San Diego Among Fastest Growing Major US Cities: US Census (El Cajon: cul-de-sac, real estate market)

[tstieber]

So many great thoughts on here. Yes, population growth will make it more crowded, and being more crowded is only awesome up to a point where there is a nice balance of housing, jobs, transit, walkability, recreation, entertainment, culture, etc. Then comes a tipping point where you become uncomfortably overcrowded, and everything becomes a pain in the butt. With regards to that, we have to accept that population growth is natural, and we won't stop it. And we can rest assured that downtown SD is many decades from being overbuilt. It's also primed for a vibrant and walkable/bikeable lifestyle, with farmers markets, waterfront recreation, nightlife, restaurants, theater, symphony, and Balboa Park all at your feet. Now we'll hopefully add the layer of more jobs.

The challenge in any City Planning is the fact that no matter how hard we try to build transit oriented development and housing near jobs, people live where they want to live despite those choices. San Francisco's traffic woes stem from many things, including people who want to live in the City but commute 40-50 miles south to boring Silicon Valley, the prevalence of ride sharing services clogging the streets as a more personalized mode of public transportation, and people working in the City and living in far suburbs of Marin, the East Bay, the Peninsula, and even Solano County. Some people actually commute to the Central Valley and take 90 minutes to work each day, bc they can't afford to live near their jobs. So commute patterns are all over the place, and they keep changing. We can't successfully chase those patterns and ever expect to keep up. But we can build in ways that minimize land use, so that we're not bulldozing over all our beautiful canyons to build seas of tract homes. The American dream is great, but it's not sustainable in or near big cities. So we build taller and denser, giving people less personal space and more public space and amenities in return. Europeans are used to smaller living quarters, yet Americans expect enormous homes and gardens. It's a faulty paradigm.
There is a time and place for the American suburb, we already have plenty of it, and we should preserve it for those who choose it. We don't need to turn our suburbs into cities. But we also don't need to turn our cities into suburbs. Keep what we got, and densify and redevelop our urban core. Because stemming population growth is something we definitely can't control.

[Finper]

Originally Posted by RosieSD

For those wondering, here are the 10 fastest growing large cities, based on numeric growth (actual number of people moving to the city). Note: It appears that these are just the actual cities, not the Metro areas, i.e. city of San Diego, not San Diego-Carlsbad metro statistical area.

Link to the Census bureau press release, which shows additional information, such as the cities with the biggest percentage increase (not actual numbers), is at the bottom.

1. Phoenix, AZ

2. San Antonio, TX

3. Fort Worth, TX

4. Seattle, WA

5. Charlotte, NC

6. Austin, TX

7. Jacksonville, FL

8. San Diego, CA

9. Denver, CO

10. Frisco City, TX


https://www.census.gov/newsroom/pres...estimates.html

My friends moved to San Antonio and bought a new beautiful home and are thriving there. I'm moving to Phoenix. I also have friends that have left Ca for NC, Jacksonville and Denver. So those stats make sense to me. I think a lot of San Fransiscans are moving to San Diego but it's just something I've noticed... I have no stats on it but it makes sense.

[newgensandiego]

Originally Posted by Losfrisco

I know it's "cool" to mock the mass transit we have available in southern California, but the fact is that the current system we have right here in San Diego is much closer to what you would have in a major metro in Germany or Japan than what you have in Nashville, Austin, Indianapolis, etc.

What on earth are you talking about? I am not mocking San Diego's transit system. I am advocating that we make it better. I've spent plenty of time on this forum educating people about San Diego's transit system.

[newgensandiego]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

Um, no. Well, sort of yes in parts of what you are trying to promote. But:.

Seattle (and Vancouver) have vastly worse traffic congestion than San Diego ... so no, they aren’t good examples.

Seattle’s growth is explosive and crazy. Congestion and traffic make San Diego look like a commuter’s dream.

They are perfect examples. Vancouver and Seattle have increasingly invested in transit and have prioritized denser development in urban areas.

Downtown Vancouver and Seattle have seen a decline in single-occupancy vehicles in urban areas, despite experiencing substantial growth in population.

It's really quite simple:

• Build vertically in urban areas with transit access = no net increase in traffic
• Continue to build suburban sprawl = increase in traffic

Seattle's growth in congestion is a result of them continuing to sprawl. Vancouver's congestion is because they specifically did not cater their transportation system to an automobile.

You formulate your opinion based on how easy it is to drive, not how well a transportation system can move people. There's so much uninformed bias in your argument because you only care about one specific mode of travel. A successful transportation system is one that moves as many people as safely and efficiently as possible. Guess what: That's Seattle and Vancouver. Not San Diego.

So please, continue to advocate for money pit 12-lane highways. Single-occupancy vehicles congesting roads are about as inefficient and unsafe as it gets.

But, yes, it IS possible to cram more people together. The question is: why would that be a good thing? Just because something is possible doesn’t make it a good thing. It’s possible to eat so much you weigh 700 pounds instead of 180. Is that a good thing? How is life improved for everyone by adding millions more to the county?

