaves a little later to avoid the crush of bike commuters to San Francisco. But he doesn't see the same crowds when he takes his bike south on the train for a meeting in San Jose.

While Silicon Valley champions the environment like few places on Earth, climbing into Priuses and paying premiums for alternative energy, most people here aren't willing to ditch their automobile to get to work. Commuting by bike, train or sidewalk "just doesn't work" for most people, said Shearin, who specializes in alternate transit.

In a state where transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, a recent U.S. Census Bureau report suggests San Jose's daily commute is hardly stemming global warming.

Among the 50 U.S. cities with the largest work forces, San Jose ranks 45th in the percentage of workers who walk to work.

There are few places in America where people spend more weekend time in spandex on $2,000 bicycles riding through the nearby foothills, but the share of commuters who bike to work in Portland, Ore., Minneapolis, Seattle and San Francisco -- cities where the weather occasionally falls short of ideal -- is at least four times higher than in San Jose.

And despite the iconic Southern California image of the solo driver on a clogged L.A. freeway, Los Angeles commuters are three times more likely to use transit than commuters who live in San Jose, the 2005 census data shows.

In fact, the percentage of San Jose commuters who use transit trails every large California city, except Fresno.

Nearly two-thirds of transit riders in Santa Clara County have no choice -- they don't have access to a car, according to a recent VTA survey. But the largest share of the Valley's transit market -- more affluent, well-educated professionals dubbed "Movers & Shakers" in VTA's demographic analysis -- is not "transit tolerant," willing to accept the inevitable small discomforts of public transportation, like sharing a bus seat with a stranger.

One reason why people haven't abandoned their cars may be because there's little incentive -- four in five workers in Santa Clara County in 2005 had a commute to work shorter than 35 minutes, according to the census bureau. Meanwhile, a light rail trip from the Santa Teresa station in South San Jose to Cisco Way on the north side of town takes about an hour.

In a fast-paced business culture where time is precious, and where development patterns were set decades ago around the automobile, encouraging people not to drive is a struggle to retrofit a place as well as to change behavior.

"The irony is we have a physical environment and weather that would make alternatives like biking and walking ideal, more so than almost anywhere else in the country. But we still have the land-use patterns and the lack of transit alternatives that have locked people into their cars," said Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and a member of the California Transportation Commission.

Guardino, a leading advocate of bringing BART to San Jose, bikes about 15 miles to work from Los Gatos to San Jose several days a week and has been working with the valley's major companies to encourage workers to try biking or other alternatives to driving alone to get to work.

And he's found support in business leaders like Dave Dutton, CEO of Mattson Technology, who uses a battered Huffy and the ACE commuter train several days a week to commute from Tracy to his office in Fremont.

"It is more efficient than you'd think," said Dutton, who recently raffled off eight Specialized bikes to Mattson employees to promote bike commuting. "I'll get about 45 minutes of work done."

Dutton says his concerns about air pollution and global warming helped prompt him to bike to work. It's not easy, though. After a one-mile bike to the Tracy station, he must catch a train as early as 4:50 a.m. when he has an early meeting, and he has to leave the office soon after 5 to bike the eight miles to catch the train home.

Those time constraints can be a problem. "Because we have a lot of ties into Asia, people interface at different hours of the day, so they need more flexibility," Dutton said.

Planners like Shearin say land use is inextricably linked to transit -- unless both homes and jobs are convenient to transit, people must drive, no matter how green they are.

Silicon Valley is making limited progress on land use. The share of newly approved housing to be built near transit increased for the third year in a row in 2006,7 reaching 40 percent of all new permits, according to the 2007 Index of Silicon Valley report prepared by Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network.

But for nonresidential development, however, the square footage being built close to transit in 2006 decreased to its lowest since 1998, the index found.

That isn't necessarily a problem, said Chris Augenstein, transportation planning manager for the VTA. Big employers on the light rail line include eBay, Lockheed Martin and Cisco Systems, which provides hundreds of employees with free and subsidized VTA rides.

