- Learning from the Bay and LA -
Californicatio alifornicatio
Zandbelt&vandenBerg
spatial engineering and consultancy
Californication
- Learning from the Bay and LA -
Zandbelt&vandenBerg
spatial engineering and consultancy February 2008
Index California
4
The Bay
12
Transit
18
Grid
28
LA Harbor
36
Downtowns
42
Suburbia
48
Silicon Valley
60
Landscape
66
Orgware
74
30 USA
Europe
black
native american multiracial
asian
35 Latin America
Japan
Young population Median age
Netherlands European Union
1.500.000
hispanic
750.000
USA
0
China LA Calfironia
Demographics 60 is with 37 million the most California populous state of America. Since 50 census it also is a “majority the 2000 minority state”. There is no longer an 40 in the majority. Making it ethnicity one of the most diverse places on the planet. 30 On top of this California is young as well.20 Its population pyramid has more resemblance with that of China or Chile10 than that of ageing European and Japanese societies. Los Angeles’ population is even younger. The average Angelinos is just 30,5 years old.
Everybody’s a minority Ethnic diversity
Argentina Chile
70
Brazil
4
Multirace
white
0
American In
80
40 China
Japan
Population by Sex and Age Total Population: 33,871,648
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10
1.500.000
750.000
0
750.000
1.500.000
California
Golden state? Our quest to compare metropolitan areas and their plans brought us to the edge of the western world. California arguably is the most successful territory on the planet. Its economy is the size of France, though it has a 40% smaller population. Since 2000 there is no longer any ethnicity in the majority, which is a unique feature at this scale. Here prosperity, venture capitalism, green consciousness, direct democracy, a beautiful climate, and advanced technology all come together.
6
New York 22 million
San Francisco 7 million
Philadelphia 6 million
Phoenix 3,9 million
St Louis 2,8 million
Chicago 10 million
Los Angeles 18 million
Tampa 2,6 million
Detroit 5 million
Dallas-Fort Worth 6 million
Seattle 3,8 million
Pittsburgh 2,5 million
Metropolitan Area The US has a long history of defining metropolitan areas and their definitions are subject to redefining and adjusting. The definitions are set by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a federal body. The definitions are used to gather data for a single set of geographic definitions for the largest population centers. This delivers consistent and therefore high quality data that makes comparisons possible. The data is so useful that a new definition, called micropolitan area, was introduced to gather the same quality data from less populated areas.
Washington-Baltimore 8 million
Minneapolis-St Paul 3,5 million
Miami 5 million
San Diego 2,9 million
Sacremento 2,2 million
The metropolitan area is defined as an urban core with a population of at least 50.000. Adjacent counties with sufficient economic ties join the Metropolitan area when their employment interchange measure is at least 15. The employment interchange measure is the sum of the percentage of employed residents of the smaller entity who work in the larger entity and the percentage of employment in the smaller entity that is accounted for by workers who reside in the larger entity. Employment interchange measures of at least 25 combine automatically. Employment interchange measures of at least 15, but less than 25, may combine if local opinion in both areas favors combination.
Houston 5 million
Cleveland 2,9 million
Charlotte 2,1 million
Cincinnati 2,1 million
Boston 7 million
Atlanta 5 million
Denver 2,9 million
Portland 2,1 million
FUR In Europe there is still a struggle to define and compare their metropolitan regions. The bravest attempt so far was undertaken by the GEMACA commission led by Sir Peter Hall and Dominique Lecomte. Their definition, called the Functional Urban Region (FUR), has similarities with the American definition. It is based on commuter flows too, which is partially for practical reasons because this is data that is widely available. The urban core of the FUR is defined as an area with at least 20.000 jobs with a density of at least 7 jobs/ hectare. Adjacent communities have sufficient social and economic ties to qualify as part of the FUR, when at least 10% of the employed population works in the FUR-core.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
New York Los Angeles Chicago Washington-Baltimore Boston San Francisco Bay Area Philadelphia Dallas-Fort Worth Detroit Miami Houston Atlanta Phoenix Seattle Minneapolis-St. Paul San Diego Cleveland Denver St. Louis Tampa Pittsburgh Sacramento Charlotte Cincinnati Portland
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City, IL-IN-WI Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, DC-MD-VA-WV Boston-Worcester-Manchester, MA-RI-NH San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA Philadelphia-Camden-Vineland, PA-NJ-DE-MD Dallas-Fort Worth, TX Detroit-Warren-Flint, MI Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach, FL Houston-Baytown-Huntsville, TX Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Gainesville, GA-AL Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia, WA Minneapolis-St. Paul-St. Cloud, MN-WI San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA Cleveland-Akron-Elyria, OH Denver-Aurora-Boulder, CO1 St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL Pittsburgh-New Castle, PA Sacramento--Arden-Arcade--Truckee, CA-NV Charlotte-Gastonia-Salisbury, NC-SC Cincinnati-Middletown-Wilmington, OH-KY-IN Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA
Source: US Census (2005), ยบ = BEA (2006), * = BLS (2005)
21,9 17,6 9,7 8,1 7,4 7,2 6,4 6,2 5,4 5,4 5,4 5,2 3,9 3,8 3,5 2,9 2,9 2,9 2,8 2,6 2,5 2,2 2,1 2,1 2,1
9,3 $ 1.058 7,0 $ 651 4,4 $ 398 4,1 $ 390 3,3 $ 330 3,3 $ 381 2,9 $ 268 2,8 $ 239 2,4 $ 202 2,3 $ 217 2,3 $ 230 2,3 $ 189 1,7 $ 137 1,8 $ 166 1,8 $ 144 1,3 $ 126 1,4 $ 103 1,4 $ 126 1,3 $ 104 1,2 $ 94 1,1 $ 92 0,9 $ 81 0,8 $ 61 1,0 $ 77 1,0 $ 79
in thousand $
Per capita income ยบ
in billion $
Gross Metro Product ยบ
Employment *
in millions
in millions
Combined Statistical Area New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA
Population
Metropolitan Area
7
$48,3 $37,0 $41,0 $48,2 $44,7 $52,9 $41,9 $38,5 $37,4 $40,1 $42,5 $36,3 $35,1 $43,6 $41,2 $43,4 $35,4 $43,6 $37,2 $36,3 $36,7 $37,0 $28,8 $36,4 $37,8
Rank 2 17 11 3 4 1 9 13 15 12 8 21 24 6 10 7 23 5 16 22 19 18 25 20 14
142,2 63,2 $ 5.942 $ 41,8
Two extremes This study focuses on the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles region -South California. Both belong to the ten largest urban areas in America, but with different success. While the Bay Area ranks at the top of US metropolitan areas per capita income, the LA region ranks in the lower third.
8
50 km
0
Almere Haarlem Amsterdam Schiphol
Amersfoort
Leiden
Utrecht The Hague
Rotterdam
Dordrecht
Regional density On the scale of a metropolitan area, density is synonymous with prosperity. Although at lower scales it is interesting to compare how many people fit into a square kilometer, on the abstract level of a region it simply boils down to how many square meters of urban area a person requires, to fit in all its needs and possesions. So simply looking at the average car or person already gives a suggestion of the overall density in an area.
