Easy: you are. Lots of people live in San Mateo. It's still a suburb. Evanston and Oak Park are suburbs of Chicago that are denser than San Mateo. So is, for god's sake, Berwyn.
To see how silly population density is as a metric for what 'potatolicious is talking about, consider that your metric says that Berwyn and San Mateo are more like cities than Bellevue Washington, which is so independently urbanized that it stretches the definition of "suburb" but has a density of only 3k/sqm. Look at downtown Bellevue in street view on Google Maps. Now go look at Delaware and 3rd in San Mateo.
The idea that you might think San Mateo is more of an urban area than San Jose --- I mean this without annoying snippiness in my heart though I know it is, characteristically, going to sound that way --- suggests to me that you haven't been to one of those two cities before. San Jose is self-evidently a real city. (I look forward to you embarrassing me by informing me that you've lived in both).
Easy: you are. Lots of people live in San Mateo. It's still a suburb.
The issue was what is a "dense urban area". A city that is a suburb because of its relation to a another city can still be a dense urban area, and a sparsely populated municipality that is not a suburb can fail to be a dense urban area. San Jose is not a dense urban area, by any remotely reasonable standard.
consider that your metric says that Berwyn and San Mateo are more like cities than Bellevue Washington,
All of those are cities, none of them are "more like cities". The issue was "dense urban areas", and certainly some of them are more "dense urban areas" than others, and that is easily and objectively verifiable.
The idea that you might think San Mateo is more of an urban area than San Jose
You keep leaving out the key word "dense".
San Mateo is, objectively, more of a "dense urban area" than San Jose. Whether its more of an "urban area", density aside, isn't a entirely a well-defined question, but given that San Jose is basically a giant mass of the type of development referred to as "suburban sprawl" that just happens to be within a single legal jurisdiction that isn't a satellite of a larger municipality, I'd say by most reasonable standards its probably not more an urban area than most Peninsula cities, even if the latter happen to suburbs of San Francisco.)
Though, of colin_mccabe's examples, I'll agree that San Mateo isn't the best (Berkeley probably is).
I think the reason you & I are talking past each other is that I wrote my comment because I found Colin's "dense urban area" appellation misleading. Your comment forced me to do the research to check whether population density meant anything like what 'potatolicious was talking about; had I done that before writing my original comment, I think my response would have been more convincing.
Oak Park is a village, not a city, and is denser than San Mateo. The city/town designation is arbitrary.
San Jose has a very large downtown area, much better transit, and more diverse retail businesses and restaurants than San Mateo does. It also has a gigantic residential sprawl. So does Houston. Nobody would mistake San Mateo for a urban area of the likes of Houston.
I agree with you about Berkeley, but that's telling too, isn't it? Berkeley is, like San Francisco, a hotbed of anti-Google protests.
The subtext of this thread is 'potatolicious' claim that no place other than San Francisco (and, admittedly, Berkeley and Oakland) offer a "dense urban core" with a "transit-centric" lifestyle that is "commutable" to jobs on the Peninsula. He is right. San Mateo does not in fact offer that. To argue the contrary, you'd need to find a way in which San Mateo offers that lifestyle that, say, Mountain View or Santa Clara or Pleasonton don't; otherwise, you're arguing that the whole Peninsula is urban, and the term doesn't mean anything. Obviously, if you find a job in downtown Pleasanton and are happy to eat out only at the Cheesecake Factory, Pleasanton is livable too.
Berkeley has been a hotbed of political protest for a long, long time. While I lived there, the Oak Grove protests, (protesting the cutting down of some trees to build a stadium) were going on. Most of the fellow Berkeley residents I talked to were not in favor of the tree protesters, simply because the university was planting more trees in other places, so that there would actually be a net gain of trees due to the construction. Prior to Oak Grove, there were the protests surrounding the army recruitment offices. And prior to that, I'm sure there was another cause, all the way back to Vietnam, where Berkeley was also a famous center of protest.
The protests in San Francisco are very different from the ones in Berkeley. The San Francisco ones are basically concerned about the effect the Google buses are having on the composition of the neighborhood. The idea is that SF is perfect as-is and must not change. There were similar worries when gays started moving into SF in the 70s and 80s.
I think the reason why you're "talking past" me and the other people here is that you haven't really visited most of the neighborhoods outside SF, and you think they're all the same. Hence the apparent non-sequiturs like bringing up Oak Brook, Illinois, or trying to decide whether something is a "city" or a "town." The reality is that different places are different. Berkeley is not SF. San Mateo is not downtown San Jose. And downtown San Jose is not east San Jose.
An "us versus them" mentality, coupled with lack of knowledge of "them," lies behind a lot of ugly things in human nature. Do we really need to have more of it here? Maybe there are places outside of SF that are (gasp) as good as parts of SF. Maybe there are places in SF that kind of suck. Is it possible?
I don't think average density is a very good metric for San Jose. Downtown San Jose is quite dense, with a lot of skyscrapers. On the other hand, there are some parts of it that are definitely very low density. I definitely agree that downtown San Jose is more dense than any of the places I mentioned.
With regard to San Mateo being "a suburb" without "any significant transit," I can't agree. I see people taking the bus all the time. There are a lot of people who work in downtown San Mateo and live nearby.
Oak Brook Illinois is an archetypical midwestern suburb --- strip malls, chain restaurants, vast residential areas, centered (like San Mateo) on a big shopping mall --- that happens to host a bunch of high rise office buildings. No doubt there are lots of people who work in those buildings and choose to live in Oak Brook so they can walk or take the Pace bus to work. But that doesn't make the living experience of Oak Brook comparable to that of Chicago, or even Milwaukee.
I'm not trying to say that San Mateo is irredeemable. If I had to move back to the Bay Area (crosses self), I'd probably look at San Mateo before San Francisco, because I have kids, and San Francisco seems like an awful place to raise kids. I'm just saying that it is not a realistic substitute for San Francisco for city dwellers.
San Mateo is not "an archetypical midwestern suburb" with "strip malls, chain restaurants, vast residential areas... centered on a big shopping mall." Most of the restaurants are not chains, or if they are, they're local chains like Curry Up Now or Pacific Catch. It's not "centered on a big shopping mall." There is a smallish strip mall called the Shoreview shopping center which I don't think many people visit any more, on the east side of the tracks (the bad side of town, according to some.) There is also the Hillsdale mall which is more out towards Belmont. I think it's technically in the city of San Mateo, but very far from the center. The center of the town is the downtown area where the Caltrain station, central park, farmers market, most of the office buildings, and so forth are.
Comments
Easy: you are. Lots of people live in San Mateo. It's still a suburb. Evanston and Oak Park are suburbs of Chicago that are denser than San Mateo. So is, for god's sake, Berwyn.
To see how silly population density is as a metric for what 'potatolicious is talking about, consider that your metric says that Berwyn and San Mateo are more like cities than Bellevue Washington, which is so independently urbanized that it stretches the definition of "suburb" but has a density of only 3k/sqm. Look at downtown Bellevue in street view on Google Maps. Now go look at Delaware and 3rd in San Mateo.
The idea that you might think San Mateo is more of an urban area than San Jose --- I mean this without annoying snippiness in my heart though I know it is, characteristically, going to sound that way --- suggests to me that you haven't been to one of those two cities before. San Jose is self-evidently a real city. (I look forward to you embarrassing me by informing me that you've lived in both).
The issue was what is a "dense urban area". A city that is a suburb because of its relation to a another city can still be a dense urban area, and a sparsely populated municipality that is not a suburb can fail to be a dense urban area. San Jose is not a dense urban area, by any remotely reasonable standard.
All of those are cities, none of them are "more like cities". The issue was "dense urban areas", and certainly some of them are more "dense urban areas" than others, and that is easily and objectively verifiable.
You keep leaving out the key word "dense".
San Mateo is, objectively, more of a "dense urban area" than San Jose. Whether its more of an "urban area", density aside, isn't a entirely a well-defined question, but given that San Jose is basically a giant mass of the type of development referred to as "suburban sprawl" that just happens to be within a single legal jurisdiction that isn't a satellite of a larger municipality, I'd say by most reasonable standards its probably not more an urban area than most Peninsula cities, even if the latter happen to suburbs of San Francisco.)
Though, of colin_mccabe's examples, I'll agree that San Mateo isn't the best (Berkeley probably is).
I think the reason you & I are talking past each other is that I wrote my comment because I found Colin's "dense urban area" appellation misleading. Your comment forced me to do the research to check whether population density meant anything like what 'potatolicious was talking about; had I done that before writing my original comment, I think my response would have been more convincing.
Oak Park is a village, not a city, and is denser than San Mateo. The city/town designation is arbitrary.
San Jose has a very large downtown area, much better transit, and more diverse retail businesses and restaurants than San Mateo does. It also has a gigantic residential sprawl. So does Houston. Nobody would mistake San Mateo for a urban area of the likes of Houston.
I agree with you about Berkeley, but that's telling too, isn't it? Berkeley is, like San Francisco, a hotbed of anti-Google protests.
The subtext of this thread is 'potatolicious' claim that no place other than San Francisco (and, admittedly, Berkeley and Oakland) offer a "dense urban core" with a "transit-centric" lifestyle that is "commutable" to jobs on the Peninsula. He is right. San Mateo does not in fact offer that. To argue the contrary, you'd need to find a way in which San Mateo offers that lifestyle that, say, Mountain View or Santa Clara or Pleasonton don't; otherwise, you're arguing that the whole Peninsula is urban, and the term doesn't mean anything. Obviously, if you find a job in downtown Pleasanton and are happy to eat out only at the Cheesecake Factory, Pleasanton is livable too.
Berkeley has been a hotbed of political protest for a long, long time. While I lived there, the Oak Grove protests, (protesting the cutting down of some trees to build a stadium) were going on. Most of the fellow Berkeley residents I talked to were not in favor of the tree protesters, simply because the university was planting more trees in other places, so that there would actually be a net gain of trees due to the construction. Prior to Oak Grove, there were the protests surrounding the army recruitment offices. And prior to that, I'm sure there was another cause, all the way back to Vietnam, where Berkeley was also a famous center of protest.
The protests in San Francisco are very different from the ones in Berkeley. The San Francisco ones are basically concerned about the effect the Google buses are having on the composition of the neighborhood. The idea is that SF is perfect as-is and must not change. There were similar worries when gays started moving into SF in the 70s and 80s.
I think the reason why you're "talking past" me and the other people here is that you haven't really visited most of the neighborhoods outside SF, and you think they're all the same. Hence the apparent non-sequiturs like bringing up Oak Brook, Illinois, or trying to decide whether something is a "city" or a "town." The reality is that different places are different. Berkeley is not SF. San Mateo is not downtown San Jose. And downtown San Jose is not east San Jose.
An "us versus them" mentality, coupled with lack of knowledge of "them," lies behind a lot of ugly things in human nature. Do we really need to have more of it here? Maybe there are places outside of SF that are (gasp) as good as parts of SF. Maybe there are places in SF that kind of suck. Is it possible?
I don't think average density is a very good metric for San Jose. Downtown San Jose is quite dense, with a lot of skyscrapers. On the other hand, there are some parts of it that are definitely very low density. I definitely agree that downtown San Jose is more dense than any of the places I mentioned.
With regard to San Mateo being "a suburb" without "any significant transit," I can't agree. I see people taking the bus all the time. There are a lot of people who work in downtown San Mateo and live nearby.
Oak Brook Illinois is an archetypical midwestern suburb --- strip malls, chain restaurants, vast residential areas, centered (like San Mateo) on a big shopping mall --- that happens to host a bunch of high rise office buildings. No doubt there are lots of people who work in those buildings and choose to live in Oak Brook so they can walk or take the Pace bus to work. But that doesn't make the living experience of Oak Brook comparable to that of Chicago, or even Milwaukee.
I'm not trying to say that San Mateo is irredeemable. If I had to move back to the Bay Area (crosses self), I'd probably look at San Mateo before San Francisco, because I have kids, and San Francisco seems like an awful place to raise kids. I'm just saying that it is not a realistic substitute for San Francisco for city dwellers.
San Mateo is not "an archetypical midwestern suburb" with "strip malls, chain restaurants, vast residential areas... centered on a big shopping mall." Most of the restaurants are not chains, or if they are, they're local chains like Curry Up Now or Pacific Catch. It's not "centered on a big shopping mall." There is a smallish strip mall called the Shoreview shopping center which I don't think many people visit any more, on the east side of the tracks (the bad side of town, according to some.) There is also the Hillsdale mall which is more out towards Belmont. I think it's technically in the city of San Mateo, but very far from the center. The center of the town is the downtown area where the Caltrain station, central park, farmers market, most of the office buildings, and so forth are.