"We need more housing along the corridor now. We already have a lot of jobs," Augenstein said.

But Dutton says the gap between the transit stop and the office cubicle is a problem. From Mattson's offices on Bayside Parkway in Fremont, it's at least six miles to BART, ACE or VTA light rail. Mattson, which makes equipment for the fabrication of semiconductors, is searching for partners to fund a shuttle to those transit systems.

"People want to do it," Dutton said of transit. "To me, it's helping to enable the system so they can do it."

As he rode Caltrain toward San Francisco, Shearin reflected on the frustrations of getting people out of their cars in places like Silicon Valley. Caltrain says bike commuters like Shearin are increasing -- in fact, the system is at maximum capacity for transporting bikes -- but three times more bikes board in San Francisco than in San Jose.

Spread-out suburbs like Silicon Valley require an automobile, Shearin said, not just to get to work, but to drop the kids at day care, to pick up the dry cleaning or for shopping.

"If you started polling people in Silicon Valley, I think you would find a majority of them, maybe two-thirds, would want to do something environmentally conscious. But what actually works for them is a different matter."

Even proposals like extending BART to San Jose "are like putting lipstick on a pig," Shearin said. "It's not that we shouldn't do it. But we're not going to undo 50 years of planning for the automobile."

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20070820/ai_n19473755/

[fflint]

I have nothing against SF, but I have to say you aren't representing your city well and your rationale is weak.
I'm not representing anything. I'm discussing San Jose as it reaches the million resident milestone--it's still a sprawling, autocentric mess. If we're going to hand out cookies because SJ is making some progress in densification and bike lanes and transit--all good things--then we must also acknowledge the bad conditions that make such progress so necessary.

[fflint]

Fallacies? I just pointed out a clear double standard. Calling me a baby first won't win you any debates.
No, you put up a fallacious strawman, claimed it was my argument, and then proceeded to knock it over.

[leftopolis]

(editted for brevity)
You're a strong guy. I've never even tried that. Actually....was. The over-the-hill rides were a few years back. The climb was a bitch, but the several miles of non-stop coasting downhill, was a thrill. These days, I'm suffering from a total of 4 chronic/terminal late-stage tick-borne diseases, and on the day or two a week that I'm able to even get out of the house at all...I'll ride my recumbent a mile to to the 24hr health club for a sauna.

I don't have any numbers on typical bike commuters in San Jose--can you share what you've got?

If I come across something, I'll pass it on...but I'm kinda tapped-out energy-wise for today. Maybe for now we can agree that ALL cities have something positive about them, along with some short-comings.

BTW, this is the disingenuous comment which you failed to adress, while going off on some tangent(not bothering to bold it this time):
I understand how it is in sprawlburbia--cycling from a low-density subdivision to a low-density office park across 30 miles of motor speedway You must have a list of names, of the various "30 miles of motor speedway"--in San Jose. I can't think of a single road that goes for a 30 mile stretch through SJ. While you're at it, we San Joseans don't call any of our roads, "motor speedways", so you can explain that too! I suppose you conceded to my point that it's been years since anything "low-density", was being built.

[krudmonk]

No, you put up a fallacious strawman, claimed it was my argument, and then proceeded to knock it over.
Oh, you didn't make these points?
San Jose is noteworthy as one of the only 'big cities' in America that actually loses population during the workday to smaller suburbs nearby.

San Joseans drive out of their subdividions on big wide roadways and cross out of San Jose city limits to their jobs in Santa Clara, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and other Silicon Valley office parks. Then, they flood back in to their driveways at the end of the workday.

It also shows San Francisco's pull extends to workers all the way down in Silicon Valley. I know a few people with jobs in Cupertino, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara who are willing to 'go the extra mile'--long commutes, high rents--in order to live in San Francisco proper.
All I did was put the two statements together for comparison. Inconsistency is evident. People from two cities commute to the same area: one is derided and the other praised.

