A deep dive into the history of city planning in San José, CA
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- Did you know San José is the 10th largest city in America? Or that its Light Rail System needs therapy? Watch this video to learn more about the odd history of how San José came to be as the world's largest suburb!
Hey all, really shocked by the success of this video. I honestly had never recorded my voice before, had ever even touched any editing software, or written and read a script.
This obviously lead to some growing pains. I want to briefly put line some fact checking viewers have done and outline next video goals. I really appreciate it and promise future videos will have much less errors, and no jokes about numbers like a 13 year old in 2009. Overall they are pretty minor but I want to be transparent.
The MLS San José Earthquakes also play in San José. I erroneously say the Sharks are the only professional sports team. This is because their park is very close to Santa Clara.
When I show an image and labeled it "New York, New York" that was actually an image of Bostons North end. I had a couple images for the same point and swapped them out, my apologizes to the city of Boston (also sorry Bruins fans).
The Botanical Gardens I mention in the collage are actually in Saratoga, not San José proper. Honestly if anything this proves how little there is in the city.
As some have pointed out, San José based on recent estimates is below 1 million people. I was using the 2020 census. I think with new developments I think it will bounce back over 1 million in the next 10 years.
I mispronounced Diridion, I chalk that up to me never recording my voice before and having to record on my phone in a broom closet 4x I made a few odd word choices lime "The Northern California" who says that?
Lastly, I got some very detailed comments from people noting that VTA is not controlled by the city but is more County level, which partially explains a lot of it's issues. I plan to do a video on how bay area transit agencies are the Holy Roman Empire of transit someday and go into this in further detail.
I also want to say I plan less weak cutaway jokes, and no jokes about "69" until I do a video on I-69. I'd be lying if I don't want to use meme humor in future videos, but I will make it less throwaway and hopefully less obnoxious.
In your future Bay Area transit video, if you ever do it, there’s a great organization called Seamless Bay Area doing a lot of great advocacy to unite the 27(!) different transit agencies. Plus they have great graphics you could borrow
Graphics I can borrow you say...
I'd say keep exploring humor however you want. Humor in this vid was fine and if you are having fun it generally improves the quality of the final product. Never stop playing, etc
p.s. Quite surprised this is your first video! "City Planner Plays City Builders" got me into city planning in a big way, but most of his experience is in other states, and I've always been curious about Bay Area city planning. Keep it up!
Thanks for choosing my little big city for your first video! You got a lot right. I actually think everything you talked about really obfuscates the incredible aspects of the city, so I'm not mad you missed how much is really happening here :)
After growing up in San Jose, I can easily tell how it is just one giant suburb. Pockets of the city are more walkable such as Willow Glen, Midtown, and Downtown but there is still so much more to be desired. I have noticed an increase in bike infrastructure in my neighborhood with a brand new protected bike lane but it still has a long way to go. It is hard to get anywhere without a car. Even when I take the Caltrain, I stop and park at Diordan station. With traffic becoming closer to pre-pandemic levels, it is becoming more and more obvious that transit to and from the work centers of Silicon Valley needs to be utilized.
Appreciate the comment, hope it gets better utilized too!
As a San Josean, I agree with this analysis. I also live in what is considered downtown. There is so much potential; unfortunately many long time residents have gotten used to the car-centric way of life. Still, there advocates like myself who are pushing for more protected bike lanes and mixed-use mid rise buildings. Two things worthy of mentioning. About 4x/year, the city closes a set of streets to cars, and allows bikes, skates, etc to travel for fun with food kiosks and music playing along the routes. The goal is to get people outside and enjoying the downtown from a different pov. What I hope is that it will bend minds to another possible way of life here. Another thing happening is there is at least one street which has permanently closed itself to cars....and subsequently it is one of the most popular destinations in downtown.
Great to hear about your activism! I agree a big part is pov, once you put perspective to it all, it becomes less alien and that helps normalize these changes. I think one area of "urbanist youtube" I want to be a part of is going over a lot of these challenges. Not to use this as a soapbox, but I think the way we describe a lot of elements as inherently foreign ie "Dutch style bike system" is one area that has lead to this friction. Making a lot of sensible housing and biking policy inherently "European" I think makes it harder for people to imagine these things in there city. However as you pointed out, San Jose already has a closed off street, already has sets of streets closed down, and as other commenters pointed out, already has mixed used neighborhoods. It's a campaign for more of what is the best parts of the city and I wish you the best of luck!
Use electric skateboard bro
As a San Jose resident too, I agree with bike lanes and stuff, but I would disagree that San Jose is unworkable as it is right now, I actually like the suburb-feel of San Jose, unlike driving into SF or Oakland, and I don't need to drive into downtown or business areas, yes we can always improve light rail and bus lines, but there should be a good balance, not every city needs to be 100% bike / walkable, San Jose just needs some improvement in the future
I think San Jose is workable! I hope I didn't come across as a doomer, I'm an optimist. I believe as in the video, I don't realistically think San Jose could just poof turn into Barcelona. There's areas of improvement but it's not like the city is doomed. I apologize for not going over more of the positive of San Jose. Some of my best friends went to college there and I have a lot of family who grew up/live there.
I would push a bit about the walkability because a city that isn't walkable is a safety hazard. You can have suburb be walkable, so why shouldn't a city?
Additionally, I get why people like the suburb-feel of San Jose, I'd only note that's kind of how California got into it's affordability crisis. San Francisco being against "Mahattanization" in the 1970s eventually snowballed throughout the bay to create the modern NIMBY movement. That doesn't mean I think San Jose needs an entire rebuild, but just wanted to note that the suburb-feel comes at a very high cost.
as someone who has used the VTA system i can tell you that it is not practical for most people who want to stay employed at their job. The busses run when they want to and will pass you by the other half. If you don't happen to live near a direct route to your destination then you can spend huge amounts of time in transit. Cars are essential if you want to keep your job. Mixed use building that would allow people to live, work, and shop without a car sounds like a good idea.
This is totally spot on! I grew up in San Jose from 1970's through the present and have been a first-hand witness to most of what you've described. San Jose is one of those cities where its story is one where you can "follow the money". When you look at the history of a lot of things San Jose, a lot of decisions favored developers. You should also dig into "East San Jose" if you're inclined. It's got a history that most people don't even know about which has pretty much been erased by parking lots, strip-malls and questionable planning.
Growing up in San Jose and taking public transit for my whole life; I thought it was normal in other places to walk a mile to get to the train to then get to a stop then walk another mile to get to the stop. The funny thing is, where I lived and where my school was located was convenient enough for me to take public transit until I graduated. When I moved to a more urban area after college, I realized that I was a crazy person for accepting 20 minute walks to train stations as normal and convenient 😂
Yeah some people get lucky in San Jose and can do that. Ideally it would be a lot easier to take transit!
@Hinnawi the mega drought in the 2010's really saved my commute hah
San Jose has SO much potential to become a much better urbanist city, particularly in the areas in and adjacent to downtown, and the places along the current and planned rail corridors. I sincerely hope that San Jose follows through on all that potential. I do see glimmers of optimism: a growing network of protected bike lanes and intersections that are part of a bold cycling plan, ending single-family-exclusive zoning, ending parking minimums, a large mixed-use redevelopment plan for the area around San Jose Diridon station, and an increasing number of mixed use developments along existing light rail lines. San Jose has a long way to go to undo the planning mistakes of the post-war period. We have the money to make it happen. I just hope we have the will to do so.
I agree there is potential. This is not a doomer channel! I think the ball is starting to roll, state law changes + the new bike way they just approved gives me hope.
The bike lanes are retarded, horrible use of money, powerful factor in inner city congestion
Last I heard, Google is building a 40,000 person campus anchored in the diridon area. This injection of money and YUP millenial talent should really help get the ball rolling.
@@thefunktopuss930 unfortunately last I've heard is that Google put that project on hold right now :(. I hope they resume soon
I live in San Jose, and you would never guess that it has over 1 million people (more than SF) due to its sprawl, endless stroads, and horrible land-use (over 90% of residential land is single-family zoned). It feels like a city of 1/4 the size.
I live around one of the few walkable areas (Japantown which is also close to SJSU/downtown), and it's ridiculous to me that there aren't more like it.
Unfortunately, car-centric and suburban sprawl are pretty ingrained into the city's culture: Both of the leading candidates for mayor this past cycle were big NIMBYs.
Walkability really puts size into perspective. Oakland doesn't feel smaller than San Jose because of how much more walkable most of it is. Japantown to downtown seems to be the on exception.
I didn't want to go into the mayor's race but from my limited research, it's definitely very ingrained in the city's culture that being a 1m+ population suburb is the ideal, even if the city has faced issues paying for services even before COVID.
I was so disappointed in my options this past mayoral cycle. Sam Liccardo was a reasonable urbanism and cycling advocate, and the new NIMBY candidates on offer to succeed him were no choice at all.
Disappointment in the last Mayoral cycle is a common thread in the comments!
My friend you need a mix of both because majority need cars for multi city transport with family everyday .plus a city that big cannot just withstand with blocked off streets every neighborhood ps San Pedro square amazing but there cannot be like 40 of them .San Jose and it's people have a RICH culture before the techies came
@@joeking6362 having a city where walking, cycling, and transit are viable and appealing alternatives doesn’t mean you need to close 40 streets to cars. Any future for San Jose will still allow you to get around by car.
