San Francisco Chronicle: Suburban job growth imperils emission goals

[marmar]

Suburban job growth imperils emission goals
James Temple, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, March 1, 2009


San Francisco lagged the region's suburbs in job growth over the last three decades, forcing increasing numbers of commuters to pack highways instead of public transportation even as the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions become increasingly evident, according to a report set for release today.

The city, and other urban areas better served by mass transit than suburban business parks, must adjust policies to attract a greater share of office development and employers, concludes "Recentering Work: The Future of Transit-Oriented Jobs in Downtown San Francisco," released by the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association.

In particular, the study by the planning think tank says the city must revisit current zoning rules, under which the downtown office market could only expand by about 16 percent, or 13 million square feet. Based on various projections, that means the city's core could be completely built out in as little as seven years - and at most 15.

"When we look at the last 30 years of Bay Area history, it's been a history of increasing commutes by cars, employment spread out and decentralized over a wider and wider area, and a decline of our central cities as a share of all jobs," said Egon Terplan, SPUR policy director and the report's principal author. "We cannot meet regional climate change goals unless we change that pattern." ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/01/BU26165NVF.DTL

[Taverner]

1. You can't stop suburban sprawl, sorry

Just like you can't make people smarter, you can't, short of at gunpoint, make people move into crowded tenement buildings.

Better to work around sprawl, make cleaner cars, make greener suburbs, etc than to force people to move into tenements.

[marmar]

2. But you can definitely make suburban development "smarter".......

..... witness Toronto's "Transit City" plan:


http://www3.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Projects_and_initiatives/Transit_city/index.jsp

[Taverner]

5. Yes, yes you can

And - you can make suburban homes take less toll on the environment, as well as factoring in open space so that wildlife that gets forcibly moved can survive elsewhere.

[Hello_Kitty]

3. Why does it have to be tenements?

Ever been to Tokyo? People there live in much smaller quarters, and more closely together, but I'd hardly call it tenement dwelling. You just do more with less space.

[Taverner]

4. Yes and forcing people into that miserable existence would be just as impossible

Sorry, it ain't going to happen

Work around it

[Hello_Kitty]

6. Do you think people are miserable in Tokyo?

Any more miserable than the typical American suburb or exurb dweller with a 2 hour commute?

[Taverner]

7. Yes I do - I worked with a lot of Japanese Expats in a job in the city once

The one thing they all feared was getting sent back to Japan

In SF they had a house all to themselves, room to park their car in the driveway, room to breathe and move - whereas in Japan they lived in very cramped apartments. And if they traveled on business, they had to rent one of those sleeping cubes - in the US they got a real life hotel room.

No, you can't force Americans into cramped quarters. You can wish all you want, or live in cramped quarters if you so desire - but you will be in the minority. No one wants that life. Especially if it is not necessary.

Keep in mind Japan is also a completely different culture than us. Kids stay at home until they get married, and sometimes even as late as having kids. Having your own room is a luxury few kids get - even if they have the room.

Whereas our culture has always been about "elbow room" - its why we deluded ourselves on Manifest Destiny.

[Hello_Kitty]

8. And if you asked a bunch of American expats in Tokyo, they'd tell you the same thing

There's usually a reason people become expats - because they don't like where they're from. They're not a good representative sample of the population of a country. I lived in Japan for 3 years and if I could have secured permanent work, I could see myself staying there long term.

[Taverner]

9. I actually know people who have been expats in Japan too

And although they liked Japan, they all wanted to live in a cheaper country, like Taiwan, China or Singapore

Trust me - you will not get Americans into "Bento boxes" as they called them

You can wish and wish, but that will not make it so

[Hello_Kitty]

10. And wishing that we can continue to spawl without dire consequences will not make it so either

This is beginning to remind me of threads about overpopulation so I'll bid you adieu. Sadly, too many people insist on keeping their heads in the sand.

[Taverner]

11. So how do you propose a solution?

Line us all up at gunpoint and force us to move out of the suburbs? Your head is in the sand, I'm afraid.

And the solution is not marching us into Bento Boxes, but making our transit green, creating HIGH SPEED mass transit and making the homes green. We already have the technology for all of this. We do not have the technology to change people's minds however.

[HamdenRice]

13. Uhhm on which planet?

First of all, over the last 30 years, there has been a massive return to the cities, especially places like New York City, Boston and San Francisco itself. This is hardly a return to "tenements" and more like a return to urbane, culturally and commercially rich, environmentally efficient lifestyles. Enabling that trend to accelerate by increasing the stock of urban housing and reducing housing costs in the big cities will bring even more people back.

Secondly, while no one is forcing people to return to the cities at gunpoint, forcing people in the suburbs to pay the true costs of their lifestyle -- carbon taxes, road taxes, development of farmland compensation taxes, and so no -- will probably convince many millions that the supposed "superiority" of their sterile, bloated, intellectually and culturally impoverished, socially isolated and brain dead suburban existences was an illusion all along.

[NYC_SKP]

12. OK, wait a minute. Many in the suburbs are commuting to the city, so

if jobs are being created nearer to where the people live, it seems to me that commute miles driven would be less, thus fewer emissions.

I live near Tracy, Lathrop, Stockton, towns where thousands have moved for the low home prices but who commute to the SF Bay Area.

Creating more jobs in the city to which suburbanites need to drive doesn't seem like a good thing compared to creating them where people live.

:shrug: