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Comment by junkscience2017 | Hacker News Reader

junkscience2017

Whenever people fantasize about some mysterious fourth "regional" level of government in the Bay Area, it is always assumed that this plays to their advantage...that someone from San Francisco will hold sway over the suburbs and impose their will.

But San Jose is larger by population...if you propose that this same layer of government instead be centered in San Jose, all of a sudden people lose interest.

If three levels of government can't get anything done, how will four help?

In any case this "regional" government already exists in the form of transit agencies, utilities, waste and water districts, etc....I see very few people clamoring to give the bureaucrats of BART any more power.

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You don't seem to understand. The point of a regional authority is that it could play fair and spread the necessary changes. Most people in the bay area agree we need more housing already, they just want it in a different neighborhood or different city, hence the use of the term NIMBY. But when almost all of the cities push the problem onto someone else, nobody does anything. A regional authority could spread out the development appropriately.

I think OP understands fine: a regional government will be unpopular unless it benefits you. SF has money and influence, San Jose has population. Oakland and Santa Clara will simply reject this out of hand since it's less likely they will be adequately represented. If the issue wasn't so highly politicized, then sure, it's a great idea, but ultimately it will fall victim to the same problem local governments have.

That "regional" government is disjointed and inefficient.

BART is run by Contra Costa, Alameda, and San Francisco counties; CalTrain is run by San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties. And so the two don't meet up, because there's not a single government for the Bay Area that can coordinate. (The new Transbay Terminal that joins them together is in part a state initiative.)

These kinds of ad hoc special purpose districts are an extremely inefficient way of running a regional government.

WRT the San Francisco vs. San Jose issue - the interests of these large cities in the Bay are largely aligned. They are relatively dense, are irritated by the obstructionism of smaller towns when it comes to housing and infrastructure development, and would like decision-making to be more fairly based on population.

(BTW, there are actually three large cities in the Bay Area, with approximately equal populations - San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.)

By all means, I'd love to see this regional leadership emanate from the South Bay. It's where the real money, power, and future growth reside in the Bay Area anyway.

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