9
Berkeley
Oakland San Francisco
Stanford Silicon Valley San Jose
San Francisco Randstad (4 provinces) 7 million 7,6 million 20 thousand km2 11 thousand km2 2 3,7 thousand km 3,8 thousand km2 2 2.800 m / p 1.500 m2 / p 525 m2 / p 505 m2 / p
San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area is, like the Randstad Holland, a polynuclear metropolitan area of about 7 million citizens. Boston polynuclear structure Houston (4 pr This is a 21st century Randstad 6 miljoen 4 miljoen 7,6 million 19, duizend km 29 duizend km 11 thousan phenomenon: it is extensive, flexible, not 6,35 duizend km 4 duizend km 3,8 thousa 3.250 m / p 7.250 m / p 1.500 m / too urban, innovative, convenient, diverse, 1.000 m / p 1.000 m / p 505 m / p multi oriented; a landscape on its own that is always close to attractive surroundings. 2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
Mono Poly Field Since the metropolis emerged as a byproduct of the industrial revolution in the 19 century, two new types of metropolitan areas have evolved next to the classic monocentric groĂ&#x;stadt: the polycentric and the field metropolis. The classic monocentric metropolis like -until a few decades ago- London and New York, features one dense and spectacular center, full of urbanity, surrounded, supported and made possible by an endless field of mediocre suburbia. The San Francisco Bay Area is a textbook example of a polycentric metropolis. Many centers dominate the region, displaying a variety of functions such as culture, business, education and transportation. These centers are then surrounded by generic suburban landscapes. Los Angeles might be the best show case of a field or a ‘patchwork metropolis’, as Willem-Jan Neutelings put it. In this metropolitan field there are no specifically dominating areas. Many neighborhoods or districts are specialized in a certain activity or attract a specific group of people. This may vary from a manufacturing district to a villa park for zillionaires, without a major point of gravity or hierarchy. Crisscross relations are all over the place.Needless to say, every real life case-study will prove to have features of all three types, with one model more dominant than the others. London for example is developing more and more into a multicentered urban region.
U
Haarlem
Almere
U Amsterdam Apeldoorn
U
Amersfoort
Leiden
U The Hague
Utrecht
U
U Rotterdam
U U
Nijmegen
Den Bosch
50 km Breda
Tilburg
U Eindhoven
U
0
Arnhem
11
Burbank Hollywood Beverly Hills Malibu
Los Angeles
Anaheim Long Beach
Irvine
ston iljoen 19, duizend km2 6,35 duizend km2 3.250 m2 / p 1.000 m2 / p
zend km2 uizend km2 m2 / p 2 /p
Pasadena Glendale
San Francisco Houston 7 miljoen 4 miljoen 2 20 duizend km29 duizend km2 3,7 duizend km 4 2duizend km2 2 2.800 m / p 7.250 m2 / p 525 m2 / p 1.000 m2 / p
Boston 6 miljoen 19, duizend km2 6,35 duizend km2 3.250 m2 / p 1.000 m2 / p
San Francisco Houston 7 miljoen 4 miljoen 29 duizend km2 20 duizend km2 4 duizend km2 3,7 duizend km2 7.250 m2 / p 2.800 m2 / p 1.000 m2 / p 525 m2 / p
Boston 6 miljoen 19, duizend km2 6,35 duizend km2 3.250 m2 / p 1.000 m2 / p
Nederland Nederland 16 miljoen 35 duizend km 16 miljoen 6,5 duizend km 2.000duizend m /p 35 km2 400 m / p 6,5 duizend km2 2 2.000 m / p 400 m2 / p 2
2
2
2
Mono
Mono
Boston 6 miljoen 19, duizend km2 6,35 duizend km2 3.250 m2 / p 1.000 m2 / p
Houston 4 miljoen 29 duizend km2 4 duizend km2 7.250 m2 / p 1.000 m2 / p
Houston 4 miljoen 29 duizend km2 4 duizend km2 7.250 m2 / p 1.000 m2 / p
Los Angeles LA is a city the size of the Netherlands, both in population and in land area. It stretched out between the Pacific Ocean and the Los Angeles New York New York Nederland Chicago San Gabriel Mountains, where according 17 miljoen 22 miljoen 9 miljoen 22 miljoen 16 miljoen 88 duizend km33 duizend km 22 duizend km 33 duizend km 35 duizend km 8,75 duizend km 12,75 duizend 6,5 duizendyou km 6,3 duizend km ski and 12,75 duizend km tokmtravel guides, can swim on a 5.000 m / p 1.500 m / p 2.000 m / p 2.500 m / p 1.500 m / p 500 m / p 575 m / p 575 m / p single day. 400 m / p 700 m / p Since neither California nor its metro regions have a comprehensive planning policy we list a series of trends and topics worth looking at, incidentally interrupted by a plan. As one Californian put it: “We don’t care about the city. We just live and work.” Poly Field
New York Los Angeles 22 miljoen 17 miljoen 33 duizend km2 88 duizend km2 2 12,75 duizend km8,75 duizend km2 1.500 m2 / p 5.000 m2 / p 575 m2 / p 500 m2 / p
2
2
Chicago Nederland 9 miljoen 16 miljoen 22 duizend km2 35 duizend km2 6,3 duizend km2 6,5 duizend km2 22.000 m2 / p 2.500 m2 / p 700 m2 / p 400 m2 / p
2
2
2
Field
Chicago 9 miljoen 22 duizend km2 6,3 duizend km2 2.500 m2 2 /p 700 m2 / p
2
2
2
2
Poly
New York 22 miljoen 33 duizend km2 12,75 duizend km2 1.500 m2 / p 575 m2 / p
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
Ch 9m
12
50 km IJsselmeer
Markermeer
0 Flevopolder
San Francisco Bay
Pacific
IJsselmeer
Golden Gate Bridge
Bay Through two projects the qualities of the Bay have been improved: Bay Trail and the Bay Estuary project. The Bay trail is a path along the bay shores and bay bridges for bikers, hikers, skaters and wildlife watchers. Some 60% of its 650 km. long web has been realized already. The Estuary Project restores and maintains the natural resources of the Bay. IJsselmeer Since 1848 plans were made to partially polder -the Dutch form of land reclamation- the Zuiderzee. It took 70
Downtown San Francisco
years and a flood to make the political decision to carry out the daring plan. Execution began with a test polder, followed by the dam that turned the Zuiderzee from a dangerous open salty sea into the sweet water basin of the IJsselmeer. Successively the polders of the Wieringermeer, Noordoostpolder and Flevoland were made. But then in the ‘70s poldering came to halt. A neglected part of the brand new Flevopolder, turned out to be an attraction to migrating birds and a whole ecosystem evolved around it. These Oostvaardersplassen have become one
Fog (see p. 41)
of the most special nature areas in The Netherlands. The final phase, the Markermeerpolder was never executed due to heavy protests of Dutch citizens who valued wildlife over development. Now, through European guidelines The Netherlands has obliged itself to protect wildlife in the artificial lake and keep stocks of endangered birds and fish on level, which created a problem. The increasingly murky waters led to the the natural decrease of the wildlife populations and now artificial actions are needed to turn the tide.
Alcatraz
The Bay
Bay (ab)use Current lake Reclaimed land last generation Reclaimed land first generation Urban Area in former Bay Highways Train lines Ferries
The Bay
Groene Hart
Green Heart Over the last seven centuries, the Dutch have used dikes, ditches, mills, and water outlets to turn wet and low marshes into efficient production landscapes. Peat was used as fuel, for heating homes and driving boats. On the orthogonal polders grazing Dutch cows produced meat and dairy, like cheese and (butter)milk. Droogmakerijen –drained lakes- were used for growing crops. In the ‘50s the concept of the Green Heart was invented; the polder landscape in the center of the Randstad conurbation needed to be kept open and protected. More and more people started to regard this artificial land, which their great grandfathers created for functional and economic purposes as nature. In the ‘90s it was even decided to bore a 9 km long tunnel for a high-speed train under a few meadows with cows. It is rather painful to observe, that now the tunnel is due to open, agriculture is hardly economically feasible in the Green Heart anymore.
Treasure Island
San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Double deck
Oakland
The heart of the San Francisco region is the estuary of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers: the Bay. It has long been considered the junkyard of the region, randomly intersected by infrastructure, its resources squeezed, a dump for waste and prisoners. It was used for everything disliked, uncomfortable, stinky, noisy, unsafe or unattractive. A landscape of abuse.
