San Francisco’s Skyline, Now Inescapably Transformed by Tech | Hacker News Reader

San Francisco’s Skyline, Now Inescapably Transformed by Tech

nytimes.com

58 pointsrising-sky97 comments

San Francisco grows at a positively glacial pace compared to even mature cities like London. Heck, even downtown Los Angeles rapidly outpaces SF in construction. While at the same time SF arguably has more money and demand for growth then both those places by a giant margin.

I wouldn't be surprised if Sacramento is adding more leasable square footage a year than SF.

It's not tech that's ruined the city, it's anti-growth NIMBYs that have caused the existing real estate prices to fly off to the Moon and critical infrastructure to stall in the courts for years.

If the argument is about "increased traffic" then they're simply wrong. Forcing people to drive in from El Sobrante or San Leandro because of a refusal to build more convenient housing, that's the policy that causes more traffic. Homes will be built somewhere.

If it's against the carbon footprint of new construction then use carbon negative cement, have rooftop gardens, and use solar windows. We need to start transforming our cities anyway.

And if the argument is against "greedy developers" then work on not for profit community housing projects built on land trusts. "Build nothing" is not a reasonable option

but NIMBYs still have not had their core claim dismissed: that new residential capacity is not being augmented with better transportation infrastructure or even schools. most NIMBYs gave up on neighborhood parks, they seem just impossible now. amusingly, even retail is being shunned (residential is build, sell and move on, which is why places like Silver Creek in San Jose only have one tiny pathetic market for 5k homes). most cities now have to force retail components on to developers

if you live in the US, chances are you attended a public school built by a developer in exchange for development rights, and the school was accessible by a road also built by the developer. the park was set aside as such and not filled with homes; instead the developer paid to put in a swingset and a tennis court

now developers refuse to augment transportation infrastructure or build schools (and it is illegal to decline a development due to predicted pressure on local school), and NIMBYs want to know why. all they get in response are downvotes on message boards or personal attacks

thousands new rental units are going up along Lawrence Expressway in Santa Clara...but no new road capacity and no new schools, and no parks or open space at all. what kind of a community would you like to live in? in a few years the same urban professionals who are the core of the YIMBYs will be freaking out about no schools or parks, because they are going to want them.

If this is actually NIMBYs' core claim, I'm overjoyed, because it can plausibly be worked with.

Building literal greenfield subdivisions is a little different from infill/intensification in a city. Where one developer is building all the homes, of course he needs to provide all the infrastructure and amenities between them, or no one will want to live there.

Urban intensification is one site at a time. I hope no single developer is doing so much of the construction that it also makes sense to make him responsible for schools and transit. The whole angle of YIMBYism is to reduce landlords' pricing power through competition. So if ten different developers are operating simultaneously, who pays for what?

If only there were some sort of institution for solving these coordination problems. We could call it... municipal government. If only there were some sort of mechanism for it to skim off of real estate value and use the money for public goods. We could call it... property taxes.

Maybe "our side" isn't campaigning loudly enough for increasing public investements in public goods, but the support is there. What you're probably seeing pushback for is arguments like, "well, I don't see a school in this proposal for 20 condos, so get lost" and other stuff that looks like a rhetorical strategy for a decision you already made, rather than your actual objection.

Road capacity is an interesting one, because people who live in dense walkable environments close to their offices need less transportation. Killing projects in SF based on their traffic/transit impacts sends their potential residents out to Walnut Creek. That's not better.

EDIT: I will also add that huge multi-buildings sites developed all at once have a tendency to feel fake. There's a very real risk of uncanny valley when a developer is trying to bootstrap a neighborhood all at once. Organic, incremental growth is something we should celebrate and encourage.

I'm 100% with you, but unfortunately residential property taxes aren't going to be able to cover necessary municipal infrastructure in California until we get Prop 13[0] repealed. It may have been passed with noble intentions (although from the outside it sure looks like existing property holders transparently exploiting newcomers to the area), but the net effect is a systemic underinvestment in local infrastructure since the 1970s.

The YIMBYers would love to kill off Prop 13 and return to sane levels of local funding, but it's state wide and still far too politically sacred to be attacked directly.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197...

As far as I know prop 13 suppress property taxes of old buildings, not new ones. New buildings should therefore have an outsized impact on the ability to create infrastructure.

There's actually a proposal for a ballot measure next year to end Prop 13 for commercial properties -- definitely a start. It would bring $11 billion in revenue every year.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essentia...

