The Loma Prietan
March/April 2005
Silicon Valley tech workers want to 'get a life'
North San Jose responds
and may help the wider
environment in the process
By Alison Hicks,
Sustainable Land Use (SLU) committee
I've never understood the appeal of
Silicon Valley's sprawling, auto-oriented
office parks. They confine you to cafeteria
coffee and when you get promoted to
that cubicle by the window you look out
over a sea of parked cars. If you want an
adventure as tame as a good restaurant
lunch or a happy hour you have to drive
across town.
Apparently I'm not alone. Andrew
Crabtree, city of San Jose planner, says
that managers of the city's most prestigious
corporations, such as eBay, claim
that the sprawling low-rise office parks
that define Silicon Valley have become
passé. (Mr. Crabtree was the guest
speaker at the SLU January meeting,
held at City Hall, San Jose). High tech
workers are no longer attracted to them.
They want a choice of lunch spots, good
coffee and maybe a gym or shops nearby.
Many would like to walk to work and
occasionally walk home for lunch. Tech
workers spend a lot of time at the office
and would like to "get a life" there.
Consequently, planners are suggesting
a major land use policy change to apply to
a 600 acre "Core Area" along the North
1st Street light rail corridor between
Brokaw Road and Montague Expressway.
Since 1988 the area has been subject to
density caps that largely limit office parks
to one and two story buildings surrounded
by large parking lots. Offices in the area
are generally isolated from other uses like
restaurants and housing.
Proposed changes would encourage
more intensive industrial development,
focusing on high tech and corporate headquarters,
and hopefully luring up to
68,000 new jobs to San Jose. Plans call for
higher buildings with complementary
uses on the ground, particularly around
the light rail corridor. Blocks walking distance
to the light rail would support
urban-scale residential development.
Higher density development would allow
a rich and enticing pedestrian environment
to grow up around San Jose's new
high tech corridor.
Development would generate funding
to construct local and regional transportation
improvements. These improvements
would be needed, particularly if 68,000
new jobs were attracted to North San
Jose.
The tech worker demand for more
than cubicles and cafeterias could not
come at a better time. Smokestacks and
sewers are no longer the major threat to
our environment. Auto use and sprawling
development are now the main contributors
to Global Warming and other
insidious environmental ills. Happier
still, reporters with publications like
American Demographic Magazine are
noting that many consumers, not just
high tech workers, are developing a
strong preference for more urban living.
Real estate market and financial feasibility
specialist, Denise Conley, claims
that more and more people are "bored of
the burbs." (Ms. Conley spoke on Feb. 2
at "The Forum at Redwood City: A
Continuing Conversation on City
Design" on the topic of "The Economics
of Mixed Use - A New Opportunity for
Downtown Development.") The
Oakland-based principal of Conley
Consulting Group says that we've made
interesting urban places over the past
decade or two and people want to live and
work in places like those they have visited.
Hopefully, North San Jose can transform
itself from a land of parking lots
and isolated offices to one of Silicon
Valley's "interesting places" that can act
as an example for the rest the Valley. Or
as Tom Steinbach, executive director of
Greenbelt Alliance says, "The new
vision for North First Street gives us the
opportunity to step back and re-evaluate
the future of San Jose and the entire Bay
Area. We can learn from past mistakes
— the original sprawling development
of North First Street clearly was one —
and choose a better model. Instead of
paving hillsides and widening highways,
we can re-examine the cities we've
already built and make them better
places to live. Let's take the first step by
fast-tracking plans for smarter growth in
North San Jose."
The Sustainable Land Use committee
will be closely following the progress of
"North San Jose: Vision 2030". We ask Club
members to join us on the second Tuesdays
of the month for our monthly meetings, 6pm
(pizza is served). If you are not able to join
us for pizza, join us virtually - on our listserv,
instructions can be found on our homepage,
along with meeting announcements:
lomaprieta.sierraclub.org/slu/
For more information on the plan
for North San Jose, see:
www.sanjoseca.gov/planning/nsj/
Attend a Forum at Redwood City:
A Continuing Conversation
of City Design
www.redwoodcity.org/misc/morehottopics/forum.html
Fred Kent of Project for Public Spaces
speaks on March 2 on
"The World’s Best and Worst Parks"
On April 6, the topic is
"The High Cost of Free Parking"