14
50 km
0
R iver or Creek
A gricultural B ayland
Deep B ay/Channel
Diked Wetland
S hallow B ay/Channel S alt Pond S torage orTreatm ent Pond
T idal Flat
Use & abuse
T idal M ars h U ndeveloped B ay Fill T idal M ars h Pan
River or Creek
Willow Grove
Agricultural Bayland
Developed B ay Fill International Airport
Deep Bay Channel
Moist Grassland Lagoon
Diked Wetland
Military Airport
Shallow Bay Channel
Grassland
Salt Pond
Local Airport
Tidal Flat
Bay Trail
Storage Pond
Port Marina
R iparian Fores t/W illow G rove M ois t G ras s land
Tidal Marsh
Planned Bay Trail
Undeveloped Bay Fill
Tidal Marsh Pan
ras s land/Vernal Pool Com plex PlannedG Bay Estuary Projects
Developed Bay Fill
Lagoon
Completed Bay Estuary Projects
no r th
N
15
San Francisco Bay Now the Bay is cherished as one of the region’s greatest assets. With a mix Golden of state? Our quest to compare melancholic metropolitan nostalgia areas and andtheir down-to-earth plans brought us to edge of the western engineering world. theCalifornia region has is arguably tried to restore the most succesful territory on and the protect planet.the Its qualities economythrough is the size two of France. Though it has a third smaller projects: a population. Bay trail and Since the Bay 2000Estuary no ethnicity is Bay Estuary Project Bay Trail a majority project. anylonger, a unique feature on its scale. 0
100 km 0
100 km
16
Plankton and Invertebrates The Estuary’s food chain begins with minute drifting plants and animals known as plankton – which provide food for invertebrates such as shrimp, clams and worms. These small organisms sustain herring, bottomfeeding sturgeon and other larger aquatic creatures and form the basis of the entire estuarine food web. Fish Estuarine waters provide habitat for over 120 fish species which can be divided into four basic groups: marine species from the ocean such as herring, tanchovy and English sole; estuary species requiring brackish waters, such as the long fin smelt and yellow fin goby; freshwater species such as sunfish and catfish; and anadromous species such as salmon, American shad and striped bass. Species popular with local sport fishermen include starry flounder, striped bass, sturgeon and salmon.
Birds The Estuary’s wetlands feed and shelter millions of waterfowl, shorebirds and seabirds every year. As many as half the birds migrating the Pacific Flyway between Arctic and Baja winter around the Estuary. On average, the region hosts 600,000 – 800,000 waterbirds at a time. Wintertime populations for the Delta include over a million pintail, mallard and other ducks, a quarter of a million geese, and thousands of tundra swans, greater sandhill cranes and other migrating birds, not to mention hundreds of stilts, avocets, hawks and other avian fauna. These significant bird populations led to the Estuary’s designation as a “Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve of Critical Importance” and make it a favorite with birdwatchers and duck hunters. Marine Mammals Though marine mammal populations were greatly reduced by overhunting and development, a few hundred harbor seals still frequent the shores
of Mowry Sluogh below Dumbarton Bridge and other spots within the Estuary. River otters can also be seen in Delta waterways and sea lions at San Francisco’s Pier 39. Endangered Species The Estuary area hosts 18 species of fish and wildlife on the government’s rare, endangered, or threatened list, including the brown pelican, the salt marsh hervest mouse, the California freshwater shrimp, and the Delta smelt. About three-quarter of these species are associated with wetlands, among them the California clapper rail, whose local population dropped from 4,200 – 6,000 birds in 1979 to 1,200 in recent years. Wetlands also host many rare and endangered plants, such as soft-haired birds beak and Delta button celery. Taken from: San Francisco Estuary Project’s fact sheet
Sacramento River
17
50 km
Suisun Marsh San Pablo Bay
Suisun Bay
The Delta
0 Central Bay
South Bay San Joaquin River
The San Francisco estuary drains 40% of the state of California. OREGON
NE
VA
DA
The Watershed The San Francisco Estuary
With these projects the Bay’s ecosystem and wildlife is maintained and restored. For the Bay population the shores are made accessible for residents and the water basin is an attractive place to sail, swim and surf.
Mateo
meda
Costa Marin cisco Clara meda
ancisco
Mateo
meda
ntra Costa
cisco
n Mateo
Clara
Costa Solano
meda olano
Marin
18
0
Work
Work
A’dam Zaanstreek
Kop van Noord-Holland
Live Live Utrecht Veluwe
Kop van Noord-Holland
Alkmaar IJmond
Haarlem Zaanstreek Gooi & Vecht
Flevoland
Leiden & Bollenstreek
Den Haag Zuid-Holland Oost Rotterdam Amsterdam Alkmaar
Alkmaar
Kop van Noord-Holland
Haarlem
IJmond Amsterdam Amsterdam Den Haag Zuid-Holland Oost Utrecht Amsterdam
IJmond
Leiden & Bollenstreek
Den Haag Delft & Westand
Rotterdam Drechtsteden Oost Zuid-Holland
Utrecht Gooi & Vechtstreek
0
ve
Alkmaar
Leiden & Bollenstreek Delft & Westland Zuid-Holland Oost
Rotterdam
Den Haag Rotterdam Utrecht
Den Haag Delft & Westland Zuid-Holland Oost
Drechtsteden Zeeland
West Noord-Brabant Rotterdam West Noord-Brabant Utrecht Den Haag
Rotterdam
Veluwe Betuwe
Amsterdam
Gooi & Vechtstreek
Den Haag Zuid-Holland Oost
Rotterdam
Drechtsteden
Flevoland
Utrecht Amsterdam Flevoland
neous 0.000) Miscellaneous (flows < 5.000)
1M
1 Million
Data sources: CBS (NL) and Metropolitan Transport Commission (MTC)
Transit
Work
Live Live
Work
San Mateo
0
San Francisco
Alameda
Contra Costa Marin San Francisco Santa Clara Alameda
San Mateo
San Jose
Zaan
Oost ZuidHolland
Delft
Betuwe
Sonoma Sonoma
Napa Napa
Drechtsteden
Kop van KopNoord-Holland van Noord-Holland
Solano Solano Marin Marin
Alkmaar Alkmaar IJmond IJmond
Zaan
Zaan
Haarlem Haarlem AmsterAmsterdam dam
0
0
Leiden Leiden The Hague The Hague Delft Delft
Gooi
Oost Oost Zuid- ZuidHollandHolland
Rotterdam Rotterdam
Utrecht Utrecht
Betuwe Betuwe
DrechtDrechtsteden steden
Corop Corop County County
Contra Contra Costa Costa
Flevoland Flevoland
Gooi
San San Francisco Francisco
Corop County
R
Contra Costa
San Francisco
San Mateo
Santa Clara
Drecht Oost Z
U
Contra Costa
Solano
Goo
Miscellaneous (flows < 10.000)
Napa
1 Million
San Francisco
Gooi
Utrecht
Rotterdam 100 km 100 km
Delft
Contra Costa
Flevoland
Amsterdam
Leiden
D
Solano
IJmond
The Hague
Leide
Marin
Alkmaar
0
Haarlem
Marin
Kop van Noord-Holland
n
IJmond
Alameda Solano
Sonoma
Haarlem
Alkmaar
Alameda
Solano
A
Kop van Noord-Hol
San Mateo
Contra Costa
Wor
Zaanstreek
San Francisco
Oakland 100 km
0
Alameda Alameda San San Mateo Mateo Santa Santa Clara Clara
Alameda
Just like birds,San the Bay residents Mateo Clara place to flow in flocks fromSanta one another. These commuter flows between suburbia and its three main centers are also comparable to those in the Randstad. In total more than one million Bay citizens commute between counties daily.
Randstad transit
20
Urban Land National rail Regional rail Metro
Mass Transit The BART is the best known and most developed mass transit system in the Bay area. But there are in total five different train systems in the region that bring suburbanites into town. These lines run on quite different systems. San Jose has a tram network called VTA, elsewhere heavy Amtrak trains run on (national) rail tracks. The systems do not (yet) really function as one network, but transfers can be made at a few stations. Since the early â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;90s a similar evolution takes place in the Randstad where national paralysis to develop a proper mass transit system, has been replaced by a series of local initiatives to build commuter lines, such as the Zuidtangent, the Randstadrail and the RijnGouwelijn. Currently studies are being made for a Stedenbaan system, which connects all these lines and the Amsterdam and Rotterdam metro lines, together forming a mass transit network covering the larger part of the Randstad. Stedenbaan runs on the major national rail lines, which have an overcapacity after the completion of a brand new high-speed line between Amsterdam, Schiphol Airport and via Rotterdam to Paris.
