One Paseo Vote

[FlyerInHi]

AN, you put it quite well, especially with regard to future generations. If you kids are going to stay in San Diego, find jobs and build a future for themselves, the city needs to be affordable and have plenty of jobs, opportunities and housing.

So many people have to move to Temecula because San Diego is no longer affordable. Many more are moving to LA, SF Bay, or other states to find jobs. It’s rare to see 3 or more generations of families staying in San Diego.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=spdrun]To play Beelzebub’s attorney: different cities are different. Why does San Diego need to emulate denser cities in order to be “world-class?” And why does it need to have the label of “world-class” rather than just being an enjoyable and beautiful place to live?[/quote]

Because we compete on a worldwide level. World class cities is where the money is. More people means more jobs, more opportunities, more excitement, more innovation, etc…

Santa Barbara is a quaint place. But it has no major interstate, no large international airport, no big companies… a place where rich old people live. Boring!

[flyer]

We all love world class cities for their vibrancy, and it will be interesting to see how San Diego actually does evolve in the next decades.

Personally, with so little land now available, even at best, I just don’t see how we can prevent San Diego from becoming financially unattainable and/or unsustainable for many younger, middle, and older generations, so it may very well be destined to become more and more of an elitist location.

IMO, and from my perspective (with family here going back several generations) the writing has been on the wall for some time concerning this issue. However we got there, I think we’re past the point of no return, but, of course, only time will tell.

[spdrun]

Santa Barbara is a quaint place. But it has no major interstate, no large international airport, no big companies… a place where rich old people live. Boring!

Some people like to live in a place like that, though. Not everyone wants to live in NYC, London, or Singapore.

Nothing wrong with the lack of big companies — smaller companies and universities tend to be less horrible to work for anyway. I wouldn’t mind living in a Santa Cruz, S.L.O., or Santa Barbara honestly, but I wouldn’t want it to change to a megalopolis.

All of the master-planned communities that I’ve seen have ended up being poor simulacra of vibrant urban neighborhoods. Lots of ticky-tacky chain businesses on the ground floors, little that’s fun or interesting.

I’d sooner live somewhere like North Park, Golden Hill, the beach cities, or even SESD, all of which grew organically versus being built by the same Stepford developer.

[carli]

Here’s a question – Is it likely that a world class city will evolve just because an area is a profitable place for developers to build dense housing/retail, even when a public transit system serving that housing/retail area is non-existent? There are zero plans to add any public transit in Carmel Valley until 2035, and even then it’s only listed in the SANDAG documents as a possibility.

And does anyone think SANDAG will hurry up and implement public transit because of a development in Carmel Valley? It’d be nice to dream they’re that responsive to evolving needs, but unfortunately that’s not the case. Believe me, there are many residents who’ve been lobbying for years for at least a bus to go up and down Del Mar Heights Rd. We don’t even have public transportation for the 4000 students who go to the 3 high schools that are within 2 miles of each other on DM Heights Rd. It’s every family (or carpool) for itself, driving up and down DM Heights Rd. Crazy.

I can’t think of one world class city without a robust public transit system, but I can think of lots of cities with dense housing that continue to attract residents. These cities probably rationalize building these developments for the same reasons – the demand is there, let’s increasing housing stock so our kids can afford to stay, etc. Think of Orange County. Would you call Costa Mesa or Irvine a world class city? That’s where it looks like we’re headed without a public transit system.

But we can change that if we want to…just not by first creating overly dense housing and increasing our traffic mess in an area with zero public transit.

[The-Shoveler]

Self driving cars will make public transit obsolete in most U.S cities in about 10 years IMO.

[carli]

Maybe, just maybe, self driving cars will be a reality in 10 years, but even if so, we’re still going to have to deal with too many cars, self-driving or otherwise, on our roads around here. Self-driving public transit might be the answer. 🙂

[njtosd]

[quote=FlyerInHi]I agree, AN. If we want San Diego to become a world class city, we need density to accommodate the workforce to support companies in the golden triangle.