No matter how you increase efficiency, more people equals more consumption. Infinite growth is not possible in a finite paradigm. And homo sapiens are not designed to live like termites in a mound. In fact, our natural design evolved to live in small social units of fewer than 150 individuals. See Dunbar’s Number: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

Wow, I think you've solved out housing crisis! Get your head out of the sand.

[Jimrob1]

I'm curious concerning this population gain. Where are these new residents coming from, and what income bracket are they in? Does the majority have jobs to afford living in SD. Something is not making sense. A major Calf city becoming fastest growing now days. Yeah right. With an outrageous COL their all moving there in droves. I don't think so, not in this day and age.

[newgensandiego]

Originally Posted by Jimrob1

I'm curious concerning this population gain. Where are these new residents coming from, and what income bracket are they in? Does the majority have jobs to afford living in SD. Something is not making sense. A major Calf city becoming fastest growing now days. Yeah right. With an outrageous COL their all moving there in droves. I don't think so, not in this day and age.

Well, San Diego definitely has its share of highpaying jobs. It's also a cheaper alternative for Californians priced out of the bay area and LA.

Or maybe people are willing to sacrifice money for quality of life. Not everyone wants to live in a 3500SF home in suburban Texas.
Expensive cities with high standards of living around the world continue to boom. San Diego is not unique to this.

[Losfrisco]

Originally Posted by newgensandiego

What on earth are you talking about? I am not mocking San Diego's transit system. I am advocating that we make it better. I've spent plenty of time on this forum educating people about San Diego's transit system.

Well, it seemed that you were saying that San Diego is "auto centric" which I reject. Two major intermodal stations in city limits, commuter rail, metro rail, intercity rail, BRT. If someone hops on the freeway and gets stuck in traffic, they can't say other options weren't available to them.

IMO, its the mentality of the people, not the mass transit system or city planning at issue here. Especially with the Blue Line extension inching towards completion, maybe people can be thankful they live in a city that spends this much on mass transit instead of complaining that the trolley doesn't stop in front of their house in North Park? There are sunbelt/midwest cities approaching 1 million population that barely have basic bus service up and running.

[newgensandiego]

Originally Posted by Losfrisco

Well, it seemed that you were saying that San Diego is "auto centric" which I reject.

96.5% of San Diego metro residents rely on an automobile for basic mobility. We have an extensive freeway system with multiple freeways that are 8+ lanes wide. It's not a subjective statement. It's a fact. All of which is very sad and disappointing because residents have limited, viable mobility options other than cars, which are expensive, polluting, and require extensive infrastructure.

It's an absolute failure of regional leadership that we are at this point. No more widening freeways. There's no room for negotiation.

Two major intermodal stations in city limits, commuter rail, metro rail, intercity rail, BRT. If someone hops on the freeway and gets stuck in traffic, they can't say other options weren't available to them.

Yes, San Diego has a robust transit network, but it's not good enough. The transit mode share says it all. Clearly we aren't investing enough in this mode.

IMO, its the mentality of the people, not the mass transit system or city planning at issue here.

It's both really. Either way, I'm not going to settle for the bare minimum of transit coverage. Service needs to be frequent, reliable, and affordable.

Especially with the Blue Line extension inching towards completion, maybe people can be thankful they live in a city that spends this much on mass transit instead of complaining that the trolley doesn't stop in front of their house in North Park? There are sunbelt/midwest cities approaching 1 million population that barely have basic bus service up and running.

I'm a transit advocate and frankly, I'm not going to settle for "well at least we aren't Phoenix". The sunbelt is not even on my radar for comparison. I want DC, Seattle, Vancouver, Brisbane-level transit investments.

There's plenty of room for improvement. Also, MTS spends the bare minimum of transit, which is why they have both high operating efficiencies and unimpressive headways.

Also, we should have implemented bus lanes on El Cajon Blvd decades ago.

[tstieber]

Newgen, it's true SD is car dependent, but cars needn't be expensive or polluting. Eventually, most cars will be electric, and with ride sharing available, people could carpool and not even own a car, for example. There are ways around those issues.

The problem, and the reason people neither do that nor use enough public transportation, is that commuting patterns no longer follow the suburb-to-city model of the past. For example, our neighbors in Scripps Ranch work all over the place. People criss cross the county for work, so it's difficult to even figure out where to put public transportation. The challenge with fixed rail, for example, is that you're stuck with that line forever, even when demographic shifts change demand; this is something we're seeing in LA, where subway stops in poorer neighborhoods are seeing decreased ridership due to gentrification pushing those riders farther out, past the stops.

I think the better form of local public transportation is dedicated bus lanes. Bus routes are flexible and can adapt to changes in commuting patterns. Make the buses nice and offer wifi, and people may warm up to them.

[snpdragr]

Originally Posted by Jimrob1

I'm curious concerning this population gain. Where are these new residents coming from, and what income bracket are they in? Does the majority have jobs to afford living in SD. Something is not making sense. A major Calf city becoming fastest growing now days. Yeah right. With an outrageous COL their all moving there in droves. I don't think so, not in this day and age.

Mostly births and then some international migration:

https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/d...ensus-20160822

The full article (paywalled) https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...r24-story.html