ONE WAY
SF
Oakland
One way BART
Bay Area transit
21
Urban Land National rail (ACE/Caltrain/Amtrak) BART
50 km
Metro Ferry
0
BART Californiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most famous act of planning was the construction of the Bay Area Rapid Transit -BART- in the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;60s, which opened in 1972. Now four lines originating in the suburban east converge in Oakland in a funnel to cross the Bay in order to reach its primary destination, downtown San Francisco. From here the lines extend to the international airport SFO.
22
Sleep while they drive
Density Density is a dirty word in California. it stands for poor, urban, overpopulated etc. With a ‘smart growth strategy’ this is changing. It more and more stands for environmentally friendly, sustainable, nostalgic, European, community, safe, and socially inclusive. Retail marketing strategies are determined by buying power per square mile. By making high density environments, poorer households have the same buying power as low density areas for the well off.
Charrette Plans for densification around transit stations are delicate processes. “The charrette has become a technique for consulting with all stakeholders. Such charrettes typically involve intense, possibly, multi-day meetings, involving municipal officials, developers, and residents. A successful charrette promotes joint ownership of solutions and attempts to defuse typical confrontational attitudes between residents and developers. Charrettes tend to involve small
groups, however, and the residents participating may not represent all the residents nor have the moral authority to represent them. Residents who do participate get early input into the planning process. For developers and municipal officials charrettes achieve community involvement, may satisfy consultation criteria, with the objective of avoiding costly legal battles.” [ Wikipedia 27 august 2007 ]
23
Child care BART reserved parking
Smart Growth housing developments
BART police BART parking permit
Drive to your local BART station
Park your car
Buy a ticket
Take the BART
People are driven out of the city by high house prices and small wages. Blue-collar workers live the furthest away. The BART makes their long commutes possible. From the suburban home it is only a five-minute drive by car to the closest BART-station. From there the long haul is made to the final destination with the train.
24 Smart Growth The Bay Area’s smart growth strategy aims to: minimize sprawl, provide adequate and affordable housing, improve mobility, protect environmental quality, and preserve open space. These densification areas have a radius of approximately a quarter mile (400 m.) around a station or transit hub; a walkable distance. “Smart Growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in the center of a city to avoid urban sprawl; and advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. Smart Growth values longrange, regional considerations of sustainability over a short-term focus.
Its goals are to achieve a unique sense of community and place; expand the range of transportation, employment and housing choices; equitably distribute the costs and benefits of development; preserve and enhance natural and cultural resources; and promote public health.” These smart growth strategies are in fact Transit Oriented Developments (TOD). [ Wikipedia 27 august 2007 ] Sales tax Infrastructure is the next most beneficial. The main funding of infra projects is collected trough sales tax. California has a statewide sales tax rate of 7,25%, and local supplementary taxes are allowed up to 8,75%. Of the statewide
7,25% tax, 0,25% is allocated for local transportation funds and 0,75% for local operational funds. The supplementary tax rate for transportation varies between 0,0 and 0,75%, and is democratically decided on the ballot. The effect is that sales tax rates vary from 7,25%, in areas where no additional taxes are charged to 8,75%, for example in Alameda County, in the Bay Area. Critics of the current sales tax regime charge that it gives local governments an incentive to promote commercial development (through zoning and other regulations) over residential development, including the use of eminent domain condemnation proceedings to transfer real estate to higher sales tax generating businesses.
Fruitvale a typical ‘transit village’ near Oakland with retail development, a ‘walkable community’ and a BART-station.
25
1 km
0
Pleasnt Hill
1/4 m
ile
Pleasnt Hill
Around the BART stations an ecosystem of products and services are found varying from childcare to a mall. Nowadays these developments are the result of a so-called Smart Growth strategy or Transit Oriented Development (TOD), in order to create highdensity areas, and so more passengers.
26
MARIN
Green state? California often has two faces. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Governatorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Arnold Schwarzenegger symbolizes this best. Elected as a Republican governor he works closely together with the Democrats. Some right-wing conservatives call him RINO, Republican In Name Only. On the one hand he was personally responsible for turning a popular army vehicle from the first Gulf war, a Hummer, into a car for civilian use, which suited his status of real-life action figure. Thereby he ignited the boom of Sport Utility Vehicles that now have disseminated over our cities as urban tanks. After being elected as governor of California he had his gas guzzling Hummers converted to burn hydrogen, with the help of customized advanced technology. The current hype of eco-friendly products only took off after California massively embraced eco and organic culture. This Ecotopia lifestyle became hot as celebs like Cameron Diaz started driving hybrid cars. The Bay Area already had High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes, for carpoolers. Now these lanes are made available for hybrid cars, too. To reduce car use and earn back heavy investments the Bay bridges are tolled. This is made more convenient with a high-technology, called FastTrek, which makes it possible to pay toll trough a chip without having to stop at the toll booth.
Carpool
Toll booth H2 / hybrid
Travel specs in your car
Toll tag
NAPA SONOMA SOLANO
CONTRA COSTA
SAN FRANCISCO
ALAMEDA
Bay Area road network
SAN MATEO
Controlled Access Highway Other Four Lane Highway High Occupancy Vehicle Lane (HOV) Planned High Occupancy Vehicle Lane
SANTA CLARA
SANTA CRUZ
Toll bridge
Freeways The Bay Area has also made efforts to improve car-based transportation through the use of tolls and the creation of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes that are accessible for hybrid cars, too.
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Jeffersonian Grid-system
Jeffersonian Grid With the colonization of the land from the East Coast a grid pattern was drawn upon the new territory, covering all the land east of Ohio till the Pacific Ocean was reached. This grid pattern was the result of a land survey conceived by Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd president of the United States and planter, architect and lawyer. The grid pattern was an efficient and democratic tool to cut up the cake and share the pie in equal pieces and was as such advocated by Jefferson.
6 miles
Freeway intersection
6 mile 1 mile ½ mile Ÿ mile subdivisions
Freeways Avenues and boulevards Major streets Streets Local roads and streets
Grid Los Angeles road network of Freeways, Boulevards & Avenues
50 km
0
Californiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s car culture serves as a symbol of individual freedom. Even their highways are called freeways, although this just means free of toll. But there is more to it. Freedom and the road network are deeply connected since the founding of the United States and the colonization politics initiated by Thomas Jefferson.
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Palmdale
2% Growth Strategy Areas Santa Clarita
West Covina West LA
San Bernadino Ontario
Union Station
LAX March Corona
Anaheim Long Beach
Maglev 2% Growth Strategy The Los Angeles region of Southern California has organised itself in the SCAG, the Southern California Association of Governments. SCAG has developed a regional comprehensive plan for its territory with a 2030 horizon. One of the keys of this plan is a so-called 2% Strategy that aims at intensification along all kind of transport hubs, from airports to busstops and from highway exits to Maglev* stations and in areas that allow for absorbing substantial residential growth. With this strategy SCAG hopes to “yield the greatest progress toward improving measures of mobility, livability, prosperity and sustainability for local neighborhoods and their residents.” The 2% Strategy proposes increasing the region’s mobility by: • Encouraging transportation investments and land use decisions that are mutually supportive • Locating new housing near exist-
John Wayne
Irvine
ing jobs and new jobs near existing housing • Encouraging transit-oriented development • Promoting a variety of travel choices
regardless of race, ethnicity or income class • Supporting local and state fiscal policies that encourage balanced growth • Encouraging civic engagement
The livability of communities can be enhanced by: • Promoting infill development and redevelopment to revitalize existing communities • Promoting developments which provide a mix of uses • Promoting “people-scaled,” walkable communities • Supporting the preservation of stable neighborhoods
Sustainability is promoted for future generations by: • Preserving rural, agricultural, recreational and environmentally sensitive areas • Focusing development in urban centers and existing cities • Developing strategies to accommodate growth that use resources efficiently, and minimize pollution and waste • Using “green” development techniques
Prosperity will be enabled by: • Providing a variety of housing types in each community to meet the housing needs of all income levels • Supporting educational opportunities that promote balanced growth • Ensuring environmental justice
[ This list is taken from the regional plan ] *) SCAG has planned a Maglev (a magnetic levitation train, currently only running in Shanghai) throughout the South California region, consisting of four lines to be completed before 2030.