Tech companies employ graduates who come from all over the world, places where density is taken for granted.[/quote]

Have you noticed that biotech is migrating to SF even though it’s cheaper for the (already existing) workforce to live here? They go where the VC money is. Companies that are convenient for the Sandhill Rd investors to visit or learn of are getting funded. Take a look at this: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/biotech/2015/01/illumina-ilmn-biomed-realty-trust-bmr-foster-city.html

Illumina was the poster child for San Diego based biotech. My understanding is that if it were not for the founder’s love of SD, they’d have moved already. Schering Plough (now part of Merck) left, Merck built a building that they never inhabited, Pfizer if shriveling up, etc. etc.

We’ve already got a bunch of people here who are well trained and unemployed – businesses locate themselves for many reasons – if they wanted a work force “[tell] them we already got one” (to quote Monty Python).

[The-Shoveler]

The largest BioTech firm in the world is in a medium sized L.A. suburb about 40 miles from the City of L.A. with virtually no public transit and no real downtown to speak of (well maybe if you count the mall LOL).

Looks more like OC then SF.

[spdrun]

Will self-driving cars just encourage sprawl to the point that commuting becomes annoying again?

But carli has a good point: transit can be made self-driving as well. If you don’t need a motorman, it becomes cheaper to run shorter rail vehicles more frequently. If you have enough vehicles running, you can also change up the routings, have more “lines” that are combinations of parts of formerly distinct lines. Maybe move from a “train” paradigm to a “pod” technology, where pods carry 10-20 people rather than 40-80 in a rail car.

Rail has certain advantages over rubber tires. Easy to power electrically without worrying about care and feeding of batteries. Inherently self-guiding. Easier to do high speeds as compared to cars. When I lived outside of Philly, you could look through the front windows of the trains into the driver’s cab and see the digital speedometer. It was surprising to see those 1950s-era railcars get up to 65-70 mph between towns a few miles apart at most when the streets connecting the towns had speed limits of 30-40 mph.

Less friction compared to rubber tires on asphalt. (Believe it or not, a single person can push a modern rail car with roller bearings by hand: try that with a bus or truck!). Also, tracks tend to be visible and it’s obvious where stops are, so people tend to actually use rail transit. Self advertising.

[FlyerInHi]

Spd, while the world is building Singapore and Dubai, we are standing still.
We built built NY and Chicago and countless cities during and following the industrial revolution as examples to the world. Centers of commerce and wealth.

San Diego can be a 21st century, new economy megalopolis. If not San Diego it will be other cities. They will be rich and we will be poor and provincial. We frustrating to encounter people who resist progress.

[spdrun]

If you think about it, Silicon Valley is pretty darn suburban, other than San Francisco itself. And it’s been the center of innovation for the past 40 years or so.

Don’t get me wrong: I like dense cities. But I don’t see Manhattan (or even Boston) style density as a pre-requisite to innovation.

[FlyerInHi]

More people means more commerce and innovation. A more vibrant diverse economy.

[spdrun]

So the logical extension of your idea is to replace parts of San Diego with Kowloon walled cities? 🙂

I see no problem with encouraging Eastern-type “sprawl” where you have smaller individual houses (not McHouses) on a true network of streets, often with businesses and business centers mixed in. It’s the network aspect, as opposed to having only a few entrances from major roads, that does wonders for walkability and biking.

[The-Shoveler]

Valencia was one of the first master planned communities,

They came up with this system of connecting cul de sac’s with biking/walking trails, something I have never seen repeated as well in any other community (even in later Valencia tracts).

It was done in the 70’s I guess it was not a practical way to lay out a housing tract as it used too much land so it did not get repeated is my guess

http://www.piasoper.com/communities-of-santa-clarita/valencia/valencia-paseo-system-and-map/

Anyway, give a home buyer the choice of a cul de sac or a networked street grid, in socal I bet they choose the cul de sac home 90% of the time all else being equal.

[Author]

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