I lived in Vancouver and the same thing happened. Lots of people wnanted single family homes ... The city then builds a Skytrains that will drop you off in super low density neighborhood. Can we just agree that people who built cities before WW2 were geniuses ?
Interesting, I rode Skytrain once, I hear it's good but I agree, we definitely got worse at city planning (with some exceptions). I think a universal rule is transit stops are a way to zone up, that is a much better solution for car dependency imo than building massive parking moats around stations. Not against all parking but man, Bay Area has a few stinkers.
After moving from Los Angeles to San Jose I have nothing but love for San Jose and the surrounding towns especially Campbell Los Gatos Milpitas etc . There are a lot of trails you can ride bikes on, they have worked on getting bike lanes and it seems to be working out, downtown really cool if you know what to do and how to get around, the buses are pretty good light roll get you where you need to go and they even have services available for the disabled and for people that can't afford buses so that their free or almost free. After moving to Tulare County to porterville from San Jose I realize how good I had it and I moved back. I would ever want to leave here and anytime I hear people talk trash about San Jose, I'd like to see then come here and spend some time with me and I could show them around and show them what stuff they're really is to do here and how fun it can be to be around all the technology and all the different things you could do in the area. You are so close to the beach and so close to the forest it's actually a perfect environment.
The nature around San Jose is very lovely I totally agree with you. I just think "better paratransit and bike trails than Los Angeles" is a a low bar to set. Appreciate taking the time to give such a lengthy comment!
I cannot stress enough how awe struck I was when I first set foot in California and saw San Jose. I've never imagines suburbs to be that big. I didn't know they would. I also didn't know San Jose was a city city until about a year later of moving here. I thought it was just a general area. because I didn't see a city. it also seems quieter than small cities I've lived in with 40,000 people. it's weird and twilight zone like.
I believe you! Thanks for sharing your experience.
As a person that has lived in San Jose my whole life this is all very accurate. The bike lanes are terrible and now that i have my drivers license I just drive everywhere cause its a lot easier. Dont even get me started with how bad the roads are
Thanks for the comment, I promise I won't get you started!
We have no excuse for the shoddy roads in San Jose - we don’t have ice, we don’t salt or plow the roads, and the city is wealthy. Yet driving in San Jose involves way too much teeth-rattling for my tastes.
Totally agree, used to live in San Jose (15 years) and it feels so disconnected. There are things to like about the small downtowns in its amorphous blob of a metropolitan area like Campbell, Willow Glen and Mountain View to the north, but never have I lived somewhere with such a bleh culture and energy before or after living there.
No night life to speak of, very little unified culture, it could be a solar and green tech city, but instead settles for being a suburban hell with horrible traffic freeways (fuck 85 and 87) and not much connecting the parts that are actually enjoyable. And even worse, they haven't had the BART extension that was planned in the 80s or 90s that is still yet to be finished.
They could actually tax silicon valley companies too to fund quality of life improvements to the metro, bus and mass transit in general, but they won't because they're terrified of all that VC money being pulled and sent elsewhere.
Lot of great points! I especially agree about the highways, just nuts how it got planned out.
a few points... what "culture and energy" do you want? BART already goes down to Berryessa and they will be connecting it to downtown in a few years, San Jose already promotes solar and recycling
If you're stating that San Jose has not night life then you clearly didn't know where to go at night.
What about the San Jose Earthquakes of the MLS? And the 49ers in Santa Clara is basically the San Jose Metro....
I thought the Quakes played in Santa Clara! Honest mistake, their stadium is on the border.
Lmao it’s funny you mention houston, my hometown. That’s what I thought of with San Jose for having more people than SF but low density. Our skyline is cool but the sprawl isn’t.
Yeah Houston just going off it's skyline seems fine - and then you zoom out. San José oddly doesn't have *that* many more people than San Francisco. The city just has bad luck of being built up during the peak of car brain of 1950s-1970s.
I commute and ride through San Jose and the surrounding cities, and TBH it's a lot better than it used to be. The city has been executing their "Project Zero" initiative to reduce pedestrian and cyclist deaths, and they've actually been pretty successful. I can get the entire way across San Jose, (relatively) safely, some 15 miles, in about an hour and a half, which is close to how long it takes with full heavy traffic. Over the years it has gotten better, but I think there is a lot of potential. Large wide flat boulevards that are mainly unused are slowly turning into very comfortable cycling lanes. But there are still connection problems to make the entire ride through the city seamless, but I think it's getting there.
Sadly, most of these people are all about 'stopping climate change' and 'helping disadvantaged communities' but as soon as you tell them that one full lane of Hillsdale Road will be reserved for cyclists, every resident blows their gasket. A lot of these zoning issues are historical, but there's a lot of opposition from all the long time residents, who should put up or shut up when it comes to rezoning for more pedestrian and cyclist friendly neighborhoods.
Fun fact: San Jose is famous, historically, for bicycle racing some 100 years ago. At one time there were at least 5 velodrome tracks, with only one left in operation: Hellyer Velodrome
Oh my gosh, the amount of bitching and moaning about the Hillsdale lane reduction! It's literally not even a problem lmao I drive it every day and I absolutely do not get why people are whining. If anything it's easier to drive
As a driver, I hate the goofy protected bike lanes, but not for the reason that you think. I hate that the city planners are attempting to solve their lack of forward thinking by encouraging a very unpopular form of transportation in San Jose. You CAN bike around and it may be getting better for cyclists, but with the exception of the dorks that ride up and down the local foothills for fun. . .almost no one commutes on a bicycle. If the planners had actually done their jobs, we wouldn't be so wildly reliant on cars, and removing lanes for bikes wouldn't be an issue. You have to drive here, especially if you have a family, there's just no way around it.
@@life_of_riley88 it's unpopular because it is dangerous and impractical. Making it less dangerous and more practical will increase bike riding. I've already seen a relatively huge increase of cyclists on Hillsdale. Although I agree: bike lanes are inferior, they are still too dangerous. We should have separated bike paths instead. Of course public transport also needs radical improvements, but that's gonna be harder and more expensive and take longer than increasing bike lane safety. Overall, anything in the right direction is a positive in my book
@@popejaimie I agree, in fact I would ride on bike paths. I don't (motor)cycle in the south Bay because it's too dangerous, and in my mind, cycling is just as much so. Somehow we found ourselves with a huge problem and no one in the City planning department has a solution.
San Jo kid here. I remember decades ago in elementary school seeing in class a movie titled "Urban Sprawl." SJ was the subject.
Getting politically involved in local elections is very important for making change. I encourage everyone to vote for candidates that promise to make changes in the city government. NIMBY officials need to me removed.
Yup! Vote early vote often, because it's California and we have a ton of elections!
I want to try to get involved more personally, their was a hearing for a development by where I live, seemed like a total slam dunk development, but just hard to schedule around a Wednesday 1:30 meeting.
don’t forget about Prop13 protecting some old unprofitable businesses while new businesses have easily 10x the property tax burden for the same value property and you can understand why there are so many crappy taquerias and nail salons while new shops go under in a year or two
I plan to do a Prop 13 episode. I try to be a little sensitive about it but yeah, in general it's very fair to say it subsidizes older businesses (and homeowners and corporations) and the expenses of newer ones.
here before this blows up
i mean it just get like 200 views in 2 hours
You and me both! I was like oh cool maybe a hundred views for the first video. Nope!
This explains so much about why San Jose has always felt so "off" to me. Great video.
The Midnight Hour of American cities...
been watching a lot of urban infrastructure channels like city beautiful and alan fisher, i’m glad youtube recommended this video to me
Nice hot take. I have lived in San Jose for 30 years without a car. VTA is great. You can catch a bus every 10 minutes. You need a job at one end and a home on the other.
30 years? That's really impressive, especially at the beginning that must have been a challenge right? I can't imagine it being easy being car free in early 90s San Jose.
@@offbrandurbanism I spent all my time at the malls, amusement parks, movie theaters, and dancehalls. All just a 20 minute trip from home. The 60 will still take you to all the spots in Santa Clara.
They're building something big near Bascom Station on the Green line. There's lots of cheap land around there and I think if it could link up with the walkable areas just to the south in Campbell it has the potential to become a really great city core.
Interesting, I'll have to read up on it!
You're 100% correct! I've lived in San Jose for almost 8yrs now, I have a valid drivers license but prefer to bike everywhere, even work! San Jose is definitely missing opportunities in turning this city into a more pedestrian/bike friendly city. Santana Row is the most popular because it's catered to pedestrians. It blows my mind that the city doesn't change planning based off of that alone. Just look at how many people it attracts on a daily, it's extremely profitable and yet they wanna design for cars still? I love this city so much, I want to see it do better.
Appreciate taking the time to watch my video and leave a comment, have a wonderful weekend!
The light rail is actually pretty useful. I used to use it and i liked it. Now i live in fremont.
