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A "small town" ... 7 miles from the center of a major global city and metro area ... even closer to a major international airport. These people are assholes.

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A "small town" ... 7 miles from the center of a major global city and metro area ... even closer to a major international airport.

Nothing weird about that situation at all. In fact it's the way much of planet is organized.

These people are assholes.

Nothing of the sort. They're long-term residents looking out for what's best for their community.

And it's exactly the kind of completely gratuitous negativity (project by outsiders, who otherwise couldn't begin to care what goes on in their town), exemplified above, which shores up this instinct that many of them have to protect what they have. Because they know that you're definitely not concerned about what impact projects like these will have on their quality of life and long-term fiscal interests.

>They're long-term residents looking out for what's best for their community.

No, they're just looking out for themselves. The community is hurt by their greed for massively inflated property values, low taxes, and keeping the younger generation from living the lives they want.

If that makes me negative, fine. But if they are white-washing their behavior by pretending to be concerned for "the community" when really they only care about themselves, yes, that is the very definition of asshole.

The residents of Brisbane get to inhale deeply of the fumes generated by nearby enormous mountains of garbage from SF and the bay area on a daily basis. I understand completely why they'd oppose development. Now I suspect if there were a deal in play to remove the awful stench once and for all, there'd be something in it for them.

Right now, they should drag this out as long and as hard as they can IMO lest they get screwed again. Because if the place didn't smell like a$$ on a daily basis, it would have been discovered and gentrified long ago (I remember checking the place out myself in 2007). It could be a fantastic suburb of SF in a world where win/win usually triumphed over I got mine so @#$% you. But that's not how this area works in my experience.

But why put the onus on a small village when the city of SF itself is unwilling to allow normal city development & construction. If anyone are assholes, it's the city of SF itself --who, by the way, typically rally behind "we don't want to Manhattanize SF." If SF is unwilling to do their part, why would we expect a small village compensate ofr the city's unwillingness to support development?

I (as someone who supports building more in the Bay Area) don't want the onus to be just on Brisbane. I want it to be on the whole Bay Area, and all of its townships.

That one of the major issues I think the Bay Area faces: each township passes the buck to the next: "Why should we build housing, when township X is completely unwilling to do so?" Yes, and they say the same thing about you! With this attitude, nothing will ever get built, anywhere.

I think we should recognize that SF and Brisbane are not in the same league. Anything Brisbane would build would be a drop in the bucket. SF can potentially add a hundred thousand units --two hundred thousand units, no problem without changing the character from village to full-blown city. 4,00 units more than doubles the pop of Brisbane. If we added 200,000 units to _only_ SF, that would add 25% to their pop. Another 200,000 would add 20% to SJ.

The Problem is SF, Oakland and SJ --localities which can/could build if they wanted to but simply don't.

It also increases the built area of Brisbane.

Oakland seems to be approving residential towers at a decent clip. I'm not sure it belongs in the same breath as SF and SJ.

There's nothing wrong with small villages 7 miles from a major city or even a capital city, if the principal city is built properly. If you walk 7 miles from the center of Zurich, Switzerland you'll probably find yourself in the middle of a vineyard or pasture.

Zurich is not located on a 7 mile wide peninsula.

This is some strange SF manifest destiny argument

Your statement appears to have nothing to do with the area that Brisbane, CA is located in.

I was just objecting to the idea that a small town was inappropriate in this context. With a suitable urban form there's no reason why you couldn't take the entire population of Brisbane and put them all on 640 acres, with 80% open space.

But Brisbane, California is not a "small town" it's a disgusting example of exurban sprawl.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brisbane,+CA/@37.679201,-1...

If you look at your link, you will see the address is (142 Elderberry Ln, Brisbane, CA 94005).

Looking at the map (https://goo.gl/maps/7kvttaK8z7F2), it's not even in Brisbane proper, so I think you're wrong about your assessment.

I have been to Brisbane, the number of large McMansions is very tiny.

This one is. It almost seems designed to trick a machine learning classifier into classifying it as a warehouse or something.

Point it the existing built environment of Brisbane, CA is not worth preserving. Its car-dependent nature is a menace to the region.

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.6916572,-122.4087356,3a,90y,...

Your link still points to a house outside of Brisbane proper... how transit efficient is San Francisco outside of downtown? BART doesn't reach most of SF, MUNI is abysmal and buses...well, Brisbane has buses too.

I think your assessment is a bit heavy handed considering how bad public transit is in the area in general.

You seem to be defining "Brisbane proper" as the area between San Francisco Ave. and Firth Park. But Brisbane is much more extensive. The majority of its land area is taken up by empty land, single-story material handling facilities, and ludicrous sprawl at "The Ridge".

I wonder how many self-driving cars live in that house...

Oh, you're raising a non-sequitor. Got it.

That's not what we call an 'exurb', either.

> Brisbane, California is not a "small town"

Brisbane is a small town. It is dense, not sprawling. It has a town square and a handful of shops. It has schools. It is surrounded by empty space on all sides. It is in a canyon of San Bruno Mountain on three sides and surround by bay water and rail yards on the north side. You don't know what you are talking about

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.6888189,-122.4091851,410a,35...

That's not the town. That's the industrial park. The town is just south of there. It's made up of houses, not warehouses. Even including the industrial park, Brisbane is small, a town, not sprawling, and is completely detached from SF by water and a couple miles of rail yards. Tunnel Ave is really long and no one drives on it. It is effectively a country road that leads from SF to Brisbane. Go drive it or bike it or walk it some time. Brisbane is a completely separate place from SF

You obviously have no idea what the boundaries of Brisbane are.

Here you go. It's EXACTLY as I described. http://www.zipmap.net/California/San_Mateo_County/Brisbane.h...

I think that was part of the point. IE: "if the principal city is built properly" implies the principal city isn't built properly.

Oh, that makes sense. Instead of talking about what we could actually do -- build high-density by an existing and underused transit hub -- let's complain about the way the entire Bay Area is laid out!

Brisbane is 6.5 miles from downtown SF (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+downtown+san+...)

The entire peninsula is tiny, it's not fair to compare it to Zurich.

You can find both grazing cows and vineyards WITHIN the city limits of Zurich, less than 3 miles from the center.

I grew up here, it was a very ideal place for families. More suburban than sf (population of less than 5k) but didnt feel like sprawl either. We played in the streets, can't do that in most of sf. Although to be fair this area theyre talking about isnt really in brisbane anyway, its on a industrial stretch.

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