How unique is the Bay Area? (Los Angeles, San Diego: house, employment, buy)

[edsg25]

I'd like to make a contention here about the Bay Area: IT IS UNIQUE. And I'm interested in how you assess my perspective, if you agree or disagree.

Why is the Bay Area unique?

1. no other major metropolitan area in the nation has a huge body of water (obviously in the form of San Francisco Bay) like the Bay Area does. Nothing comes close and if there was competition (NYC, Tampa, Miami), they are left in the dust. The bay divides and adds diversity.

2. no metro area contains three major cities...SF, Oak, SJ.

3. no metro area is so bereft of suburbs. The Bay Area doesn't have suburbs. It has subregions. SF, Oak, SJ are the cities. But the subregions are not looked at as suburbs for they are not dependent on any one of the major cities and contain enough business enterprise to be their own employment base. So you have those three cities, but then you have the Peninsula, Silicon Valley, East Bay, Marin, Wine Country, etc. (is there a name for the land east of the Berkeley hills? never heard one, but that is also a subregion). These subregions create their own internal economic battle that isn't the usual scenario in other metro areas which seem to carry a degree of one-ness about them. Thus San Francisco can legitimately question if it "lost" the 49ers to the South Bay and if that Silicon Valley is a hub built on high tech that threatens the SF. same thing about the A's: will Oakland and the east bay lose them to San Jose and Silicon Valley.

4. no metro area has a rapid transit system quite like BART which is designed to serve the entire region and doesn't concentrate on bringing people from the exterior to the core. No other metro area could have a BART in that regard. The closest one to BART would be DC metro for it alone other than BART has extensive service to areas outside the central city. But Metro is based on moving people in and out of Washington while BART hardly carries that notion about San Francisco (which would be fairly ludicrous when one considers that only on set of tracks runs through The City). This is a far cry from New York's subway system which doesn't leave its 4 boroughs (no service to Staten Island) to extend into the suburbs. Chicago's CTA is virtually centered around the city even if a few lines extend into Evanston and Oak Park.

5. no metro area has the range of climatic differences that the Bay Area possess.

6. no metro area is as divided by elevation as the Bay Area. the second greatest metro area in this regard....Los Angeles....has but one true divide in the form of the Hollywood Hills/Santa Monica Mts. LA has the distinction of the biggest elevation differential of any city, but the Bay Area beats metro LA in its mountainous divides. Much of metro LA is actually flat and the LA Basin itself dominates the region. In contrast in the Bay Area, mountains split the bayshore peninsula from the coastal peninsula, the berkeley hills split the east bay from the areas to east, and Marin communities are separated from each other by mountain and bay. Even dense SF has its highest hills (borderline mountains) running through its core with Mt. Sutro, Twin Peaks, and Mt. Davidson. the only metro area I can think of that divides like the bay is Pittsburgh, but in the Bay Area the divide is far more dramatic.

7. no major metro area has such an iconic name that defines it as a region, not names after its dominant city. There is no San Francisco Area and never has been. It is all "The Bay Area", all parts of the whole, no suggestion of core and extremity. You may have artificial names out there like "the Metroplex", but to most that is just D/FW. There is no metro area but the Bay Area the does not contain the name of its major city or cities (the Twin Cities, by definition means M/SP).

[mstnghu2]

Good post!

[04kL4nD]

1. Chicago has Lake Michigan, which is really impressive imo. NOLA has Lake Pontchartrain. DC also has the Chesapeake Bay, which is MUCH larger. Lots of cities have coastal access, so this isn't a big of a deal as you make it out to be.
2. A lot of people don't consider SJ to be a part of the Bay Area. I do for the most part, but it's an hour away from SF/Oak...
3. Agree
4. I don't think BART is that great of a system. Metroi in DC , the T in Boston, CTA, MTA in NYC are all much better systems imo
5. Agreed.
6.Pittsburgh, Seattle, SD, and even Atlanta are all pretty hilly and have varied topography too.
7.I actually don't buy this one at all. It's the San Francisco Bay Area. People shorten it to Bay Area, but it has SF written all over it...

Overall, YES the Bay Area is unique and offers a lot of superlatives, but it's not Hawaii or anything...

[sav858]

Originally Posted by edsg25

1. no other major metropolitan area in the nation has a huge body of water (obviously in the form of San Francisco Bay) like the Bay Area does. Nothing comes close and if there was competition (NYC, Tampa, Miami), they are left in the dust. The bay divides and adds diversity.

I'm not sure what makes the bay a better body of water than Puget Sound, New York's rivers and bays, Tampa Bay, Biscayne Bay/Atlatic Ocean, Lake Michigan, etc..

2. no metro area contains three major cities...SF, Oak, SJ.

NYC has NYC, Newark, and Hartford. Like San Jose, Hartford is a seperate MSA than NYC/Neward but part of the CSA. South Florida has Miami, Ft Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. LA has LA, Long Beach, and Anaheim.

3. no metro area is so bereft of suburbs. The Bay Area doesn't have suburbs. It has subregions. SF, Oak, SJ are the cities. But the subregions are not looked at as suburbs for they are not dependent on any one of the major cities and contain enough business enterprise to be their own employment base. So you have those three cities, but then you have the Peninsula, Silicon Valley, East Bay, Marin, Wine Country, etc. (is there a name for the land east of the Berkeley hills? never heard one, but that is also a subregion). These subregions create their own internal economic battle that isn't the usual scenario in other metro areas which seem to carry a degree of one-ness about them. Thus San Francisco can legitimately question if it "lost" the 49ers to the South Bay and if that Silicon Valley is a hub built on high tech that threatens the SF. same thing about the A's: will Oakland and the east bay lose them to San Jose and Silicon Valley.

The suburbs being grouped into sub-regions is nothing unique either. LA and NYC's suburbs have fairly well defined sub-regions.

4. no metro area has a rapid transit system quite like BART which is designed to serve the entire region and doesn't concentrate on bringing people from the exterior to the core. No other metro area could have a BART in that regard. The closest one to BART would be DC metro for it alone other than BART has extensive service to areas outside the central city. But Metro is based on moving people in and out of Washington while BART hardly carries that notion about San Francisco (which would be fairly ludicrous when one considers that only on set of tracks runs through The City). This is a far cry from New York's subway system which doesn't leave its 4 boroughs (no service to Staten Island) to extend into the suburbs. Chicago's CTA is virtually centered around the city even if a few lines extend into Evanston and Oak Park.

How does BART "serve the entire region" when it misses well over half of it? No service down the Peninsula, North Bay, and South Bay (as of right now). DC metro is very similar and actually much better than BART imo has its more extensive and carries nearly 3x as many passengers.

5. no metro area has the range of climatic differences that the Bay Area possess.

Los Angeles and to a lesser extent San Diego. I would actually say LA has a bigger range since it includes much taller mountains and deserts

6. no metro area is as divided by elevation as the Bay Area. the second greatest metro area in this regard....Los Angeles....has but one true divide in the form of the Hollywood Hills/Santa Monica Mts. LA has the distinction of the biggest elevation differential of any city, but the Bay Area beats metro LA in its mountainous divides. Much of metro LA is actually flat and the LA Basin itself dominates the region. In contrast in the Bay Area, mountains split the bayshore peninsula from the coastal peninsula, the berkeley hills split the east bay from the areas to east, and Marin communities are separated from each other by mountain and bay. Even dense SF has its highest hills (borderline mountains) running through its core with Mt. Sutro, Twin Peaks, and Mt. Davidson. the only metro area I can think of that divides like the bay is Pittsburgh, but in the Bay Area the divide is far more dramatic.

Not sure why you discount LA so easily when it has a much more dramatic change in elevation over a short distance. It actually snows in some of its farther suburbs like Palmdale and Lancaster and the mountain ranges are much taller there.

7. no major metro area has such an iconic name that defines it as a region, not names after its dominant city. There is no San Francisco Area and never has been. It is all "The Bay Area", all parts of the whole, no suggestion of core and extremity. You may have artificial names out there like "the Metroplex", but to most that is just D/FW. There is no metro area but the Bay Area the does not contain the name of its major city or cities (the Twin Cities, by definition means M/SP).

South Florida, Tri-State area (NYC), etc..

The Bay Area is unique, as are most metropolitan areas, in its own way but not really the way you explained it.

[Venom Point]

This is silly, ever heard of Chicago, New York, Miami, Tampa Bay?

[Gentoo]

I agree with most of this. Firstly I will say that San Jose is and has always been part of the bay area. Those who think otherwise are wearing their transplant stickers proudly on their faces. I agree with Oakland that "bay Area" is shortened from San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco, along with Oakland And Berkeley are, for better or worse the cultural centers of the bay area. San Francisco is also the financial capital. It's the only west coast city with a financial district containing a federal reserve etc. Silicon valley wouldn't exist if it not been for these facts as areas with tech companies seemed to be tied to a financial center.

The BART was never designed to be like A gridded subway system. Its purpose is to operate along key commute routes. Most people who commute into the city do so from Alameda and Contra Costa counties. The Bart gets them into the city and near to where they work. As the population has started shifting farther out Bart has responded to this and now has plans to add lines farther into the east bay as well as the south bay as more and more more tech people are living outside silicon valley.

[DocGoldstein]

Based on THOSE criteria, the Bay Area isn't unique.

[legal_eagle]

Doesn't every place have its own unique attributes?

[kttam186290]

Yeah, the Bay Area is naturally beautiful, but why does it feel the need to constantly thump its chest?

And, I have to disagree with your assertion that "there are no suburbs in the Bay Area"...Really?

Walnut Creek? Livermore? Pleasanton? Danville? Lafayette? Concord? Antioch? Gilroy? Morgan Hill? American Canyon? Vallejo? ALL of Marin County? Half Moon Bay?

Tracy and Mountain House are practically becoming Bay Area exurbs for all of the younger, less affluent people being cycled out financially.

And who could blame them when a basic house in San Ramon is still going for around $800,000?

[DocGoldstein]

Originally Posted by mattk92681

Yeah, the Bay Area is naturally beautiful, but why does it feel the need to constantly thump its chest?

And, I have to disagree with your assertion that "there are no suburbs in the Bay Area"...Really?

Walnut Creek? Livermore? Pleasanton? Danville? Lafayette? Concord? Antioch? Gilroy? Morgan Hill? American Canyon? Vallejo? ALL of Marin County? Half Moon Bay?

Tracy and Mountain House are practically becoming Bay Area exurbs for all of the younger, less affluent people being cycled out financially.

And who could blame them when a basic house in San Ramon is still going for around $800,000?

Exactly. I don't get the Bay Area homers. The Bay Area is an awesome place to live, but it's unique because it has a "the bay divides and adds diversity", and "climatic range"? Nope.

There are many things the Bay Area lacks that other metro areas have. For instance the Bay Area will never have the beach culture Southern California has, and the Bay Area doesn't have the 24/7 culture of New York.

IMO, many of the positives of living in the Bay Area are disappearing. The Bay Area of the 1990s is something I'll miss a lot. Now... well when a place like Pleasanton has to fight tooth and nail to keep out "poor people", you know something is wrong.