[Black Box]

^Good points there. By stating that San Jose is a sprawling mess that isn't worth it's one million, yet claiming it as a part of San Francisco is provincial. Deciding to live in one place, yet commuting long distances to work, is considered reasonable in our culture. It's all lifestyle choices. The variety of our choices are complicated and blurry, it's a fine mess of lines. Here's to your milestone, San Jose (btw, I know my way).

[fflint]

All I did was put the two statements together for comparison. Inconsistency is evident. People from two cities commute to the same area: one is derided and the other praised.
Except your claim to inconsistency fails because you are misrepresenting what I argued in this thread in the first place. Epic fail. Stop lying.

You claim I argued "San Jose is a suburb because many people there commute to neighboring cities in Silicon Valley." I did not argue "San Jose is a suburb because" anything. Stop lying.

You claim I argued "San Francisco is so great that many people there choose to commute all the way to Silicon Valley." I made no argument "San Francisco is so great" anything. Stop lying.

There's no mystery as to my actual opinions and arguments. It's all above, in the original, and if you're confused I'd be happy to clarify. I've made my points soundly, provided evidence to back them up, and continued to engage on the merits while ignoring the ad hominem diversions.

[krudmonk]

Please explain what you were saying then. I'm not sure why you didn't use your latest post to clarify. Perhaps posturing was more important.

[fflint]

Please explain what you were saying then. I'm not sure why you didn't use your latest post to clarify. Perhaps posturing was more important.
Clarify what, specifically, and why do you constantly indulge in ad hominem? I could be the biggest poser in the world--or any other insult you hurl at me--and my posts in this thread are still well-reasoned and supported.

[SLO]

^^your arguments are silly....

Nothing wrong with SJ. It is evolving into a nice city, it only suffers in reputation because SF is up the road and the airport is to close to downtown.
Great weather, some nice neighborhoods, capital of the worlds largest tech center, SJ will be just fine. Its a different place.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Neither is going to Sunset Strip from LA, the Vegas Strip from LV proper or Miami Beach from the city of Miami.


Okay, that was harsh.

Are you saying that the LV Strip isn't in LV?

[LMich]

If you're looking for an exact figure--it probably hasn't added much to the 178.2 sq. mile figure I'm familiar with--maybe a mile or two at most.

That's actually quite a bit larger than I thought it was. That's a good 40-50 sq miles larger than the cities I mentioned it being in league with, land-wise.

[Jeff_in_Dayton]

Just slightly off topic, here is a colorful map of the San Jose region somtime before suburbanization really kicked off. It's from a German "pedagogical atlas", used to teach geography to German schoolkids. I have two of these, and this one is right after the war, early 1950s.

This one shows ag land use around San Jose, which shows up here as a compact little city surrounded by various orchard crops. I've translated the land cover legend, but missed some things. On the map "Flugpl" is flugplatz, or airport, and "Bergwerk" is mining or quarrying. The heavy black lines are railroads, which there seems to be a lot of at that time.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3546/3497486384_fcea27072a_o.jpg

Interesting to study this map. I have no idea what this area looks like today. Placeenames "Campbell" and "Bereyessa" and "Evergreen" appear to be country villages surrounded by plum and apricot orchards.

There is sort of a geography to crops, with "Gemuse" (vegetables) and "Sonstige Obst" (other fruits) between SJ and Alviso, where there is the start of the "sumpf" (wetlands). "Pflaumen" (Plums) more south of SJ and "Apricosen" ( Apricots) more up in to the E/NE around Alum Rock and Berryessa and Evergreen

Anyway, thought this might be fun to look at for the California posters familiar with the area.

(on edit: it looks like Santa Clara was a seperate town that was joined to SJ by the time of this map, somewhat larger than the aforementioned villages in the orchards).

