Does the Bay Area need a Brickell(Miami) to deal with housing crisis (San Jose: 2015, condo)

[sav858]

Originally Posted by geoking66

Downtown Oakland should in many ways be the heart of the Bay Area. It's at the hub of the region geographically and from a transport perspective. Tons of surface lots can enable very high-density development in close proximity to BART and there's a wealth of historic architecture to complement newer development.

The issue is really that the area desperately needs better infrastructure, obviously the second Transbay Tube being a priority.

I agree but you can't even get a single high rise built along Lake Merritt without activists shutting it down so good luck getting something like Brickell going...

[Chuck5000]

One would think that a city like, say, Colma or San Leandro or Hayward would welcome a chance to develop underutilized retail parcels with new residential, retail, and commercial hubs - and just explode their tax bases, and provide better services, etc.

But even in lower income towns like that there is great resistance to and fear of change.

Brisbane has a chance to build a "mini city" with a huge parcel they have - but residents are staunchly opposed. Instead it will probably be unnecessary retail with office and a small number of apartments.

[Dave Coe]

Originally Posted by Chuck5000

One would think that a city like, say, Colma or San Leandro or Hayward would welcome a chance to develop underutilized retail parcels with new residential, retail, and commercial hubs - and just explode their tax bases, and provide better services, etc.

But even in lower income towns like that there is great resistance to and fear of change.

Brisbane has a chance to build a "mini city" with a huge parcel they have - but residents are staunchly opposed. Instead it will probably be unnecessary retail with office and a small number of apartments.

Tiny Brisbane surveyed about effects of huge Baylands plans - San Francisco Chronicle

[Dave Coe]

So far the most likely candidate is Emeryville.

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by Dave Coe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brickell

Brickell is a place in Miami where they took an area of run down single family homes and turned it into an area of massive density. What Bay Area cities do you see as a potential Brickell. Most likely either Emeryvile or Foster City.

This is the future of the entire city of San Francisco and San Jose. Density is the future.

You guys who think we can somehow get one million people in single family homes in a city with limited land area are mistaken. You can only build so many SFHs for a given area. This "brickell" is how all the world's major cities are. That skyline could easily be mistaken for London or Paris.

I know that a lot of you guys don't agree that the Bay Area is a world class region...but yet, you're still here. If you hate it so much, there's the door.

If you think you're going to get a SFH at a middle class price in a densely populated, DESIRABLE city, you're wrong. Austin, for example, is relatively more dense than other parts of Texas but it isn't as desirable as San Jose or San Francisco.

[neutrino78x]

Here's Paris

http://i.imgur.com/vygyl.jpg

Here's that Brickell skyline image from wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricke...yline_2012.jpg

They look similar, do they not? Paris was once a small town too. Many hundreds of years ago. But as recently as the 1800s, the middle class was already living in "flats" in Paris and London.

There will one day be two million people each in San Jose and San Francisco. You're not going to get two million people into SFHs. Most of the SFHs will gone, and those still standing will be extremely expensive. Just like Paris, London, Tokyo etc.

[checkup]

There are several places in the Bay Area to build a Brickell. It should be built in the Peninsula where housing shortages and the imbalance between housing/jobs are particularly dire.

Candidate areas include:
-several places beside the Bay like near Redwood City or East Palo Alto
-North Sunnyvale, San Jose, or Mountain View
-building more into the hills, south of Menlo, Palo Alto, etc.
-large empty plots of land in Santa Clara, not so far from the new Apple campus or 49ers stadium
-a few large plots near Stanford Univ.

[roadwarrior101]

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

This is the future of the entire city of San Francisco and San Jose. Density is the future.

You guys who think we can somehow get one million people in single family homes in a city with limited land area are mistaken. You can only build so many SFHs for a given area. This "brickell" is how all the world's major cities are. That skyline could easily be mistaken for London or Paris.

I know that a lot of you guys don't agree that the Bay Area is a world class region...but yet, you're still here. If you hate it so much, there's the door.

If you think you're going to get a SFH at a middle class price in a densely populated, DESIRABLE city, you're wrong. Austin, for example, is relatively more dense than other parts of Texas but it isn't as desirable as San Jose or San Francisco.

I'm all for density, if the infrastructure keeps up to support it. Unfortunately, we haven't seen much at all as of late, in terms of widening freeways, building new ones or greatly expanding our public transportation system.


I get that BART will be building an extension to SJ someday, that Muni is expanding to Chinatown and someday we'll hopefully have high speed rail. This is far too little, too late. If they'd actually keep up with the growth by enhancing our infrastructure, this would be a much more sustainable solution for those of us who have to commute on a regular basis.

[Dave Coe]

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

This is the future of the entire city of San Francisco and San Jose. Density is the future.

You guys who think we can somehow get one million people in single family homes in a city with limited land area are mistaken. You can only build so many SFHs for a given area. This "brickell" is how all the world's major cities are. That skyline could easily be mistaken for London or Paris.

I know that a lot of you guys don't agree that the Bay Area is a world class region...but yet, you're still here. If you hate it so much, there's the door.

If you think you're going to get a SFH at a middle class price in a densely populated, DESIRABLE city, you're wrong. Austin, for example, is relatively more dense than other parts of Texas but it isn't as desirable as San Jose or San Francisco.

I agree density is the future but the question is how long will it take for the political climate to change. Most of the NIMBY's are Babyboomers who own single family owns. It will take another decade or two until Millennials and younger Generation X'ers, who are more pro-density gain political power.

[Dave Coe]

Originally Posted by checkup

There are several places in the Bay Area to build a Brickell. It should be built in the Peninsula where housing shortages and the imbalance between housing/jobs are particularly dire.

Candidate areas include:
-several places beside the Bay like near Redwood City or East Palo Alto
-North Sunnyvale, San Jose, or Mountain View
-building more into the hills, south of Menlo, Palo Alto, etc.
-large empty plots of land in Santa Clara, not so far from the new Apple campus or 49ers stadium
-a few large plots near Stanford Univ.

A lot of those areas you mentioned are wilderness such open space such as near Stanford and Palo Alto. I do agree about East Palo Alto but that would be difficult to rezone the single family homes for highrises. The best places for infill are those with lots of empty parking lots or warehouse districts. Areas with vast numbers of parking lots include Emeryville, South San Francciscco(though the Airport may be a height issue), Foster City, West Dublin, and Pleasonton around the Stoneridge Galleria.