I was born and raised and my grandfather was the first commercial photographer for San Jose and Santa Clara Valley, there is many reasons San Jose is built the way it was for instance if you did your research you would see that the city does not have high-rise buildings that has to do with the the path of the airport flights coming and going from San Jose they were restricted on the hype that they can build things, it's nice to grow up in a place where it is spread out unlike today where everybody lives in dog boxes and hate each other, there are plenty of things to do in San Jose got a lot of Education, a friend of mine is a journalist who did a series of on the area, endpoints out the historical history behind it all, all I can say is if you don't care for San Jose please feel free to move.
Yeah I have lots of fam there, basically a super-suburb (minus downtown). It just don’t match the housing costs AT ALL! Btw that pic of “Europe? Nope this is NY, NY” is in Boston’s North End (all evidence in actual pic), but I get what your getting at. Dope vid
Yeah my apologies to all Bostonians. I will do a pinned comment, I made a similar geographic mistake others have pointed out.
The San Jose Earthquakes play in San Jose, I accidentally assumed their stadium was in Santa Clara. In my defense, they played in Santa Clara before and their stadium is basically on the city border between the two.
San Jose needs a Loop line for the Light Rail. Nobody works in downtown, and to get to anywhere people work you have to ride through slow ass downtown. The light rail actualy works ok in SSJ and to Alum Rock despite the sprawl in those areas. Mtn View is so/so but they are missing huge potential by not linking south and west side directly with all the tech campuses. Also I dont know why it doesnt connect directly with the community colleges like De Anza and Evergreen.
That's a really interesting idea. I think over time with upzoning and BART a loop has potential!
@Off Brand Urbanism yea hopefully they do an extension to De Anza or at least A BRT down stevens Creek. I used to take LR and bus to de Anza and it's well over two hours when you factor in wait times and delayed busses. Also, maybe ad a direct line or BRT to the airport from Dirdon.
As one of the many San Jose natives and urbanites here I absolutely understand why people would “grow up envying other cities” or “go away and come back and realize how awful it is” - I just moved back myself from a big East Coast city and do find myself missing a frequent Metro and the walkability of my old neighborhood.
However - when we move out and never come back we are absolutely abdicating our wishes and resigning the city to the kind of people who keep it what it is and refuse to strive for better. I get that because of housing prices it’s not feasible for everyone to stay and build a life, but for those of us lucky enough to do so, at some point we have to realize it’s partly incumbent on us to break the pattern of NIMBYs and carbrains being the only ones at city council meetings/forums, be clear about the kind of San Jose we want, and demand it from our elected officials. I would hope we could come to see that as far more respectable and impactful for the city we claim to love, a city with diverse richness of amazing peoples, cuisines, and cultures, than simply succumbing to shame or pessimism.
And frankly I’d ask well-meaning urbanists from other places and especially our denser older neighbors to the north to, if not support us, at least try to cut down on the superiority complexes and insults (“suburban hellhole”, “cultural wasteland” and get on the train! As many have noted there are many reasons to be optimistic with our TOD and new rail lines, elimination of parking minimums, etc - we need all the help we can get to seize that momentum and keep building up and moving faster. It won’t just be to the benefit of San Joseans to build SJ up - truly there aren’t many places with as much potential (infill availability, climate, wealth) as SJ left in California to develop.
Anyways, TL;DR: if you’re from here, let’s abandon pessimism and build a better SJ. if you’re not, become long SJ and put some outside pressure on us to be what California needs to get out of our housing crisis
People enjoy the freedom of driving, and many are still cautious about crime and covid to be wanting to ride on a train. And if you want to be able to have space for your kids to run out back or bbq, you can’t also do that in some high rise apartment complex.
Diridon is pronounced DEER-a-don not "Duh-RID-ee-on" . Hakone Gardens is in Saratoga, not San Jose. Like many other US cities, San Jose's downtown died in the 70s and 80s, but it's really coming back. There's South 1st St., San Pedro Square, the SoFa district. It's coming back. San Jose's issue is that it's too close to SF so that it gets sucked into its cultural vacuum. People go to SF for the symphony, the ballet, sports (but now football is in the South Bay). Had it been down near Monterey, it would have a lot more cultural autonomy.
Interesting note on if it had been more South. I made a pinned post and noted the pronunciation. I am unfortunately a very tongue tied autistic so this will likely happen in future videos for other places. I do appreciate your thoughts!
No, San Jose's downtown died in the late 50s and early 60s when the malls came to the suburbs - Valley Fair for one. Prior to the malls, it was downtown SJ to shop at Hart's or Hale's. By the mid 60s there was no real reason to go downtown anymore, except to "drag 1st Street" on a Saturday night to show off your car. Revitalization began in the early 80s with the building of the Fairmont, the convention center, and whole bunch of new office buildings. San Jose was never meant to be a big city. It was a small city that met the needs of the surrounding agricultural community.
I looked into more on Anthony “Dutch” Hamann, the city planner you mentioned. Following are items from the website "San Jose Inside:"
It described him as completely unflappable - an open, friendly, super-salesman politician; some would say the ideal man for the city of San Jose. Dutch engineered bond drives that built sewer disposal plant. This plant was able to offer services to new industries coming to the valley as the canneries were phased out. The unemployment rate in San Jose when he took office was 11.6%; when he left office it was reduced to 3.5%. Individuals were able to afford reasonable housing and send kids to public schools without the threat of gang members slaying them. Dutch had his failures too. In 1958 City Hall was moved from downtown to North First and Rosa Streets. This created a void in downtown that led to its near death. Hamann recognized that the location of City Hall on North First was wrong and attempted to move it back in 1966. But the taxpayers had just paid for the move eight years before and defeated the move.
The city was offered the option to extend BART to San Jose in 1963, but both the council and the Mercury News were against it. By 1967 the makeup of the council was changing, and homeowner associations were offering their own candidates. A major scandal developed when City Treasurer Callison stole hundreds of thousand of dollars in parking meter fees, he served jail time for the offense.
Dutch held office at the pleasure of the council and he stood for a vote of confidence from the public every two years, always receiving a majority vote. In 1969, with the philosophy of the council changing and after he had held the job longer than any other city manager, he resigned and returned to the University of Santa Clara as vice president for development.
On March 27, 1977, KLM and Pan Am jumbo jets collided on the runway at Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Dutch and his wife Frances died on the Pan Am flight.
Downtown San Jose is also constrained vertically by being next to the airport. FAA regulations constrain the building height to about 25 stories to allow for a plane to safely fly over them around back to the airport in case it suffers an engine failure after takeoff. That's why the downtown skyline is mostly a straight line as opposed to varying heights of other cities.
And what about Barcelona, with similar height restrictions? Or Naples, Italy? You don't need skyscrapers to make a good downtown.
I lived near downtown San Jose for a couple of years. It’s even worse when you consider the alternatives in the South Bay. As far as urban development goes, there’s just 1 block in Sunnyvale that is urban (Murphy Ave), 3 blocks in Mountainview (Castro St), 3 blocks in Campbell (Campbell Ave) and the 3 blocks of urban development at Santana Row. That’s it! Just 10 blocks of urban development outside of downtown SJ!
San Jose has bike infrastructure that extends into the distal neighborhoods! No one uses it and it make driving actually more dangerous!
I should also note that since Covid, many people in the area are still working remotely or hybrid. Demand for transit is even lower for this reason (and the ones you already mentioned). That is especially true for Bart, which is suffering budget issues and has become extremely unpleasant to ride -- unless you want to catch a buzz from someone freebasing fent in the seat next to you.
There's probably no hope for San Jose to be like Utrecht, Tokyo, or Barcelona, but I think that's ok. The demand for housing in this area is testament to the fact that other people don't care either. People are ok living in an ugly city and being stuck in traffic if it means they can have a better paying job and reap *some* other benefits of living in the area.
Appreciate the comment.
I think to clarify, my point was that San José *doesn't* need to be like Utrecht or Tokyo.
Anyways, have a good weekend!
Great video! I’ve been so excited to see so many new urbanist channels popping up covering the Bay Area.
I totally agree with your takes on San Jose. I live in the east bay, and I’ve been to San Jose several times and you nailed it on the head with how it feels to be there. It’s a pretty uninspiring city compared to any of the other big cities in the area.
Yeah it's wild how fast the Bay Area is getting channels finally. I appreciate what existing channels have done but it's good to get more Bay Area peeps eyes in things.
@@offbrandurbanism yeah for so long there were almost no urbanist UA-cam channels by people from around here, which was surprising given the population and cultural relevance of our region. The subject is so much more meaningful when there are examples you can personally relate to. So thanks for being part of the change!
@metadexter yeah TODGOD has made some good stuff, definitely getting pointers from him. Fog City his couple of videos are really good. Hoping to eventually branch out with each video but just so much California Content untapped.
Seconding this, I grew up in the east bay and went SJSU, it's honestly a mild form of culture shock relative to visitng places like oakland and san francisco
This is incredibly accurate u have no idea how incredibly boring living here was as a teen who didnt drive n didnt have any friends that drove n how incredibly frustrating it is as an adult to have to commute across the city nearly every day relying only on the buses n my own two feet bc i still cant drive so a 15min drive takes 25mins on the bus + 25mins walking (probably longer for others since my normal walk is speedwalking) bc of how far away bus stops are
Hiking and biking in near by mountains is probably the best thing to do, good food options, that’s it. Great place to grow up on the west side, shout out feed mei mei, lastly I didn’t even know they had a light rail system when I grew up there
First commenter to shout out feed mei mei!!!! Also I agree, great hiking, love me some mountains. Used to go to Pinnacles every two years (I realize that's not in San Jose but you know, in the general area). What's your favorite San Jose food option?
@@offbrandurbanism if you are up for exploring Indian food, there is a vegetarian dosa place called “UlavacharU Tiffins”. Located in Santa Clara, but close enough.
good video. i live in san jose and i see ur point
The design of San Jose is terrible, and the transit sucks ass. But it's not culturally irrelevant, or at least I think that's changing. Yeah there's a stupid amount of asphalt. So we're using it. There were four big outdoor fairs yesterday. I worked media at once and it was so fun I had to be told to take a break and eat. We have creative venders, incredible food, and a huge music and art community. Right now it feels like it's San Jose for San Jose, but I love it and think the world should see. This city is coming alive in spite of the design, and this video actually made me appreciate that more :)
I never knew sj was so big and I literally live here, there’s nothing to do in San Jose so plans with friends always consist of leaving to neighboring or northern cities😅
Longtime SJ resident here, I rarely go downtown unless special event (video parades, 4th of July, ballroom dance competition). Occasionally I take LightRail to downtown SJ if there are events where many roads blocked off, I park at LR station in north SJ outside downtown. But parking downtown is EXPENSIVE like San Francisco.
Look at detail of downtown you will find many first floors of these big buildings just off Santa Clara and Market streets vacate. I remember 30 years ago there were more interesting small stores and shops (owned by individuals), many places i.e. along Bascom Ave have been boarded up. I believe the business model that has been established is to have a business you need a deep pocket (Google or a rich husband) because leases are extremely expensive. While taxes may be high but I think leases priced many out of the market. But many deep pocket investors owns considerable amount of land including houses so they can afford to have them sit empty. They made windfall profits prior, during, and after covid so with extra money then invest in real estate even if empty because much better than have it sit in the bank.
UA-camr "Not Just Bikes" video "America Always Gets This Wrong (when building transit)" where SJ suburban sprawl is a good example of this same thing about San Jose and why public transit just doesn't work.
We also see SJ is a conglomerate of all sorts of sectors, West SJ is completely different than Willow Glen SJ that different from East SJ and Silvercreek SJ. There are portions of city limits that extend like octopus arms example into Cupertino. This sprawl most likely engineered by city planner Anthony “Dutch” Hamann.
SJ lost its place in Top Ten populated cities, which example people are getting priced out. Schools are closing because working class realize this is not the place to raise a family. I also see all my contemporaries that moved out of California had their standard of living go up. Get's me thinking why am I still here?
Pretty crazy seeing my daily commute on a youtube video
Now try edge cities like Bellevue and Tysons
Dionne Warwick is still trying to figure out how to get to San Jose.
San Jose Earthquakes play in the city of San Jose (put some respect to our soccer team that is now playing well lol).
In my defense, they used to play to play in Santa Clara, and if their stadium was moved a half mile it would be in San Jose going off Google Maps it would be in Santa Clara.
What do you think about Kansas City?
Being close to the airport made SJ have a limited downtown. Gentrification pretty much erased the Mexican and Chicano heritage of the city. It is a big town with a bunch of suburbs connected which were small towns that were annexed into SJ. Willow Glen was the south side not that long ago.
Hey thanks for the comment!
Yeah the city has changed a lot in my short lifetime.
I plan to do a sequel video but, from everything I have read, the airport has much less of an impact than people think. You don't have an airport in your city, even one with such an inconvenient flight path and BAM only single family houses. Nothing stops the city from building medium height apartments along VTA. Look at places like Singapore with it's airbase in the middle of the city or Hong Kong and it's old Kai Tak airport.
San jose is now the 12th most populous city in the US.
Every time I look it goes down a rank hahaha. I think the overall premise of the video still works but yeah, it has slid from it's peak already, I just went off the 2020 census when writing that line.
11:58.... No, the VTA LR has it's own right of way through and through. It's always been in their own separate lane. Part of the issue with it is that its routings are really questionable... Lack of signal priority is likely true though I never paid attention.
Also, when it comes to bike infrastructure, why is no one mentioning Berkeley and their bike boulevards????? It's an parallel route using adjacent local streets with car block offs to discourage car traffic and encourage bikes and where they can ride in peace without having to fight with the main arterial.
We moved to hollister a year ago, but i still work in San Jose, lmao. Pisses me off how we all rely on damn cars GIVE ME MY TRAINS
San Jose is a nice place for a relaxing suburban life. It does require a car (similar to most of CA) but I don't think that's inherently bad, it's a personal preference. I think not all cities in the world need to be NYC/Paris/London/Amsterdam, there is room for different styles of living. You are absolutely right that San Jose lacks any cultural milestones but that's also true of many American cities (only a few really have cultural relevance). CA also tends to be less interested in traditional 'culture' than the East, we are much more focused on things like nature, sports, and more local events (like farmers markets). I think from that standpoint San Jose is actually pretty fine. It's not any different than most of the Bay Area, but the division into 'cities' here is mostly arbitrary anyway.
Yup, you said what I wanted to say. Boring "culture", single family housing and driving cars everywhere is what people in San Jose want. It's why they're there.
Thanks for the comment! Yeah I totally get that. I think my problem is, not literally everywhere on Earth needs to be walkable bikable utopia... but the scales are so far off on the side of needing a car, it's much harder for me to personally sympathize. But I'm a guy who literally put "urbanist" in his youtube channel name so take that with a grain of sale, or sriracha or whatever your topping of choice is!
It's really hard for me to believe that some people here in the comments need to drive to SF to find a night out or cool food experience, considering the the mess SF has become. Seriously these people can find San Pedro Square, The restaurant's of the SoFA district, Japan Town, Willow Glen, Little Portugal some Michelin noted ones. Santana Row which wasn't my favorite place to visit is maturing into a beautiful tree laden entertainment district, that is pretty damn nice on a summer night and would argue the best shopping district in Nor-Cal. The Restaurant scene across the street at Valley Fair is giving Santana Row a run for it's money with the 3 story Eataly, King’s Fish House, seafood experience, Bamboo Sushi, known for high-quality, sustainable sushi, Chinese dining concept iChina, and Baekjeong Korean BBQ, and others. This video barely mentions all the amazing Vietnamese, Mexican, Ethiopian, Greek, Japanese and other Communities that are the envy of most cities.
Also I did not hear a mention in this video of why SJ downtown is so squat and unimpressive- The disastrous decision to put the Airport next to downtown.
I'm thankful SJ hasn't become like Chicago or Philly where you can't walk alone at night
San Jose no longer has 1 million residents
Yeah a lot of articles about it came out like right as this came out. I went off the 2020 census for the video.
Good. I hope the population keeps dropping. Way too many people live in San Jose and the Bay Area in general.
I grew up in San Jose and it's quite unfortunate to see the wasted potential that this city has had. Unfortunately, I wouldn't take public transportation in this city even if it was within walking distance strictly due to safety concerns. From my limited usage of the VTA system, it seems to me that the riders that use it are clearly at the bottom of the income bracket and use it since they either don't have a car or because they don't have other means of transportation. Not to mention the major homeless problem that we are facing that can create an uncomfortable experience for many. Having a car also makes it much more convenient to get around and it's just really hard to see much upside in taking public transportation.
Interesting take. I use Muni and BART pretty regularly and haven't ran into any issues. I'd be interested to hear, what would make you feel safe enough to ride VTA? Like is there a metric you would use to determine that?
I'm trying to get a better understanding because I know that's what is impacting BART but it's hard for me to wrap my head around what would it take to get people more comfortable riding transit in the Bay Area, since even a super safe system some incidents will happen. Just like how driving a car isn't the safest thing.
I curse the VTA almost everyday, Disney parking lot trams are faster
I live in San Jose. You say San Jose PLANNED this??!!!
It's semantics to some extent but yes, I'd say San Jose's city as a whole planned what it has become. It if was totally unplanned, there would be no restrictions on land use, so one way or the other it would look a lot different imo.
banger video
🚨🚨🚨 banger comment alert!
San Jose is a strange place. It lives in the shadow of San Francisco, even though it is considerably larger. It's quite spread our and has no heart or soul.
duster is from san jose
Great analysis. Grew up in San Jose and always enjoyed going to “real” cities. When visitors came, everyone always just wanted to go to San Francisco.
Thanks! Appreciate the comment.
San Jose is truly the endless video game city with nothing but copy and pasted homes
Spot on analysis. I live 15 minutes outside of Downtown San Jose in the suburban sprawl. Yet when I want to go experience a day in the city I’d rather drive an hour north to San Francisco. It’s sad to think about the potential SJ had to be an iconic Bay Area city like SF or Oakland.
Agreed!
I'm a San Jose native. I've always thought it was weird I never had any pride in my city, I've always thought it was lame and boring. When I go on vacation to Portland, Seattle, LA, San Diego, or Boston I envied what they had. Nice to know I'm not crazy.
Make the city one you want to have pride in, whatever that means to you!
this is funny because as someone from la, i envy what european cities i've visited have. like it makes our rail look almost useless
@@Matty002 yeah, but at least there's lots of cool shit to do in LA.
We have one art museum downtown and it sucks lol
I like San Jose the way it is rather boring than dangerous, is actually safe to walk around at night in pretty much every neighborhood in the city there are no real ghettos in San Jose like the ones in Oakland or LA or pretty much any other big city in the US.
@@geofherb1there’s hella shit to do in San Jose your trippin.
As someone who's grown up and lived in San Jose for most their life, thanks for taking the time to research and shine a light on all the "quirks and features" of my hometown lol! I was lucky enough to be part of a transit magnet program in high school at San Jose State Uni run by the Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI), and as crazy as it sounds, there *are* people working really hard to change the status quo here. Through MTI I've met with city planners, the county's civil engineering office, teams working on CA High Speed Rail, and yes, tech companies working on ACTUAL innovation in transit besides goofy stuff like flying cars and even faster Teslas. My neighborhood (East Side/Evergreen) has recently gotten several protected bike lanes and bike highways, but... we still have tons of 6 lane stroads for our luxury electric SUVs to barrel down. SO MUCH of the socioeconomic issues in San Jose all stem from urban sprawl: Housing unaffordability, water shortages, constant threat of wildfires, air pollution (though not as bad as LA), and straight up COMEDIC wealth inequality. (Seriously, a few miles north of where I grew up was "the hood" and a few miles south were 4 different country clubs for people with millions in stock options from big tech. The extreme wealth and poverty here is crazy.)
I have a lot of hope for the future of the city, though, because I'm seeing how the visions of the people I worked with are coming true. Denser, mixed use developments are more and more common, grass lawns are being phased out in favor of more drought-resistant trees to prevent urban heat island formation, and most single-family areas are upzoned going forward. We're really a one of a kind place with our cultural diversity; where I grew up, almost everyone was Hispanic, Viet, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, or Pakistani. If we gave ourselves the chance, we could seriously be a cultural center in more than just our world-domination in tech lmao
Some of the reasons San Jose's light rail is so poorly used, apart from the land use issues you already identified, is that the routes were made to serve the then new tech sector instead of the people of the city. By that, I mean that the city's heaviest traveled transit corridors (the east/west ones through downtown) were not the ones to be served by light rail. Additionally, San Jose should have learned from other cities that freeway ROW's make for inhospitable stations for people to wait but built an entire line located in the middle of two freeways anyways. Also, how likely was it that the highly paid employees of these tech companies lived along one of these lines and would have used it to get to work? Highly paid people are not the core loyal users of any transit system. They definitely weren't going to take a bus to the train to work, especially when the big tech companies had their own luxury private shuttles for their employee's commutes.
The East/West highest ridership lines that serve the densest and most transit dependent areas of the city have no light rail. This corridor passes directly through downtown and past Cal State SJ, De Anza College, and SJ City College as well as several large medical and commercial centers, in other words the ideal light rail corridor. I do think the city should shut down most of the existing system and keep the Capitol Ave line but extend it west to serve their core customer base and hit all these major centers on the way to Cupertino. That one good line would have far more ridership than the entire system currently does, cost much much less to run. Other light rail lines could build off of that line and example.
One thing that might put a damper on the growth of the entire transit system is that San Jose's high home prices are keeping people who would use a transit system from moving in. If you could afford a million dollar home, are you likely to use a bus and train? That leaves a dwindling transit-using population being replaced by wealthy non-transit users. This has been a problem for transit agencies throughout California's large cities.
Thank you for your detailed response! I'll do my best to respond paragraph by paragraph given you went pretty in detail on a lot of interesting issues.
Yeah the freeway ROW issue is wild, TODGod did a good demonstration of that in his videos. I agree about the tech side to a degree. I'd content some of the most expensive places in the world are also some of the most transit heavy, so clearly there is demand for it. San Francisco is also expensive but there is lots of transit. But to your point, ridership is more consistent for people with lower incomes in SF.
I think BART could help with the West/East issue? Although I think Santa Clara Blvd could use better transit lanes and be built up a lot more. Great points on there, a lot of ideas that I'm not that informed on but I get the line of reasoning.
The last point you have I think to some degree you are right, but I'd argue that it's more a question of density and stations with parking lots as moats that cause this issue. Why does Sacramento's RT have similar numbers to VTA light rail, even though houses are much cheaper there than in San Jose? Why does the N Judah line in SF get more ridership than all of VTA light rail, even though houses are similarly priced? My conclusion is that it's all highly correlated to density around stations and walk-ability. Some stations like Santa Teresa, they should be building as tall as possible there and similar stations to build up a better ridership and help make housing affordable. Then it helps stop the perpetual "tech workers don't ride transit, making transit worse" death loop San Jose is in right now.
Thanks for taking the time to make a comment!
@@offbrandurbanism San Francisco is a whole different animal. Parking. It costs a fortune to park for a day in SF and you can drive in circles for a long time to find a space on the street. Transit also takes priority in street layout, making driving less convenient. Most people use transit there for convenience. Rail stations are just a few blocks apart, not a mile apart. The city is built dense. Houses are small and right next to each other. When I lived in SF, I gave up driving. It was just too difficult to drive there and park anywhere. SF is more like Manhattan. SF is also a legacy rail city. It was built around the rail lines back in the early 1900s. Most large global cities are built dense and w comprehensive rail transit (Tokyo, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Singapore, etc). More people live and work within walking distance of the N Judah than those who live and work within walking distance of a rail station in the entire city of Sacramento.
BART in San Jose is not really being built for local use. Most East SJ people will need to take a bus to the BART station to get on BART. Most of them will just stay on the same bus that also goes downtown. Transfers cost time and are inconvenient. BART headways are usually 15-20 min. It may not be worth getting on for a 2.5 mile trip downtown. It's a commuter rail line in the burbs. BART is a more expensive option unless they set a deal w VTA bus passes.
Sacramento housing is cheaper ($ 450,000) but it's now out of reach for most middle class and blue collar families unless you already owned your house. Sacramento is also only marginally served by rapid transit. Only a small % are within walking distance of a train station. It's so widely spread out that it's hard to get to work by rapid transit w/o a transfer or two unless you're lucky enough to live and work next to a rail station, mostly downtown. Sacramento is easy to drive in and park. No incentive to take a train unless you "have to". The street layout in Sacto is not an interconnected grid, it adds a lot of distance to get to a station. It's not really built for transit. Key destinations outside downtown like Cal State Sacto and the huge UC Davis Med Ctr are 1/2 mile from it's rail station. Tough walk in 100 degree heat w little shade. Why walk 1/2 mile when it's easy to drive and park?
I'd argue that in cities like San Jose and Sacto with strong driving cultures, large parking capacity is needed to encourage people, who would mostly never take a bus to the rail station, to park and ride at the station. Look at some of the rail stations and you'll see that many have limited or difficult walkability (mostly because using RR ROW you end up in areas where most neighborhoods are built to wall themselves from the RR). Over time, develop the lands around the stations w denser housing and commercial development. Improve bus routing and frequencies, you can gradually build a better transit culture. But it won't happen overnight and neither of these cities has done much to develop their stations or improve streetscapes to encourage walking in the decades they've had them. These cities weren't built for walking like SF was.
Most CA transit companies have seen huge ridership drops in the last 10 years before Covid. LA transit use is very much in decline over the last decade. It's because their core ridership has had to move farther out into suburbs that have little transit. Car ownership has risen sharply in LA. "Choice" transit riders are not as reliable as "captive" transit riders. That's why I say plan for your core ridership. The rest will follow as you build on the core system.
Now, San Diego, even w difficult geography, has done light rail very well. Great planning and meeting many commuter patterns to key destinations. Much more densely built neighborhoods than Sacto or San Jose.
"Highly paid people are not the core loyal users of any transit system." They also don't live right beside freeways!
I've been thinking for years a light rail line down Stevens Creek/San Carlos connecting De Anza College and everything to the east to Downtown, it would be brilliant; it's also fundamentally very feasible. Obviously not a cheap or small project, but neither is it extremely unattainable or impossible to do. It's a light rail line, not rocket science. Also good transit systems serve residents at all wealth levels! The association of mass transit with lower socioneconomic classes is a rather American invention! Regular, reliable service with reasonable cleanliness and security breeds more cleanliness, respect, and security.
Highly-paid Silicon Valley software engineer and San Jose resident here. I’d love to take public transit to work. Doing so would take about twice as long as riding my bike, and I’d need to bring my bike anyway for the ~2 miles on each end to get between the station and my destination. Luckily, my team has been fully remote since the beginning of covid, but it’s still really depressing to see. I wish public transit ran later and was safe to ride at night, as even trying to get a drink downtown with friends requires driving / Lyft as there are no good ways to take transit back to our home in the SJ suburbs.
Lastly, although our home is worth well into the 7 figures, we live on a street with plenty of “blue collar” type families and folks who don’t maintain their property. Prop 13 tax benefits are largely to blame for this. Plenty of these folks can no longer afford to live here realistically, but they’re propped up by Prop 13 and can’t move anywhere else within a few hours driving due to the cost of housing, so they just stay and suffer. People being priced out of where they grew up is never fun, the reality today is that we’d need a whole lot more subsidies to enable people to actually thrive than just the tax break, so instead we just get criminally-underfunded schools and public services in neighborhoods with all 7-figure houses that look like any other crappy suburb in America. What usually happens is that these folks sell their winning lottery ticket house that they paid $50k for back in the 70s and move to somewhere like Phoenix or Houston or The Villages in Florida and retire, or rent the house out and retire. Wish I would have had the opportunity to purchase land back then instead of paying 6 figures of taxes each year while receiving the exact same benefit as our neighbors who pay 1/20th as much. My proposal to solve that would be one vote per tax dollar on city and state matters - those of us who contribute much more should also get a proportionally larger say in how that money is spent. We stole all the land here from the natives not that long ago, so don’t even try with the whole “but this is our home” angle. If you disagree and think that everyone should get an equal vote, I’d suggest educating yourself about our electoral college and how we already don’t, so let’s at least enable the biggest contributors to the city and state budgets to actually have a real voice vs all the nimbys who largely contribute far fewer tax dollars but block any attempts at progress.
I worked on campaigns in 2020, among one of my campaign ads was pointing out how San Jose voted to run a freeway off ramp from Charcot through an elementary school's baseball field. They had no logic for doing it and insisted they must carry on with their 20+ year old planning even if the proposal was an environmental risk not just to the school, but to the neighborhood around it. I was facing about 4 million in PAC money during those races, a lot of which comes from realtor and landlords. It seems that perhaps much of the infrastructure is forced just to spend money with developers because that keeps the city council filled with those who know they can personally profit from their public service. Good luck getting the NIMBYs to get rid of the 94% single family zoning.
Yeah it will be an uphill battle, that was a super interesting story. Pretty wild.
Ahh...San Jose, Phoenix, and Jacksonville. The 3 largest suburbs in America.
Would love to do a video on Jacksonville, they are effectively a city county, very interesting. Feels like Pheonix gets dunked on so hard we forget other cities.
Haha, I come from a rural area where everybody drives and thought nothing of San Jose (where my uncle lives) when I used to visit. I ended up leaving and spending 6 years living in walkable areas without a car, and I came to visit recently. I was horrified! It blew my mind that my uncle and his family didn't see a problem with how the city looked. I looked back on my previous visits and realized that I didn't see a problem either until I lived in walkable cities and experienced the quality of life change. It's pretty crazy how blind you can get when you're used to something.
Yeah you nailed it in the head. If you don't have experience with walkable cities, it doesn't seem unusual, but once you peel the layers back to the San José Onion, you realize this is an extremely bad way to plan a city.
it's because you never lived here and don't know how San Jose works, no one drives into downtown or business areas, and each neighborhood has its own stuff, yes there can always be more improvements, but not every city needs to be 100% bike / walkable, I like the suburb feel of San Jose, compared to SF or Oakland
@@danielzhang1916 What about the people that work there? Are you telling me that people all take public transit into downtown, or that nobody drives into downtown (which kinda defeats the whole purpose of a downtown if nobody goes there?)
Even if that's true, if you have a city with millions of people and they can't get to adjacent neighborhoods in reasonable time without a car, then something is lacking. If you're blind or have epilepsy, then what are you gonna do? Uber everywhere?
I felt extremely unsafe as a pedestrian in San Jose. I do not feel unsafe where I currently live.
@@danielzhang1916 I guess you like the smog your car centric living self produces also. You need to see other walkable, rail suburban towns around the country with urban growth centered around rapist transit stations. Cookie cutter sterile car dependent neighborhoods in the burbs are becoming obsolete.
Yeah I grew up in San Jose but eventually lived abroad for a while. I lived in Tokyo (with their amazing public transport system) and traveled to most of Southeast Asia and Oceania. After that I lived in SoCal for a while. When I finally came back I realized how awful SJ was setup. Eventually had to leave SJ again because of how expensive and how run down the city, the crime, the stupid/dangerous drivers on the road. I loved growing up there but I would never think of raising my kids there.
I am a second generation San Jose native. My dad told me stories of how he used to work at Almaden vineyards and that the city was once a vast agricultural community. He would say the soil buried underneath San Jose cement is some of the most fertile in the world. Which makes sense due to the proximity to bay marshlands in Alviso and beyond that provide rich nutrients to the soil. Due to improper planning of building industry on the fertile ground of the bay area, California grows crops in mostly desert lands in the interior of the state.
I grew up in San Jose. I always describe it as a "giant suburb". Oh, you're from a town of 15k people? Me too! Well, It had 700k people (back when I was there), but they planned it like a town of 15k.
The best thing about the light rail was it was a fast way to get to Great America back when I was in middle school. I guess that place is shutting down now though, and I doubt parents these days would let their 13 year old take a 1 hour ride on transit to get somewhere.
RIP Great America. Also great summary haha honestly laughed at how you described San Jose, just spot on!
I've lived in San Jose for 40 years, after growing up in San Diego/Los Angeles. San Jose lacks the cultural appeal of San Francisco, Oakland, Palo Alto or Berkeley because it grew so quickly last century thanks to Dutch Hammond as you mention (his STATED GOAL was to make San Jose "the Los Angeles of Northern California"). I live in the Almaden Valley, which is a bedroom community but the setting is gorgeous and we have great, I would say spectacular, parks and opportunities for hiking. You can walk exclusively on hiking trails literally from my house to the top of Mt. Umunhum, a distance of 12 miles one way.
While I agree that downtown San Jose needs a lot of work to make it an attractive place to visit, I think the Santa Clara Valley in general is largely de-centralized, with lots of nice communities that are more or less self-sustaining. Cupertino, Los Gatos, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Campbell, and even within San Jose the village of Willow Glen and the Rose Garden area are very walkable. An overall transportation plan for the area that links each of these villages and also gives people commute alternatives makes sense to me. It would probably have been better if San Jose had not adopted the suburban sprawl strategy, but the fact is it had a lot of developable land and a great job market, so sprawl happened.
The days of single-unit housing in San Jose are largely over. I think there will be a trend towards developing mixed residential/retail with access to improved public transportation. I'm wondering if BART expansion into San Jose happens, why not re-purpose VTA Light Rail into the BART system? It might take a large investment to retrofit and some under-utilized VTA stops would be eliminated, but VTA as it currently exists is pretty much a disaster (but not the worst, according to City Nerd) so it needs to be evaluated and made relevant.
Final point: the main train station in San Jose is pronounced : DIR-a-don, not Dir-I-dion (drop the extra I).
Thanks for your lengthy comment! I am unfortunately extremely tongue tied, I was aware of the correct way to pronounce it I just couldn't sound it right.
VTA and BART couldn't merge because of different funding structures, I plan to do a whole video on it but TLDR, the reason the Bay Area has ~27 transit agencies is because we fund transit in a way where running transit like the Holy Roman Empire just naturally happens.
As someone born and raised in San Jose back in the 70s and 80s, I used to love driving up to San Francisco with my dad on a Saturday. I loved the vibe and energy of downtown San Francisco. Then I always wondered why downtown San Jose didn't have that same vibe and energy. To me it was no where near what a downtown should be. I actually used to think back in the day that San Jose was just one big suburb and at that time, there was even still a lot of open space and farms at the time. Today many of those farms I remember have been developed with even more single family homes. Nice to see that it was not just me that saw these issues with San Jose.
I have the privilege of living in one of the few walkable, bikeable neighborhoods in San Jose, the historic, pre-war Japantown neighborhood. My neighborhood has a diverse blend of single-family, multiplex, small apartment, and large apartment residences, a walkable and vibrant commercial street with shops, cafes, restaurants, and bars, as well as churches, a dance studio, a museum, a ukulele store, and more within a block of the core of the neighborhood. The neighborhood is within walking distance of VTA light rail, and is a within a short bike ride of downtown San Jose, Caltrain, and BART, mostly along low traffic streets or protected bike lanes.
I think Japantown is a great model for the rest of the city and shows what a mixed use place would like in San José, it would look a lot like... San José!
Hah, I live near JTown as well. Totally agree.
I grew up in San Jose and agree with this analysis! I hope the city is able to evolve.
Appreciate it. Hope so too!
I lived in San Jose for the first 18 years of my life, then moved to Japan for university. I visited my family once COVID restrictions eased, and let me just say sometimes you have to experience something better to realize just how terrible something is. Going from an insanely walkable city where my school, part time job, bank, post office, and grocery store are all a 5-15 minute walk away from my apartment and where cyclists/pedestrians are prioritized in the city design, to needing a car to virtually get anything done or go anywhere was a lot more jarring after I came back. I didn't realize how bad San Jose was, and I also thought about how stifling it is on your independence. Here in Japan, if I want to go somewhere I just go, no need to rely on anyone else even though I don't have a car. Back home, I'm at the mercy of my parents or other family members who own cars and whether they have the time/feel kind enough that day to take me where I need to go. Good city planning is not only about effiency and options, it also has positive effects on the development of independence and responsibility in oneself. I hope San Jose is able to improve in the future.
I would also like to add some important additional information to demonstrate just how much the history of San Jose has made changing the future so difficult.
