Transportation

Chapter 8

San Francisco, like most other major cities, relies on transportation for goods and public transportation. The City was thought important enough to make major highways, rail systems and air lines a large part of the transportation system (i.e., U.S. Highway Route 40).

The City also cares much for their public transporation. I think that this is one of the reasons, like New York, that San Francisco is so popular and successful as city and major tourist attraction. People that I know who have visited Los Angeles, as well as locals, realize that one can barely get around Los Angeles without a car. For a tourist to come here, they either have to know someone to take them around, visit only certain areas that they can walk to, or have a great sense of direction to drive themselves around!

But in San Francisco, you can get lost, but you are never far from a MUNI bus, a BART Subway station, or one of the light rails M, T, J, K, N, to name a few. And its affordable too.

This is a picture of a MUNI bus.

This is a picture of a light rail (LRT).

Public Transportation is the best choice for the City because of its limited space, therefore, lack of parking. If and when I have drove my own car there that is the biggest problem–trying to find parking! I usually ditch my car somewhere and then take the MUNI everywhere else. Not to mention traffic!

A famous Cable Cars of San Francisco (anyone remember Rice-a-Roni?)

The MUNI (Municipal Railway), which oversees the buses, trolleybus, light rail, street and cable cars, began its operation in 1912, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. There are some MUNI buses that are electric, and others that run on ethanol. All light rails are electric. Many bus lines also have night owl services.

The BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is the heavy rail part subway system that covers in the City and the surrounding Bay Area (Richmond, Oakland, etc.). It began operation in 1972.

San Francisco is always working to improve their transit. As of this year, they added the light rail T line, which services the southeast side, making sure that lines hit key places such as Giant’s Stadium, the 49ers stadium and The Embarcadero.

Economy

Chapter 7

Although SF has had a long, rich economic history, the most fascinating economic “boom” is the Silicon Valley.

Stanford University, located some 35 miles south of San Francisco City, was the birthplace of technology. As early as the 1950’s, Stanford had some of the top minds of technology researching and developing. Innovation was happening at Stanford. From here, IBM, Apple was born. Research funding money was thrown at many companies to create and develop. This place, which became to be known as Silicon Valley (first used in 1971), became a very distinctive and new cultural place of our time. Although Silicon Valley is not the only place in the world to be a city where its culture is rooted in creation of technology, it was the first of its kind.



According to our book, Manuel Castells, a sociologist who researches information and communications, has described this kind of characteristic city which has popped up world wide as “milieus of innovation.” This describes an urban areas who’s main goal and function is to generate new knowledge and products. Certain conditions such as centers of research and development must exist; access to a large pool of innovators or scientist; and the availability of capital.

So how does the city of San Francisco have anything to do with Silicon Valley? San Francisco is not the place where parts for these technologies are manufactured; parts are relatively light, therefore production can happen mostly anywhere, economically, and transported at a low cost. Silicon Valley is not a bustling metropolis. It is safe to say that most people are attracted to cities that have a lot of amenities to offer such as entertainment and cultural scene, therefore, the closest city that fits these desires is San Francisco, only 35 miles to the north.

With the influence of Silicon Valley, San Francisco kind of had its own milieus of innovation: the dot-com company (1995-2000). These were companies that presented themselves on line and offered unique services to the web-surfer. Anything from gaming on line, toy stores, bookstores, and independent internet companies, just to name a few. But they all had one motto in common: get big fast!

Dot-com companies and new Silicon Valley residents is how San Francisco was affected.

The adverse effects of this was a loss of many jobs when the dot-com’s became dot-bombs (around the year 2000) due to over spending and getting big too fast; and the displacement of long time residents by wealthier people from Silicon Valley and the dot-com’s moving in, which caused property to increase. This moving in of the more wealthy which caused real estate to soar, displaced lower income residents, such as cooks, janitors, waiters, teachers, those who help the daily function of the City work. The latter were now commuting into the City they served, living elsewhere, while the wealthy were driving out of the City to their jobs in Silicon Valley.

Long time residents of the City who survived the dot.com/Silicon Valley craze are now seeking to restore San Francisco to a place of character and diversity, not just a place for the rich.

Industry

Chapter 6

The origins of SF were a city. It never began as an agricultural community that in time became a metropolitan. They are not known for their primary activities. However I did find an interesting article on line from a Canadian agricultural magazine, published in 1999, about how the City is doing urban farming, and being quite successful on a small-business level

As for the City’s natural resources, they have their surrounding landscape like the beaches and Golden Gate Park.

Tourism is one of the primary industries. The most recent numbers from 2006 estimate that the City attracted about 15 million visitors. Hotels, restaurants, shops and attractions fall under this flag of “tourism.”

Recently, there is a lot of concern for what is named the “light” industry. It is being threatened by land developers who are greedy. “Light” industry consists of small suppliers, warehouses, and specialty manufacturing. There is also another article of interest which states: “Industry has declined but also has morphed into different types of activities. It has a different place in
the economy than it did in the 1950s. But this does not mean that it’s dead or not viable.”

SF Economic structure was once dominated by corporate headquarters. Many Fortune 500 companies were located here, but in the recent years have left to lower cost areas. Their economy is not associated with more smaller, innovated companies.

Future projections are that, despite the rise and crash of the dot-comb’s of 1995-2000, high technology industries will continue to grow in the Information and Computer Technology field.

The City's Governement

Chapter 5

Because the United States is a republic federal democracy this means that the central government gives States the power to handle their own tax, police force and the like. From the Governor all the way down to a city council member, these offices are voted by the people, not appointed.

San Francisco has a unique municipal government.

Most cities use the mayor-council system, where the mayor is elected citywide, but the council members are appointed by are elected by council districts. Mayors appoint heads of departments.

Another approach is the commission and council-manager system, where the voters elect a city council, who in turn, selects a mayor from its membership. According to the book, half of all U.S. cities us this approach.

There are less than three percent of cities who use a mayorless system. The city commission plan is where voters elect a commission board to be responsible for administration of the city.

Then there is a form of government that few cities use called metropolitan government. This is a two-tier government. The mayor and city officials handle the local functions while the metropolitan performs more area-wide functions, such as public transportation and pollution control.

This is the one that San Francisco practices, and has since 1856. It is the only one of its kind in California. There are two co-equal branches: the mayor is the county’s executive and the county’s board of supervisors acts as the city council and legislative branch. Both are elected by the people. The best I can figure is that the Mayor’s office oversees programs and initiatives for the City, and the Board develops City policies, adopts ordinances and resolutions, and manages urban issues.

I read that the Federal Government uses the City as a regional hub for different federal bureaucracy, such as the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the United States Mint. I am not sure what that means.

Also interesting to note that the State Supreme Court is located in San Francisco, including other State Agencies. No wonder why people don’t think that Sacramento is the Capitol!

Here is SF's offical government site, beginning with the Mayor's bio: http://www.sfgov.org/site/mayor_index.asp?id=22014 He is the youngest Mayor in 100 years! Pretty handsome guy.