How long before California is one continuous suburb? (San Jose, San Francisco: houses, unemployment)

[hydro]

This is the best thread yet. Most of these posts are full of witty, smart speculation. The balance between agricultural and residential zoning seems to be the focus- if the ratio is altered, does the value of the land rise or fall I wonder wonder wonder.

[Majin]

Originally Posted by NYMTman

Compared to the Northeast (DC-NYC-BOS corridor specifically) California is wide open. CA will never be as crowded as the NE corridor due to geography as others have said.

The difference is the east coast is one big city while California is one big suburb.

[10,000Lakes]

I always kind of thought the whole coast was one big connected suburb, with the exception of Camp Pendleton, it's houses, shops and a lot of people up and down te coast.

[sav858]

Originally Posted by Majin

The difference is the east coast is one big city while California is one big suburb.

Right, b/c outside of the cities there are no suburbs in the Northeast at all. It's all Manhattan style apartments and no single family homes anywhere there. And the cities there have never lost population to the suburbs either and Levittown, NY was the first master planned CITY, not a suburban subdivision.

[BlackShoe]

Originally Posted by 10,000Lakes

I always kind of thought the whole coast was one big connected suburb, with the exception of Camp Pendleton, it's houses, shops and a lot of people up and down te coast.

Not at all true.From the Mexican border to roughly Santa Barbara this may be mostly so,but north of there things open up in many areas.Between Morro Bay and Monterey the central coast is sparsely populated,with just a few tiny villages and hamlets such as Cambria.Monterey to San Francisco is solid people.It is 400 miles from SF to the Oregon border,and once you are north of the Bay Area things open up again along the coast.The only real population centers are Ft. Bragg,the Eureka area,the largest by far,and Crescent City.There is even an 80 mile stretch in the King Mountain area commonly called the Lost Coast.Usually accessable by dirt roads,this has become a popular area for wilderness hikers.Californa is a huge state,with great variety of terrain,and most surely is not just one large suburban sprawl with strip malls end to end from border to border.To get a better idea of the geography of California,or any other state for that matter,suggest a good old fashioned hard copy map like Rand McNally and sitting down with a magnifying glass and poring over it for a good while.

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by Majin

The difference is the east coast is one big city while California is one big suburb.

Hahaha, leave your house more...

[Cool Aaron]

I can see the area between SD and SB (mainly closer to the Coast) being semi solidly occupied within the next 100 years or so. I'm no expert, but it's almost already there.

[treedonkey]

It'll never happen, even if you're only talking about COASTAL CA. Too many military bases and other stuff in the way...


For example:
Camp Pendleton (between SD and Orange counties)
Vandenburg AFB (in SLO county)
and several other smaller ones along the coast and inland...

Add to natinal and state preservation areas like:
Redwood NP
Muir Woods
Big Sur (Los Padres SF)
and many smaller ones along the coast and inland...

Not too mention privately owned estates and such that occupy a lot of space.

The good news is that everywhere within 20-50 miles of the pacific (at least between) Mendocino and Imperial County that can realistically be built on already has been. So there's not much room for anything else.

The bad news is that everywhere within 20-50 miles of the pacific (at least between) Mendocino and Imperial County that can realistically be built on already has been. So there's not much room for anything else.

In the past decade or so, places like Manteca, Sonora, and Temecula have seen the most growth, because they're inland where there was still lots of developable land for sale, and because an insane person could still commute to the larger urban hubs of LA and the SF Bay from there. But even there, once you get another half-hour or more drive out it's still mainly farmland or mountains and is no more poised for explosive growth than places like, say, Arkansas and Wyoming.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by treedonkey

It'll never happen, even if you're only talking about COASTAL CA. Too many military bases ... in the way...

It used to be that way until the federal government, in its infinite wisdom under a draft dodger of a president closed so many of them that thousands of military retirees became disenfranchised from their promised post exchance, commisasry and medical benefits, local economies were seriously challenged, unemployment rose and local vendors were forced out of business.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

It used to be that way until the federal government, in its infinite wisdom under a draft dodger of a president closed so many of them that thousands of military retirees became disenfranchised from their promised post exchance, commisasry and medical benefits, local economies were seriously challenged, unemployment rose and local vendors were forced out of business.

Uhm, yeah. . . the Politics and Other Controversies forum is over here. . .