100 km
0 Jobs and Population 750 Jobs 1.000 People
Urban field LA forms a classic paradigm to show what this freedom has to offer. A patchwork metropolis with numerous centers specialized in numerous activities.
32 Helicopter with spot light
lancaster palmdale apple valley victorville hesperia
santa clarita
oxnard
marine task force training command
san fernando
ventura thousand oaks
burbank
glendale sepulveda universal city pasadena glendora arcadia santa monica mountains beverly hills hollywood san dimas rodeo drive UCLA pomona bunker hill
malibu
air ground
san bernardino
fontana
santa monica venice
Los Angeles chino city of commerce culver city marina del rey
bell hacienda
gardens heights LAXsouth gate santa fe springs la habra
hills
inglewood paramount heights lennoxcompton bellflower fullerton artesia hermosa beach redondo beach cypress torrance carson disneyland
anaheim
riverside corona
orange palos long beach verdesLA harbor garden grove san pedro
joshua tree
palm springs
santa ana
pacific coast costa highway mesa
huntington beach
irvine newport beach laguna beach
LA and its many cities
LA Mythbusters Los Angeles is as famous as its Hollywood stars. Not always in a positive manner. LA is often denounced. But many of its accused bad habits are ill-founded gossips. Low density Known for its extensive sprawl LA is used worldwide as a term to decry any type of low density development. Southern California, including LA however is the second densest region in the US after New York and is more dense than for example The Netherlands.
dana point
No public transport Los Angeles has an excellent busline system and is building a metro network 100km of which five lines are already operational. Once Los Angeles had the world’s most extensive street car system, that made peripheral land fertile and was the main driver behind (sub)urbanization in the ‘20s and ‘30s. The car industry frustrated public transport The collapse of the streetcar system was not the result of cornering the market by the big three automotive giants, but because of ill-performance. The streetcars ended up in traffic jams caused by the many automobiles while being unable to bypass them.
Thereby traveling by streetcar became by defintition less convenient and slower than the car. Unlimited freedom / Anything goes California is to many the land of individiual freedom where everything is possible. But since 1983, LA has distinguished ‘historic’ districts, and appointed landmarks. These listed sites and buildings are protected and have historic value. Nowadays even building styles are limited by ‘design codes’ in certain neighborhoods. These limitations are not even new. Till the late 1950’s no building was allowed to be taller than City Hall’s than 140 meter tower, although this was based on seismic concerns.
Freedom of the grid
33
Bunker Hill
Its most classic center, Bunker Hill, has a bunch of skyscrapers and even some historic relics dating from its Spanish colonization. However it does not work as an average American downtown. It is a place for headquarters. Not for shopping, education, or a major point of gravity for jobs. Although some have tried to make it a cultural hot spot too, with Walt Disney Concert Hall and the MOCA museum by Isozaki, even the creative hubs are to be found elsewhere.
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Pacific Ocean
3rd Street Promenade
Santa Monica
Gehry House
UCLA
LA Country Club
Rodeo Drive
Westwood Century City
0
Wilshire Theatre LACMA
Beverly Hills
Gurskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 99 cents store
Miracle Mile
MacAthur Park
Korea town
Bunker Hill
Blvd. Wilshire is one of the boulevards that serves as a backbone of Los Angeles. Essentially it runs from Bunker Hill to the Pacific at Santa Monica. Along this axis iconic moments of the urban evolution of the city took place: the first (art deco) department stores, the LACMA, Gehryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own house and the Ambassador Hotel. Now a wide variety of zones, 25 km environments and buildings strung together by Wilshire, showing the rich diversity of Los Angeles.
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0
Top 10 US Ports PORT TEU’s 1 Los Angeles 14.195 2 New York 4.785 3 Houston 4 New Orleans 5 Seattle 4.144 6 Corpus Christi 7 San Francisco 2.273 8 Charleston 1.987 9 Hampton Roads 1.982 10 Savannah 1.902 Top 10 World Ports PORT 1 Singapore 2 Pearl River Delta 3 Shanghai 4 Hong Kong 5 Randstad 6 Busan 7 Qingdao 8 Tokyo 9 Los Angeles 10 Ningbo
TEU’s 23.192 20.883 18.084 22.427 9.287 11.843 6.307 6.466 14.195 5.208
TONS 72 214 262 193 70
TONS 423 369 443 230 451 104 325 312 72 272
N
North
Port Los Angeles has two ports in one. A city border runs straight through the port territory. One port is located in the city of Long Beach, the other in Los Angeles. Together they sit at the San Pedro Bay. Both have their highway corridor running north from the port. Seen as one -as they actually function- it is the largest US port. Its position at the Pacific makes it the primary gateway for trade with Asia. This is especially an advantage for large retailers, like Wal-Mart en Home Depot. This huge economic power still has an enormous growth potential, with Asia’s booming economy. With the capacity to unload Post-Panamamax ships (> 8.200 TEU), it outperforms competitors in the Bay Area that are unable to scale up due to the shallow Bay. Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, faces similar challenges. When the largest container ship in the world calls in Rotterdam, the A15, the harbor highway, chokes under the pressure of the many trucks disseminating TEU’s. Recently a new cargo rail line, the Betuweline, opened to lower the pressure. A study showed that residents in the A15 corridor face one of Europe’s highest health risks.
25 km
LA Harbor & Harbor Freeway
Rotterdam Harbor & A15-Freeway
LA Harbor
Los Angeles is home of the largest US port and forms a gateway for Asian imports, such as cars, oil and containerized commerce. It faces similar challenges as the port of Rotterdam.
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Port problems Via the Long Beach Freeway (I710), the Harbor Freeway (I110) and a major rail line goods are shipped from the San Pedro Bay ports land inward to logistical hubs for processing and further dissemination of the goods across the nation. This causes air quality problems and is a danger for public health and an ubiquitous nuisance. To overcome these problems truck corridors are planned as separate lanes on the freeway. These truck-corridors help to improve air-quality and save shippers significant costs by
saving time. Because high-value cargo creates more jobs that lowvalue cargo, the truck corridors try to chase away lower-value cargo carriers with fees and tolls: in total approximately $100 per TEU. By improving of the hinterland connections 1 million middle class jobs are expected to be created. Those jobs fit the educational profile well; 45% of the region’s adults have no college experience. More and more the handling of the goods takes place in the Inland Empire –the counties of San Bernardino and Riversidewhere there are still enough
cheap and large scale plots for the ever expanding need of trade. Currently a warehouse the size of eight Manhattan city blocks is under construction. The area has another advantage; it is well situated to tap into the Inland Empire’s large pool of labor.
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10 km
0
LA Harbour Dry Bulk Container Terminal Petroleum Cruise Terminal Interstate Freeway Alameda corridor railway Railway
LA tries to create as many jobs from the port as possible, instead of becoming an efficient funnel to feed the rest of America. At the same time the bundles of infrastructure that connect the port with the hinterlands choke under the heavy pressure of goods, making neighborhoods in proximity suffer from noise and health problems.
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Heaven?
Clean Air
San Gabriel mountain range Atmospheric inversion Smog
Bunker Hill
LA Basinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban field
Santa Monica Pier
Fresh winds from the Pacific
Venice Beach
41 Ozone “Ozone is a colorless, poisonous gas. Ground level ozone is a major component of urban and regional smog. Ozone is a strong irritant, which can reduce lung function and aggravate asthma as well as lung disease.” The ozone pollution (measured in number of days exceeding the Federal one-hour standard) has been decreasing since the mid ‘80s. With a small upheavel between 2001 and 2003, a 25 year low was recorded in 2004.