I went to Mayor Mahan's Budget Town Hall a few days ago and one of the most striking things about that meeting, was the revenue per capita. San Jose, despite having over a million people, only has a budget of $6B. This is incredibly small for the population and level of technical skill and education that resides in the city. The reason as to why this is that case, is that San Jose is a commuter city.. in the wrong direction. The population of San Jose actually decreases during the day as workers commute to other cities like San Mateo, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, or Fremont. These workers then spend their money in those cities, but don't spend it in San Jose.
Now as federal funding dries up, San Jose is in an even more difficult position. They can't rely on the high property taxes as they only get 16 cents on the dollar and they can't rely on consumer spending to create tax revenue because it doesn't happen in the city. The mayor has all sorts of plans including affordable housing, yet the math has shown that if the city wants to meet California's expectation, it more than the entire budget to do so. Having talked quite a bit to my councilmember, which the Mayor was formally mine, they both want to improve the city in so many ways, but are held back by simply the budget.
It's really disappointing to see, but I will continue to strive and work with the City Council, DOT, and Mayor to make sure that proper planning and regulation get implemented to allow for sustainable and effective growth to happen.
Thanks for the well written comment! I agree, being a large bedroom community without density has risen San José costs for services and hurt it's budget, and good ol' prop 13 isn't helping. It will be difficult to resolve. My view is as with most American cities, you just got to let people build in a sustainable way to get a better tax base.
I grew up in San Jose and have watched this mess grow. I wrote the story of Dutch Hamann into wikipedia only to watch it get dismantled and muted. The sprawl was deliberate after he watched his childhood home of Orange County get fragmented when it sprawled. He made San Jose dominate the area so much the state created LAFCO in order to limit the damage a future city could do, because of the damage that had already been done. So many things were done wrong and in such a way that solving the problems are made harder. They can't go up in downtown because it is in direct line to the airport runways. The rail lines were built where they could get old right of ways, not where they needed to go. You should have seen how bad the transit was before they came up with the bus grid that is the core of the (largely unused) system. I'd like to take a bit of credit for being a part of the citizen's advisory committee, designing the maps that became the system. It only took them two decades to get around to our advice for stage one and then they largely stopped there. Diridon Station, long before it was named after the local politician Rod Diridon, is located in what has always been one of the most useless locations in town. They had room to build the arena there because that area was so useless. Now they have beautified it with a park but virtually nobody but homeless live near there. And the success you mentioned for Santana Row, because of poor transportation design, has made it an isolated, inaccessible community, hard to get out of if you live there, hard to get into if you want to shop, eat or have to work there. I could go on and on.
Yeah it's pretty wild. I think the adjacency of Silicon Valley has made it more difficult and expensive to reform these massive planning blunders. Coupled with what seems to be an advocacy group, environmental restriction, airline flight path, or immovable train tracks, I don't see how the circus show in San Jose will ever be able to "urban plan" their way out of it.
😂😂😂
The area around Diridon is truly useless, though iJava cafe is closeby and has an awesome short rib burrito. That's really all I can say about that area!
@@thomasmatthew7759 I'd argue that the area around Diridon at one time held some of San Jose's oldest industrial companies, like the foundry and meat processing plant. Environmental regulations have driven these businesses out and essentially left a wasteland where industry doesn't make financial sense.
Spot on. Growing up in San Jose, it's really only gotten worse lately with rising home prices and the issues associated with that. I think the city is pushing to develop more medium density housing (5 over 1 apartments) for low income housing around existing stroads that they're adding bike lanes to (good!). However, there are plenty of suburbanites (including my parents) that are pushing back against this. It will be interesting to see if these developments by the city will help with transportation, housing cost, and livability.
Appreciate the comment! Definitely it will be interesting to see.
As someone who has attended many conventions in San Jose walking this city is a painful experience
Walking, in San Jose? How fiendishly drove.
@@offbrandurbanism Only the downtown core by Paseo de San Antonio is a remotely walkable place in San Jose proper. San Jose State University is literally an amorphous blob of biking and walking friendly areas only on campus, and Philz Coffee is the eastern anchor of Paseo de San Antonio. McEnry CC is bordered on the East by some decent traffic and on the northern end by Light Rail. The South Hall area is full of traffic while the west is kinda dead (Parking for public transit, if I remember?). If you can ignore the scary intersection of Market & San Carlos (Homeless people and needles may show up here periodically), you might find yourself in a park and the Tech Museum.
And get this: San Jose is the only distinguished city that I know of with at least TWO downtowns. Downtown San Jose (the "Core") and Downtown Willow Glen (Honestly, why?). Willow Glen's downtown is great, but it's kinda San Jose's weird version of "Main Street".
I lived in San Jose for two years, about a block from the train station. My apartment was insanely expensive, right across from a Wholefoods, but there was only so much else around. I rarely walked downtown as there was nothing to do there. Mostly ended up at Santana Row or somewhere else more attractive on the peninsula.
Interesting story, hope where you ended up moving was more exciting!
San Jose had a tech boom from 1990 to 2020. It should have blossomed into a futuristic city like Chicago did 100 years before. Instead nothing changed and it just got more expensive to live there. Why? Because the classist and racist land-use zoning locked it in a straight jacket. America lost out on lots of prosperity due to this.
Said it better than I did in my video!
@@offbrandurbanism Thanks! I got this insight from a guest on the Strong Towns Podcast. I don't remember his name. He said the last time an American city boomed we got the likes of Chicago and New York, but this time all we got is San Jose.
Your video was an excellent deep dive into this insight.
Strong Towns is great! San José is basically the opposite, a weak city that needs to bulk up.
The light rail takes the slowest, most circuitous routes. It was laid out in the 1980s and stops in a zillion office parks on its way from the terminus in Mountain View to San Jose. And it doesn’t connect to the airport.
Yeah, it's really designed around the idea of maximizing parking at each station but nowhere to go. Such a bad system by most metrics.
TODGod did an great video on it, I probably won't do another San Jose themed video till next year where I might go more in depth on VTA.
@@offbrandurbanism If it wasn't simply designed to fail, you will have much to investigate and explain! I do suspect that designed to fail is part of the answer, though. The reason (as I understand it) that Google has its massive and (in)famous bus fleet is in part that the city of Mountain View (not San Jose, I know, but a neighbour) _would not let_ Google fund public infrastructure to connect its campus to transit-such as the VTA light rail/Caltrain interchange, which is a 45 minute walk away.
@stephenspackman5573 I've heard this theory, I honestly know very little about the "Big Tech" buses. You legit gave me a video idea for down the road, thanks!
@@offbrandurbanism The buses themselves are a pretty competent response to a difficult situation: combined with an internal taxi service and a small pool of EVs for when you have to see a doctor or something, it's probably possible to get by carlessly as a Googler, and double decker buses (even ones with WiFi and work tables) obviously have a smaller footprint in every sense than private commute. But they still draw hatred and even violence from the community. I'm not sure if that's really about the buses, or people who feel that our lives would be better (or more moral, or more sustainable) without search engines and video platforms, or simply people who can't imagine that many tech workers are not ‘bros’ (is that the word?) but would vote for higher taxes and UBI if given the opportunity. But the fact that they are needed seems to reflect the most cynical nimbyism imaginable. Or I'm tired and unimaginative, I dunno.
@stephenspackman5573 I think it's a lot of things. I think a lot of it is an equity angle, I believe a lot of it is what they symbolize to a lot of people. I don't think it's anything to do with the specific services the companies have or their footprints.
I lived in south San Jose from 1969 to 1980 me and my friends would ride or bikes thru the orchards and eat fruit off the tress lot of memories going to Frontier Village driving over hill on hwy 17 to the beach moved to Florida now..
Great memory, thanks for sharing!
I try to see the best in every place, but I really struggled when I visited San Jose. This place is something else. A squandering of resources at a truly colossal scale
Thanks for taking the time to watch my video (video? I swear you commented on my other video). I agree it's squandered. Great people though! Was just there.
San Jose unfortunately developed during a time when the country thought single-family homes and freeways is the future. Now we have to make do with what we have... I wish Bart would make stops to Valley Fair/Santana Row, Valco Park and De Anza. That would've gotten a lot of traffic off the roads...
A huge trend in cities is they are often tied to there hey-day. Like Barcelona when Eixample was built, San Francisco when the Muni lines were built 1917-1928 etc. Hopefully it works out for San José!
Why unfortunate? It wasn't that people thought is was the future, it was because people wanted to raise families and have a yard where kids could play or have a family barbecue. They wanted quiet neighborhoods with no traffic and no crime. They wanted their kids to be able to safely ride their bikes in those streets and not worry about them. I am glad my parents bought one of those single-family homes, it was a great place to grow up. I feel sad for the kids that have to grow up in a high-rise.
DTSJ (as some locals call downtown) was actually in a fairly decent upswing heading into COVID. I was seeing more local artist pop-ups, music themed events, outdoor events, and just general activity downtown. Google and other tech companies were about to build and open a bunch of new offices downtown which would have encouraged people to live closeby. COVID and then WFH culture has made its recovery slow, delayed, and in question in the future.
