Merge the MSA of SF and SJ? (San Jose, San Francisco: apartments, crime rate)

[Folks3000]

Originally Posted by zombocom

Fairly, I think that initial divide resulted in both areas developing independently, and thus they are still perceived that way.

But are they really perceived that way? Did San Jose really develop independently? Sure it existed by itself, but by the time is started to really pack on the numbers wasn't the sprawl from San Francisco almost there? If only we had time lapse google Earth from that long ago and could watch this all develop. I guess my question is do you think San Jose would have developed the same way if San Francisco and its metro never existed? It just seems like it is absorbing more Bay Area sprawl, really no different than Freemont, Walnut Creek, and now Tracy. It just happens to have very large borders in square mileage. Doesn't the population of San Jose actually decrease during the day?

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by Folks3000

But are they really perceived that way? Did San Jose really develop independently? Sure it existed by itself, but by the time is started to really pack on the numbers wasn't the sprawl from San Francisco almost there? If only we had time lapse google Earth from that long ago and could watch this all develop. I guess my question is do you think San Jose would have developed the same way if San Francisco and its metro never existed? It just seems like it is absorbing more Bay Area sprawl, really no different than Freemont, Walnut Creek, and now Tracy. It just happens to have very large borders in square mileage. Doesn't the population of San Jose actually decrease during the day?

LA practically invented leap frog development and the Bay Area was one of the early adopters. There is no doubt that places like the South Bay, the Far East Bay / Tri Valley and the North Bay grew as much as they did during the Late 20th Century due to proximity to the original core Bay Area urban area. Heck, the SPRR Commuter Line (which eventually became Cal Train) reached the Santa Clara County line in 1865 and downtown SJ not long after that! So there was a degree of leap frog going on even before cars and freeways came on the scene.

[MarketSleuth]

Originally Posted by HockeyMac18

Here's an interesting thought experiment, though. If you took away the county borders, where are the "edges"? I certainly can't find the edges on any map.

Originally Posted by darkeconomist

Depends on the map. If your map was one of where people lived and worked, and therefore showed the commute flows, there would be obvious interfaces that represented the rough border between two zones. It would a lot like where outward river flows hit the ocean to create a marshy, muddy, brown mess; on one side is clearly one zone, the river, and on the other side of that mess is the salty water of the ocean.

Probably are never clear-cut "edges" for any real market.

If SJ is truly separate, and SF-Oak are truly united, then there would probably be 2 transition zones; one on the Peninsula, and another along the East Bay.

It would be very interesting to examine your suggestion of mapping commute flows, and where these rough borders ("obvious interfaces") would be.

In the absence of such mapping, any speculation?

Or, is it more likely that such mapping (ignoring county boundaries) might reveal that the territory adjoining the Bay is highly interconnected, and that the transition zone would be only to the exterior?

[GioLM]

SF and SJ are no more different than SF and Oakland, maybe just slightly less commuters comparc to the Oakland->SF route. However, Caltrain between SF and SJ during commuter hours is always packed.

[darkeconomist]

Originally Posted by MarketSleuth

Probably are never clear-cut "edges" for any real market.

If SJ is truly separate, and SF-Oak are truly united, then there would probably be 2 transition zones; one on the Peninsula, and another along the East Bay.

It would be very interesting to examine your suggestion of mapping commute flows, and where these rough borders ("obvious interfaces") would be.

In the absence of such mapping, any speculation?

Or, is it more likely that such mapping (ignoring county boundaries) might reveal that the territory adjoining the Bay is highly interconnected, and that the transition zone would be only to the exterior?

Obviously, I've staked my claim, that SF/Oakland and Santa Clara County are individual entities, even with some minor overlap in commuters between the two.

Originally Posted by GioLM

SF and SJ are no more different than SF and Oakland, maybe just slightly less commuters comparc to the Oakland->SF route. However, Caltrain between SF and SJ during commuter hours is always packed.

There are 22k riders on Caltrain in the morning peak hours. See slide 6.

There are 900k workers in Santa Clara County. The numbers aren't even close.

Meanwhile, several times the CalTrain volume is carried in to SF through the transbay tube. SF and Oakland are far more closely linked than SF and SJ.

It's not for nothing that SF and Oakland are neighbors across the bay, whereas SF and Santa Clara County have this little thing called all of San Mateo County between them. It's a big difference and it matters.

[HockeyMac18]

Originally Posted by GioLM

SF and SJ are no more different than SF and Oakland, maybe just slightly less commuters comparc to the Oakland->SF route. However, Caltrain between SF and SJ during commuter hours is always packed.

Indeed. I ride it almost daily for about ~20 minutes, going from the SF "metro" to the SJ "metro," and I can never get a seat (the seats are filled by the time the train reaches me in San Mateo).

Occasionally, when I'm staying in SF, I'll ride it from there, and it's amazing how many people are going from SF proper to points south near SJ. The express trains are routinely packed beyond seating capacity, and standing/sitting on the stairs is quite common. I'm sure most aren't going to downtown SJ, but many/most are going to the SJ "metro".

[HockeyMac18]

Originally Posted by MarketSleuth

You make several points that are right on the money.
Many statistics are reported using MSAs. Currently SF-Oakland-Hayward MSA ranks number 11, with San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara MSA down in 34th.
When considered more as a whole, the Nielsen TV market ranks 6th, while the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) is number 5.
Look at how Miami is a mirror image of the Bay Area in some important ways.
Miami's TV market rank is 16th, because it does not contain Palm Beach County, which is in a separate DMA (Designated Market Area).
But the MSA does contain Palm Beach County, which pushes the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach MSA up to 8th place.
So, for all those Top Ten lists which use MSA as the criterion, Miami is solidly in at number 8, while the Bay Area is AWOL.
You are correct: it is weird, and it does make things hard to gauge.
It seems reasonable to speculate that it probably also has some negative effects for the Bay Area.

This is actually the main reason I think it's so important to merge them. Routinely SF and SJ's importance on a national level is reduced significantly because many surveys/rankings/studies use MSA for their data. It's not just a few differences in placing/importance either. It's the difference between both cities being perceived as somewhat average/run-of-the-mill metros to being a top 5 metro (which it is) in the U.S.

This really does create weird/odd situations, like the example of Oracle not being included in figures for "silicon valley" (even though I'd imagine most people in real life would agree that Oracle is part of "silicon valley").

[HockeyMac18]

Originally Posted by HockeyMac18

...
18ontclair has also posted pictures in the past showing where the two MSAs split, but I couldn't find it.

Here's the picture I was talking about:


Taken from here:
http://www.city-data.com/forum/23607992-post14.html
http://www.city-data.com/forum/city-...t-coast-2.html

[Folks3000]

Originally Posted by HockeyMac18

This is actually the main reason I think it's so important to merge them. Routinely SF and SJ's importance on a national level is reduced significantly because many surveys/rankings/studies use MSA for their data. It's not just a few differences in placing/importance either. It's the difference between both cities being perceived as somewhat average/run-of-the-mill metros to being a top 5 metro (which it is) in the U.S.

This really does create weird/odd situations, like the example of Oracle not being included in figures for "silicon valley" (even though I'd imagine most people in real life would agree that Oracle is part of "silicon valley").

Agreed, it is an annoying aberration. The Bay Area doesn't get the credit it deserves for its size. Also for the poster above San Mateo County was originally San Francisco County. There was some sort of corruption that led to the formation of San Mateo County. If it was still one county, something tells me the MSA formula might have them merged.

[krudmonk]

aw, poor Bay Area, so neglected :'(