The most common sources of particulates are emissions from vehicles. And although many attempts to reduce car emissions have been initiated and implemented, the awareness that ships are even bigger polluters has just dawned. This pollution is caused by their ‘bunker fuel’, the heaviest commercial oil that can be obtained from crude oil, worse then gasoline or naphtha. Not all PM10‘s are dangerous , making it hard to measure and compare. One of the ingredients for example is sea salt
PM10 “PM10 is particulate matter with diameter of 10 microns or smaller. Exposure to particulate matter aggravates a number of respiratory illnesses and may even cause early death in people with existing heart and lung disease. Both long-term and short-term exposure can have adverse health impacts. Particulate matter can be directly emitted into the air in the form of dust and soot.” [The state of the region, 2005] “California state standards for PM10 are signicifanctly more stringent than federal standards due to greater consideration given to potential health impacts. Specifically, the state annual average standard for PM10 of 20 µg/m3 is only 40% of the federal standard of 50 µg/m3.”
Atmospheric inversion In LA the air pollution is strengthened by a local microclimate feature called Atmospheric inversion, which keeps fresh air out, giving it no chance to dissolve the dirty air. “In meteorology, an inversion is a deviation from the normal change of an atmospheric property with altitude. It almost always refers to a temperature inversion, i.e., an increase in temperature with height, or to the layer within which such an increase occurs. An inversion can lead to pollution such as smog being trapped close to the ground, with possible adverse effects on health. An inversion can also suppress convection by acting as a “cap”. If this cap is broken for any of several reasons, convection of any moisture present can then erupt into violent thunderstorms. Usually, within the lower atmosphere -the troposphere- the air near the
[The state of the region, 2005]
surface of the Earth is warmer than the air above it, largely because the atmosphere is heated from below as solar radiation warms the earth’s surface, which in turn then warms the layer of the atmosphere directly above it. Under certain conditions, the normal vertical temperature gradient is inverted such that the air is colder near the surface of the Earth. This can occur when, for example, a warmer, less dense air mass moves over a cooler, more dense air mass. This type of inversion occurs in the vicinity of warm fronts, and also in areas of oceanic upwelling such as along the California coast. With sufficient humidity in the cooler layer, fog is typically present below the inversion cap.” [ Wikipedia,19 feb. 2007 ]
Fog Fog is Friso’s famous climate feature. A nightmare for tourists who are shivering in their short pants trapped by sudden colds and showers. “San Francisco’s weather is as changeable as the seas, literally. Surrounded on all sides (save one) by ocean and bay, San Francisco’s weather is also one of the hardest to forecast and changes drastically from neighborhood to neighborhood. Over four seasons, not one of which corresponds to its climatic expectations, San Francisco’s weather can be difficult for visitors to predict, save that Fog City delivers majestic skies, trademark plumes of white fog and brilliant sunsets.” [http://www.sanfrancisco.com/weather/ 6aug2007 ]
Air quality The Port is one of the major contributors in the LA region to bad air quality. Locked between the Pacific Ocean and the San Gabriel Mountains the LA basin suffers under bad air quality, especially ozone and particulate matter, PM10. These problems increase because of atmospheric inversion.
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Downtown
Downtown San Francisco Highrise buildings Cultural programm
1 km
Green Attractions Downtown grid
f an’s Whar
Fisherm
Freeway
on
Fort Mas
BART Railway
0
ill Russian H
gh Telegrap
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h
ac North Be
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China tow
Nob Hill
uare
Union Sq
of m rt eu n A us er M od M So ut
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of
M
ar ke t
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San Francisco The Bay Area’s largest and oldest downtown boomed during the 1840’s goldrush, was an epic center of hippies in the 1960’s and currently is the home of many web 2.0 most successful companies.
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45
1 km
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Downtown Oakland Highrise buildings Port Green Airport Downtown grid Freeway BART Railway
Oakland The 1906 earthquake in San Franciso fueled the growth of the other two major centers in the Bay area, Oakland and San Jose. Oakland, a working class city with its large port, is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the U.S. In the late â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;90s it started a plan to attract 10.000 additional residents to downtown, through a number of redevelopment initiatives. It is seen by many residents as a form of gentrification, pushing the lower incomes out.
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47
1 km
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Downtown San Jose Highrise buildings Green Airport Downtown grid Freeway VTA tramway Railway
San Jose San Jose doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t share a lot of features with a traditional downtown. It is the most urban area at the south of the Bay in the heart of Silicon Valley. With a tram and a pedestrian area an attempt is made to make the area more attractive. But still San Jose is more dominated by extensive parking lots and incoming planes at the nearby International Airport.
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Suburbia In some ways, Suburbia can be conceived as a landscape of fear. It has become an emblem of scared, unworldly Americans who fled the city and now spend their lives in houses with barred windows in gated communities. They only leave their homes by SUV; that is, a convenient, fullyequipped version of a tank with state-of-the-art modern technologies which promises to bring them straight to safe havens such as the secured parking garages of their office or the local airconditioned shopping mall. Voluntary prisoners.
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51
The other picture of suburbia is that of a paradisiac mix of city and countryside, where everybody can afford to live in a detached house, hopefully with a porch and pool. A safe environment to raise kids, far away from polluting ports and dangerous downtowns. A community environment where people still know and greet eachother and that is very well connected to everything a family needs: school, shopping mall, sports and service sector jobs.
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Form follows function? The quintessential LA picture is the shot from the Hollywood Hills over the endless plains of orthogonal streets that fill up the valley from foothill to foothill. The city’s main idea, to have your own place under the Californian sun is facilitated by grid supplying the maximal amount of space for individual dreams. Infrastructure and services are treated as bare necessities and have forced themselves into the system. The valley has filled up and the Beverly Hills setting grew into the new suburban dream. When the city conquers the hillsides, the grid transforms. Orthogonal streets turn into landscaped lanes. Though variation increases, the grid looses clarity and turns into a maze. Instead of a multitude of possibilities, there’s only one way in or out. The new landscaped grid lacks connections to the city and hence the freedom of possibilities in the grid. The curves are so popular now that they conquer the LA basin at the fringes and jump accross the St. Garbiel Mountains into the LA dessert.
Peripheral curves: “only five minutes to the grid”
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1 km
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Orthogonal grid
Curves and a grid Since Ebenezer Howardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s garden city and Olmstedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Riverside in Chicago the typical suburb is a residential area with curved streets in a landscape setting. These suburban spirals surround the more centrally located and older orthogonal grids.
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Worst of two worlds Ypenburg is a typical example of recent residential planning in the Netherlands. In general, this planning tradition is juxtaposed to American sprawl. Dutch regulations would limit sprawl and promote public transport, whereas housing developments in the States are car-oriented and lack basic services. Comparing Ypenburg to a recent neighbourhood in the Bay Area such as Pleasant Hill, we get a different picture. In essence, Ypenburg’s neighbourhoods form grids. Different quarters aren’t connected directly however. Above the structure of orthogonal roads is a second structure of neigbourhood access roads. These roads have only very limited connections, in order to avoid local shortcuts. Although the neighbourhood is surrounded by motorways, access is limited to three on ramps. As such, Ypenburg has the worst of the two worlds. A grid that doesn’t connect and no landscape worth looking at. Besides, in Ypenburg the railway stop is located at the edge of town and miles away from the local shopping mall.
More than middleclass only
No room for individual expression
Pleasant Hill on the other hand is being developed along the principles of Smart Growth. The neighbourhood and services are oriented towards the BART station. Within the neighbourhood a grid provides maximum freedom, while BART offers best value for out-of-town trips.
A dense center, but far from a station.