[hudkina]

LMich, in 2000, San Jose had a land area of 174.86 sq. mi., making it one of the larger cities by area. While it's no Texas-sized city, it is generally larger than most cities in the Northeast/Great Lakes area. The 178.2 that leftopolis quoted includes the 3.31 sq. mi. of water within the city limits. My guess is that if much of the 20,000 came from annexation, its land area must be closer to 180 sq. mi.

[krudmonk]

Clarify what, specifically, and why do you constantly indulge in ad hominem?
1. Explain the difference between a San Josean commuting to a job in Cupertino (for example) and a San Franciscan doing the same. How does this reflect on the two cities?

2. Explain how San Jose is more of a "big Riverside" as opposed to a "little L.A.?" What are the implications of this description" One would think Stockton (cheap housing, far removed from jobs) is an infinitely better analogue.
Are you saying that the LV Strip isn't in LV?
Most of it isn't.

[Jeff_in_Dayton]

^
Didn't San Jose have some older prewar high rises in the 8-10 or 15 story range, like Stockton does?

[holladay]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3546/3497486384_fcea27072a_o.jpg


Thanks for posting that, Jeff! It's really interesting. Makes me nostalgic for a past that I wasn't alive to see.

Secondly, I find it remarkable that German students would have had access to such nice cartographic materials. I can't imagine American kids at the time were studying similar materials about Germany.

[hudkina]

Again that shows how San Jose really isn't that different from cities like Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, etc. The biggest difference is that the Silicon Valley opened shop next door creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

[krudmonk]

Again that shows how San Jose really isn't that different from cities like Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, etc.
Isn't different or wasn't different?

[JSantos]

Again that shows how San Jose really isn't that different from cities like Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, etc. The biggest difference is that the Silicon Valley opened shop next door creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Maybe our roots are similar, but even without "Silicon Valley" there is a lot of important history in this area... second city and first capital of California, first radio station in the US, Winchester Mystery house, etc. The magnetic hard drive was invented in SJ long long before there was a Silicon Valley (1954). Also there was an industrial/manufacturing stage that SJ went through before transitioning over to the information age... I don't believe those other 3 cities you mentioned went through something similar.

Currently we have entrepreneurship and innovation embedded in the south bay's culture... and with that you can expect to see as many changes and improvements to SJ in the next 20 years as you have seen in the last 20. I don't think you'll see changes as rapid in the other 1M+ cities in the US, so it will be a fun city to watch and I'm certainly looking forward to experiencing the transitions first-hand.

[fflint]

1. Explain the difference between a San Josean commuting to a job in Cupertino (for example) and a San Franciscan doing the same. How does this reflect on the two cities?
One has a longer commute? I think you're still trying to get at some sort of definition or argument I didn't adopt. Myself, I see the Bay Area as one unit.

2. Explain how San Jose is more of a "big Riverside" as opposed to a "little L.A.?"
I'll back up that observation on population density alone, and more specifically, downtown core population density.

Los Angeles packs more than half of San Jose's entire population--560,138 people--into just the densest 25 contiguous square miles in and around downtown LA. Only New York, Chicago and San Francisco have denser cores, the latter two only slightly.

San Jose doesn't even come close. Only 208,582 people live in the densest 25 contiguous square miles in and around downtown SJ--fewer than in the cores of Seattle, Long Beach, Oakland, San Diego and Houston. Even Santa Ana, in Orange County, has a denser 25 sq. mi. core than San Jose does.

LA has a higher overall population density than San Jose does despite encompassing a largely unpopulated mountain range. LA also has higher transit ridership rates, and more non-motorized commuters than San Jose, and I suspect the significant urban density in LA and lack of urban density in San Jose at least partially explains those differences. You asked, I answered.

[krudmonk]

So now you're going strictly by population density? I already stated before that San Jose is more dense than a considerable number of major American cities. Should I dig up the list?

Also, core population will be significantly boosted in several years when all this crap is complete.
http://sjhighrise.shorturl.com/
(credit goes to Mr Santos, I believe)