Unfortunately, many many people who move to San Jose/the Silicon Valley have families and/or are so used to the single-family home lifestyle, that they would never want to move to a dense urban environment (not to mention the NIMBYs who vote down any new housing development in SJ and its suburbs, citing "protecting the community's culture" as reasons). A big portion of the residents are immigrants who moved from heavily populated countries and prefer the nice, "safe" and car centric suburb layout and would also vote against any major attempt at urbanization.
I still have some hope. I believe DTSJ will eventually bounce back, the area was only developed heavily 40-50 years ago and we're now seeing the children of early transplants choose to stay in San Jose/the South Bay (partially out of practicality due to the housing costs) and I'd assume they would help contribute to the local food/arts/music scene. There is a vast population of highly diverse, culturally interesting, and motivated people to build a better south bay community, but it definitely won't happen overnight. Maybe by 2040 when BART finally hits Santa Clara...
Yeah a lot of it is expectations. Especially in California I feel like a big segment of the state has this like rosy image of "I'm in the Golden State where's my white picket fence?" which has lead to our historic housing crisis. Appreciate your very thoughtful comment. Also I think it's closer to 2030 for BART so hopefully it's sooner than you expect.
they chased out all the authentic culture, bike for beer and the punk rock houses downtown were chased out in favor of bike party for the zuck surveillance crowd. if san jose keeps pushing locals into the gutter i think you will reach a point of total intolerance for out of town techies, spiking the murder rate only for the city to institute more police state tactics.
Have lived in DT SJ as SJSU student it was night and day from most neighborhoods. It is only walkable part of the city and many students are able to get around without a car. Once you leave the core it becomes super car dependent. Things may improve with BART but it still only covers the Santa Clara corridor, leaving rest of the city unserviced with little change. Berryessa BART expansive TOD plan may give hope to the city to expand and adjust to accommodate public transit more broadly.
Yeah just saw that new TOD announced, good start from what I read.
Also yes definitely night and day. Common comment on the video has been "DT to Japantown is pretty good." Which has been my experience as well.
SJ native here. For nearly a year, I lived in an apt on 8th St, right across from SJSU . I was able to get to everything I wanted to, including Diridon from a nearby bus stop. I didn't use my car that much during that time.
It’s a very weird place but oddly charming in places
Agreed!
Yea check out Evergreen village square and Sandy wool lake. Pretty nice places.
San Jose only has a high population due to its border. It’s no different than any other CA suburban city.
You make a fair point, if I made a video on Orange County it would have tons of overlap. I'd argue suburban cities are a bad idea and San Jose is a prime example of that.
You’re missing a major factor of SJ’s development…the racism. That’s why it’s cut out and parsed the way it is.
It's my first video and I didn't feel equipped to talk about structural racism in city planning anywhere without a lot more videos and research under my belt.
You're too young to remember but San Joses freeways were not built when the majority of the United States freeways were built. San Jose, like Phoenix Arizona, got an extremely late start on their freeway systems and we started in the 1980s. I can remember before San Jose built them and traffic was god awful. I also remember driving over bridges that went over big ditches of dirt that would eventually become freeways. I don't know if you can blame that on the city planner you talked about at the beginning of the video.
Yeah, you are very wrong on this one. San Jose is literally in the process of filling in _all_ those parking lots that you showed in the video. The one that you showed the most, around Diridon station, has a massive mid-size city of a Google campus planned. A bunch of the VTA light rail stops are getting TOD and a ton more are planned to. They've approved an ungodly amount of both office and residential downtown, enough to grow their population by 50% in the next two decades.
Yes, San Jose grew out of the annexation of a bunch of low-density suburbs by a small city. And it does definitely show. But ignoring the fact that San Jose has been painstakingly growing a downtown from scratch and adding density around it's various rail systems is quite short-sighted of you. If anything, San Jose is a success story in the process of happening. They've made a city out of a collection of villages in 60 years.
Very interesting video; it's such a shame about San Jose, and California at large, that are so resistant to building up. I love how you took your time to research this and prepare a presentation on what you found. With regards to the video structure, I would've encouraged you to split it up into three or four parts. That would give you a chance to take your breath and slow down narration a little, maybe monetize a little (hah) and give proper attention to each subset of San Jose that you wanted to. Please keep the videos coming, it's channels like yours that do such an important job informing the public on issues about housing. Maybe more about California coming up??
I'll try to work on sections/chapters for the next video! Really appreciate the feedback. Already went and started filming in person for my next video, which will also be California related! Hoping to do a similar ratio of California to non-California as people like Oh the Urbanity! and Alan Fisher do with Canada/Pennsylvania respectively.
4:15 the absolute SLANDER! This is BOSTON’s North End!!!
I'm so sorry! Unintentional slander! I had two files and got the names mixed up, I've been to both several times and it's a really big obvious mistake. I promise better QA on future videos and forgive me for this transgressions.
@@offbrandurbanism Apology accepted. I really enjoyed the video, and I think this channel has a great future. Keep up the good work! 🙂
San Jose was actually envisioned to be the Los Angeles of Northern CA which is why it annexed a bunch of surrounding communities and spread out so much. Due to it being located within a V shaped valley it’s expansion was limited though. It’s a shame that the Coyote Valley in South SJ between Santa Teresa and Morgan Hill was never built out. You probably have room to add AT LEAST another 100K to 350K people (depending on density) in that space had it been developed. It could’ve been our San Fernando Valley. That may have eased our current housing and home affordability issue. I personally HATE the location of SJ Airport. It should’ve been built in Santa Teresa or near the baylands in Alviso. It’s also hilariously small to call itself an “International Airport” and literally has no room to expand as it’s surrounded by freeways on all sides. Due to the proximity of the airport and it’s downtown being located underneath the landing path, San Jose is forever stuck with a mediocre Lego block shaped downtown with buildings that cannot exceed 300 ft. And what’s up with BART having missed a golden opportunity to include a SJ Airport station in its extension plans despite having the terminus be Santa Clara Station which is literally adjacent to the airport! BART has SF and OAK stations, why not SJ? So many planning fails within this city!
I think early BART planners just couldn't imagine a need for a line in San Jose and justifying a subway there would have been hard. I agree the airport is a limit to density to some degree, but you can build very dense per sq mi with a 300ft limit. San Jose doesn't need to be midtown Manhattan to help solve the affordability crisis.
We don't need development in Coyote Valley. That space is beautiful and needs to be preserved. Just make the city core more dense and transit oriented.
I agree with almost all your points except for expansion to the open preserve area that is sanctioned for wild life. If given the opportunity it would simply be more single family housing like SJ and Morgan Hill. I always also thought the airport location that limits the height of buildings totally crushed the possibility of having an awesome downtown.
It is a miracle that Coyote valley was never developed. It would have been just another few miles of putrid urban sprawl (see almaden and santa teresa), and it would close off the last undeveloped link between the coastal and the diablo mtn ranges, forever constricting the biodiversity of the fauna that would now be trapped in the coastal range but historically migrated between the two and beyond.
Save Coyote Valley!
@@thefunktopuss930 ok NIMBY
You know the Earthquakes also play in San Jose, right? Although, it might as well be in Santa Clara.
I assumed PayPal Park was in Santa Clara. My apologies for the unintentional Earthquakes slander!
I grew up there until age 26! One reason I left was because NOTHING was really geared toward walkability and it's only gotten worse! In 2007 I had a reunion to attend and got instructions from Diridon Caltrain to Vasona Park. Pretty easy and getting back they still had the bus lines that went out Leigh/Camden and also Meridian! In 2012 I wanted to go see
my parents in Cambrian Park! I asked my sister about the light rails because I recognized the stops. But she said they all went toward the Berressa neighborhoods and no where near there! I was still able to catch the Meridian line, but the 65 Camden was gone! Cut to 2022 and there were no longer either bus lines and I had to catch a taxi! Horribly short-sighted as I no longer drive!
7:34
The google translate insert killed me 😂
Really informative video- I’ve never been to San Jose, and it’s insane how depopulated the center of such a large city is.
I promise to use proper subtitles! I just didn't think more than 100 people would see this! Glad you found it informative and unintentionally funny haha
i dont think you are the best person to be saying that San Jose contributes nothing to pop culture as you make videos about urban development and sound like a white guy in his 30s-40s while san jose is one of the most diverse areas in the us (ik u mentioned that) and continuously starts nearly every new dance and social media trend
Do I really sound that old???? Also every new dance and social media trend is news to me! Thanks for the engagement!
Hi, I really love the content and it was super informative as someone who lives in South Bay! I wonder if you will look into other cities in the South Bay such as Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto etc. as I think they are pretty interesting to look into as well as they are also messes in their own ways when it comes to city planning and the local discourse surrounding the issues regarding it
I think I will have some sort of general video about that part of the Bay at some point, although probably not for a while. There's definitely a lot of wild NIMBY stories from the South Bay/Peninsula I could make a video about. Is there a particular mess you find interesting?
@@offbrandurbanism I know most about Cupertino's, so I find how Cupertino handles issues like Vallco, closing of schools, problematic public officials, split between the community, and their other issues more interesting. I think just looking at the decently recent contentious election over 3 councilmember seats and the rhetoric surrounding the whole time can be a good summary overall.