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1 km
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Suburb Ypenburg, The Hague, NL
Smart Growth, Pleasant Hill
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Many tastes
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Edge City The heart of suburbia consists of more than a sea of houses. Also jobs and services have found the qualities of these environs. These programs tend to cluster in new centers near highway junctions. Joel Garreau coined the term Edge City and wrote a book about it. According to Garreau such a center has a critical mass of 500 thousand square meters of office
space in a five minute drive area. With an average gross need of 25 square meters per employee, that means an Edge City consists of at least 20 thousand jobs. Other programmatic features of an EC are a shopping mall and a hotel. To support its functions some 250 thousand residents must live within a fifteen-minute drive. The Bay is home to more than
ten Edge Cities. Many of them are situated behind the East Bay Hills and bear names like Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill. Europe has edge cities, too. They differ from the American ones because they are well served by public transport, have parking garages instead of giant lots and a main entrance for pedestrians.
Typical mall
500 m
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Suburbia is more than a residential crust. After the families left the city, they were followed by shops and jobs in the following decade. 0
1km
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The Google campus in Mountain View
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Offices In the Bay Area more people work in suburban settings than in downtowns. In these environs more space is consumed to park all the cars than is needed for the typical four storey office building. These clusters of office blocks are often referred to as brain parks or campuses although there is only a tiny residual space that serves as a common outdoor to enjoy the beautiful Californian climate.
This oasis is situated in the midst of a ring of boring boxes filled with cubicles in which predominantly foreign born, well educated young people work behind computers on the next generation of information technologies that time and time again will change the way the rest of the world will work. A similar process takes place in European new towns of the ‘70s. Twenty years after the people
left the central city to live in a satellite town, they are followed by jobs. In The Netherlands this is especially the case in the inner ring of the Randstad; in places like Hoofddorp, Nieuwegein, Capelle and Zoetermeer which all have a good car accessibility.
500 m
Typical office park
0
These other functions tend to cluster near highway junctions and form new ‘city’ centers with everything a classic downtown has, but then suburban style.
Sa nd
Hil
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El C ami
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1 km
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Stanford University Campus Buildings Campus and green surroundings
lara santa c county teo san ma county
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Business Park
Silicon Valley 61
62 How one thing leads to another The presence of Stanford University and a large naval research centre around Moffett Airfield in Santa Clara Valley would form the grassroots of latter Silicon Valley. The tradition of science at Stanford and naval communication were the ingredients that shaped the powerhouse of information technology of the 21st century the inventions of Silicon Valley. As a suburban area without skyscrapers or urban functions, Silicon Valley invented an economy of its own. Stanford University founded Stanford Business Park in 1951, to promote students to start up their own enterprises. Graduated students were supported by the university in building up business. One of the first tenants was, and still is, Hewlett Packard. Many others followed, and that’s how Silicon Valley earned its reputation as being a cradle of invention. As reputations grew, private investors became interested in spotting ‘the next big thing’ and since the 1960’s investment has been based on venture capital. All around the Valley young technology firms sprung up, hoping to draw the attention of venture capitalists. Private investors fostered starting companies hoping for a new technological miracle. One of the strongholds of private investors is on Sand Hill Road, next to Stanford and a central point in the valley. A general rule for drawing attention is the 20-minutes rule: the maximum travel time from Sand Hill Road to the start-up firm. This means, in the present road system, that the physical area of Silicon Valley is set between San Jose in the South and San Mateo in the north.
Santa Cruz Mountains
280
Foothills
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Stanford University
U Moffett Airfield
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Stanford University
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El Camino Real
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Santa Clara University
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Silicon Valley is the name for the area surrounding the southern tip of the bay near San Jose and Palo Alto. The area is known as the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s technology 101 powerhouse, housing multinationals in computer technology like Apple and Adobe, leading universities like Stanford in Palo Alto and the cradle of information technology and buzzwords like Web 2.0.
San Jose
64 For a worldwide technology hub,
Alto and the Silicon Valley look SiliconPalo Valley
surprisingly suburban. It’s been said that Betas work best in green, and here, that’s certainlyNavy, true. Palo Alto University and Menlo Park, home of Stanford and erospace industries private investors, are medium-sized communities that, at a glance, might just as well be far-flung suburbs to San Francisco. Moderate houses in ewlett Packard 1939 tree-lined streets are home to the designers of information technology. Shockley - transistors semiconductors 1953
Although Silicon Valley is one of the most profitable places for business, and the area was known in the AMD 1969 Semiconductors 1970 Inteldotcom bubble for having the most millionaires per square meters, few chose to move out or rebuild their house in the way it happens down Apple 1976 Xerox Parc south in the Hollywood Hills. Adobe
US Navy Moffett Field 1935
Stanford University 1885
Venture Capital 1935 Hewlett Packard 1939 HP 1939
Stanford Research Parc 1951 AMD 1969
Intel 1968
Semiconductors 1970 Apple 1976
Cisco 1984
Adobe 1982
Communication technology Sand Hill Road development
Cisco
The office parks on Sand Hill Road are
a world apart from Times Square or Google EA Games Downtown San Francisco. Although Ciscofloor prizes here hit world record rents back in the 1990’s, square meters for let are scarce and exclusive. The buildings look like stately mansions, surrounded by parks and golf courses.
Information technology is business like any other, but has its own ecology. Firms like HP, Apple or Google didn’t move to the fashionable downtowns or accessible airports, but stayed right were they were. Their headquarters are still rather close to where they once started, in the extensive office parks bordering the Bay. Google built a campus with low-rise offices surrounding an open garden, a modern compound reminiscent of their roots 7 kms away, at Stanford. Hewlett Packard, the biggest company in information technology in the world, never moved out of the Stanford Business Park, 1.5 km away from university, since they moved in in 1951. The park has even been mentioned as the first office park in the world.
EBay 1995
Google 1996
Yahoo 1994
Dotcom Bubble 2001
Web 2.0 YouTube 2005
Flickr 2005
South Park SF San Mateo
Stanford University campus, aka The Farm, was founded by Leland Stanford in 1885 in commemoration of his lost son.
As a suburban area without skyscrapers or urban functions, Silicon Valley invented an economy of its own. Since Stanford University founded Stanford Business Park to start up university-related enterprises, development is based on venture capital. Nowadays, many private investors foster starting companies that spring up in the Valley, hoping for a new technological miracle.
66 Napa Napa Valley is widely considered one of the best wine regions in the US, situated between two mountain ranges with an open end on the north side of the Bay. It benefits from a beautiful Mediterranean climate, although there is a set of microclimates that create a great place sensitivity for the vulnerable grapes and critical wine tasters. Wine has been produced here since the mid 19th century. But success only took off after the large scale Mondavi Estate was founded in the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;60s. Followed in the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;70s by a boost when Napa Valley wines drew attention at wine tastings in Paris. Today the valley is home to more than 300 wineries.
Winery Nicholson Ranch
250 m
Landscape
0
Napa Valley
The beautiful climate and landscapes of California make it one of the most desirable places on earth to live and work. One more reason for geeks to settle near the Bay. But the sloping hills are also home to one of the most intensive forms of agriculture: viniculture. 0
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Wine & Cheese The Bay Area has beautiful landscapes nearby the urban centers. They are used for intensive agriculture in the form of wineries and orchards. Not only do these forms of agriculture make a decent profit for their farmers, they also result in attractive landscapes. Californians have nostalgic sentiments and consider Napa Valley and the areas around it as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;theirâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Tuscany. The green polders also give the Dutch a sense of pride about the heroic deeds of their compatriots and their highly developed engineering skills. The rational and rectangular artificial lands are beautiful products of mankind that inspired very different people like Mondriaan and Descartes. Agriculture still has the largest land claims in Holland. But it has not a bright future. Scale enlargement is no longer possible, because of the small scale and vulnerable water system and the increasing urban pressure. But Napa might offer a new future for the polder. Where Napa is famous for wine Holland is famous for cheese. Many wineries are owned by the rich and famous of California. These wineries are worth more than they will ever produce in wines.Wineries have become status symbols to show wealth, and of course, good taste. What Napa wines are to the Bay Area cheese is to the Randstad; a tourist attraction with a scenery of classic Dutch windmills. So why doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Dutch billionaire John de Mol own a cheese farm yet? 0
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Midden Delfland Regional Parc Midden Delfland Farms Municipality Midden Delfland
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Napa Valley Vineyards (wijngaarden/velden) Wineries Napa County
What Napa is to the Bay Area are the green polders to the Randstad. Where California sells wine, the Dutch may (re)sell cheese. To start with Midden-Delfland, the polder park between Thea Hague and Rotterdam.
0
70 Where vine meets divine At the north end of the Napa Valley lies a textbook example of a celebrity winery; the ‘Clos Pegase’, a postmodern winery designed by starchitect Micheal Graves. The buildings are full of references to classic roman and greek architecture and the estate is scattered with sculptures of artists like Sol LeWitt and Jean Dubuffet. Clos Pegase is not a museum, but it is open to visitors and wine tours. Or as it is discribed on their own website (www.clospegase.com): “Just down the road from the town of Calistoga, there is a crossroads. It’s the intersection of wine and art. And at that crossroads, you’ll find something rare and remarkable: balance. You’ll find serious, passionate estategrown winemaking balanced with an open-hearted spirit of sharing and celebration. You’ll find great works of art living in harmony with the earthy simplicity of the soil and the vine. You’ll find a majestic temple that’s somehow both awe-inspiring and welcoming. Wine that offers both true varietal intensity and food-friendly approachability. You’ll find a place that captures the spirit of Bacchus: equal parts divine and joyfully downto-earth. Look for the crossroads, and there, you’ll find Clos Pegase.”
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The combination of an attractive landscape, delicious products, and the mystery of the making have turned wineries into castles of culture. Not only do they attract wealthy tourists for wine tours. They also have become a status symbol for celebs, displaying their good taste in wine, art and architecture. All this drives up the price of a winery to heights that will never break-even by making wines...
72 Swiss architects Herzog&deMeuron designed such a winery for Dominus. The building has the neutral shape of a bar. The facade mimicks the colors of the surrounding lands and is made of metal mesh boxes, filled with rocks, keeping out snakes and other vermin. The winery is not their only design in the Napa Valley. They’ve also designed a villa close by for a couple that collects video art, known as the Kramlich residence. Construction started, but has come to a standstill a few years ago. Leaving the house far from finished. Rumors have it that the house was one of the victims of the burst of the dotcom bubble. In Napa wine seems a better investment...
Herzog&deMeuron’s Kramlich residence in Napa Valley
Zandbelt&vandenBerg’s villa in the dunes of Hoek van Holland
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Stealth winery Already a third generation of wineries has popped up in Napa, since the end of last century. These wineries are not open to the public, and concentrate solely on making good wines. Their architecture is still cutting edge, this time aiming at becoming a totally invisible and inaccessible part of the landscape, primarily to avoid annoying masses of wine tourists. But how to keep those architecture tourists out?
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San Francisco Bay Area
Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) ABAG is a voluntary cooperation between 9 counties and their 101 cities as members. ABAG does not make a long term comprehensive plan. It merely coordinates and focuses on a few topics. These are transport (MTC), water (Bay Estuary Project), Environment (Bay Estuary and Air Quality) and smart growth (ABAG). ABAG further is responsible for the planning (and construction) of hiking and biking paths. Besides its planning aparatus ABAG is also a data center. It gathers data and makes program forecasts, based on trends and a vision. Since 2002 the construction of more housing has beent stimulated to deal with the current shortage. The program forecasts consist of the total number of houses needed and divided over four income categories. A median house in the Bay Area is sold on the market for $ 600 thousand, while the average payroll per job is $ 56 thousand a year, the highest of the largest US metropolitan areas. Air Quality District The Air Quality District is a legal authority which is part of / supports the Smart Growth strategy. Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) Based on the 1969 San Francisco Bay Plan the BCDC is “the federally-designated state coastal management agency . [...] This designation empowers the Commission to use the authority of the federal Coastal Zone Management Act to ensure that federal projects and activities are consistent with the policies of the Bay Plan and state law.” [ www.bcdc.ca.gov ] A 100 foot Bay line was introduced to reduce the filling of the Bay and secure public access to the shores. California The state of California now gives incentives to (subsidizes) local governments to cooperate in the field of (regional) planning, among others with the restart of smart growth visions, in order to: - engage local governments - keep housing production on infill locations - envision spatial development This smart growth strategy is not (yet) adopted as a whole by the regional government(s). Metropolitan Transport Commission (MTC) MTC was founded in 1975 and coordinates land use and transportation, with a basic attitude to serve demand and follow urbanization patterns. Its regional transportation plan, with a 20 year scope, is based on spatial growth, economic and demographic projections. MTC is a relatively rich funding agency that also funds ABAG. MTC is funded by the State of California and the federal government. It funnels its budget to local transit agencies. A large share of its budget goes to maintenance. Infrastructure projects are funded by a mix of Federal, state and local money (all public). A major part of this funding is raised through sales tax. The percentage of sales tax is decided on the ballot. It currently is at 0,5% and may vary between 0,0% and 0,75%. Quango’s Planning in California is not solely a governmental affair. Many Quango’s (quasi non-governmental organizations) NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) and grassroot organizations are involved, such as SPUR (San Francisco Planning and Urban Research group,)and TALC (Transportation and Land use Coalition).
Southern California Association of Gorvernments (SCAG) Over the past four decades, the Southern California Association of Governments has evolved as the largest of nearly 700 councils of government in the United States, functioning as the Metropolitan Planning Organization for six counties: Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and Imperial. The region encompasses a population exceeding 18 million persons in an area of more than 77,000 square kilometers. As the designated Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Association of Governments is mandated by the federal government to research and draw up plans for transportation, growth management, hazardous waste management, and air quality. Additional mandates exist at the state level. Its major products are: Regional Transportation Plan -Making the connectionsThis plan provides a framework for the development of the regional transportation system Goods Movement Action Plan A regional strategy for the Southern California goods movement system. Regional Comprehensive Plan The RCP will coordinate planning activities and direct activities and resources for implementing the region’s future vision. The State of the Region -Measuring regional progressSCAG’s annual report assessing the region’s performance with respect to key issue areas and other regions. [Source: www.scag.ca.gov ]
Orgware
Los Angeles’ region of South California
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Colophon Image credits All illustrations, images, maps and photos are a product of Zandbelt&vandenBerg, except for those listed below: p. 16 Photo Flickr p. 17 Animal sketches San Francisco Estuary Project Factsheet p. 26 Hummer photos Flickr p. 28 Portrait Thomas Jefferson Wikipedia p. 38 Port of Long Beach Flickr p. 50 - 51 Satellite image Google Earth p. 68 Sunmaid raisins Wikipedia p. 68 - 69 Winery landscapes Flickr In making this book we have used a small number of images for which copyright holders could not be identified. In these cases, it has been our assumption that such images belong to the public domain. If you can claim ownership of any of the images presented here, and have not been properly identified, please notify us and we will be happy to make a formal acknowledgement in all future editions. All texts are a product of Zandbelt&vandenBerg unless noted differently. Project team Daan Zandbelt and Rogier van den Berg with Petra Maas, Bart Witteman, Floris Korteweg and Jing Zhou Special thanks to Rachel Keeton for editing Joost Schrijnen Published in the same series London GLA´s spatial development strategy Paris, l’histoire se répète
July 2003 December 2004
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Commissioned by Provincie Zuid-Holland This publication is made possible with support of the TU Delft.
ISBN 978-90-809293-3-3 1st print, 1.000 copies
Californication -sunny side upFor many people, especially in western Europe, California stands for everything subversive in western culture. At the same time, it provides the ultimate in worldly life for its many immigrants coming from within the US, the Americas, Asia or even Europe. This study highlights the more positive sides of Californian urbanization and shows that Californication is a generic process not uncommon in the rest of the developed world. A crash course Californication as an alternative for the European urbanization model; sunny side up.
ISBN 978-90-809293-3-3