"If only there were some sort of mechanism for it to skim off of real estate value and use the money for public goods. We could call it... property taxes."

what schools? land has to be set aside for schools. no developer makes this sacrifice anymore. it doesn't matter if revenue is generated if there is NO SCHOOL because no one would build one. and yes this is becoming a problem in the Bay Area.

"Road capacity is an interesting one, because people who live in dense walkable environments close to their offices need less transportation"

maybe like 0.1% of people in SF are candidates for walking to work, you can't be serious

If one developer is doing a single project so big that they can spare a school-sized plot of land... that's concerning in itself. The model of production that worked for cookie-cutter subdivisions isn't the only or best one.

Public money can and should be used to acquire and develop sites. The city can negotiate with developers to get schools incorporated into large multi-use buildings the same way we got museums/arts centers around Yerba Buena.

We don't need developers to plop down entire fully-formed communities all at once to get these things, and we shouldn't necessarily want them to. More, higher-value activity to tax only increases the city's ability to build what is needed collectively.

> maybe like 0.1% of people in SF are candidates for walking to work

Everyone says SF is seven miles a side. Walking speed is maybe 3mph. If you want a commute of 40 minutes each way, you need to live at most 2 miles (straight line) away from your office.

0.1% seems low. Divide walking speed by sqrt(2) to be conservative about directness and you get about 20% of the peninsula within 40 minutes walk, and 40% of it within an hour.

100% of people in a condo tower next to a cluster of office towers and a Muni stop should be very serious candidates for walking, bicycling, or taking Muni. This could create more transit riders and therefore require more transit (which we’d be happy to approve), but also take some existing longer-distance drivers or transit riders down to shorter and less resource-hungry commutes.

Here in seattle we are building like crazy. I moved into a 1 year old residential skyscraper across the street from my office for the 4 minute door to desk commute.

I don't know how it is in SF, but if you are building sensibly, you would mix high density apartments/condos with offices so that people can live close to where they work.

If developers build out suburban neighborhoods creating an integrated plan like this make sense, but what developers are building now is individual infill properties. nimbys that ask for infill developers to should infrastructure costs for a neighborhood is either not up to date on what is being build which by effect means that they living in the past or are intentially stalling development. Both has the same outcome, and with our dire housing situation this deserves a negative reaction if the person refuse to cooperate in creating workable solutions that add significant housing supply.

With regards to who should build infrastructure developer fees and property taxes are there to fund public construction of infrastructure; roads, schools, hospitals, etc. Why do you think requiring developers of individual buildings to build these is reasonable or even a workable solution?

That's a total misrepresentation. It's people proposing things like Measure S in LA, which would have put every single construction project, including schools roads and parks, all of them, on ice for two years.

It's people like the residents of Beverly Hills who held up the construction of a Subway for 15 damn years. They are anti-mass transit and pro-traffic. Literally, yes.

It's people like the one lone nut that fought in the courts to make the LA expo train slow down to 10 miles per hour passing through his neighborhood. Oh joy!

It's people like the group fighting Against putting new green parkspace over the 101 freeway and reconnecting the neighborhoods.

It's people like the damn group in the sunset hills who got a Frank Gehry affordable housing project With park space cancelled in favor of keeping a strip mall from the 50s. Anti-park, anti-housing...

So no, this is the actual reality. They are anti-everything. Anti infrastructure, anti parks, anti schools, anti housing, anti everything.

They're not leftists or activists, they're just greedy stubborn dick waving assholes with lawyers. They've got zero interest in building a community, they just want to control everything.

One of the most important things we can do for more livable cities is organize against these foot dragging campaigns.

And they're everywhere! Our daughter's school bought an old golf course to create some athletic facilities and a nature preserve for the kids. (We're not talking a football stadium, but a few fields surrounded by parkland for a non-sports-oriented K-12 school with less than 800 students). They were tied up in litigation for years. http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/schools/ph-ac-cn-key-scho.... After losing at trial, the resident group appealed it all the way to the state supreme court!

Residents gave the stupidest reasons for it too:

> But that doesn't go far enough for Geri Nicholson, who lives on Carrollton Road and across the street from the park.

> "The roads aren't safe, and the project as planned is not going to make them any safer," Nicholson said.

> Association President Tom Bodor said a price can't be placed on safety.

> "How much is safety worth? It is priceless," Bodor said.

This is the "unsafe road" we're talking about: https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9497613,-76.4821034,3a,75y,5.... It's idle suburbia.

Why the heck should developers build schools? That's what people pay property taxes and impact fees for. Here on the east coast, I've never even heard of a developer building a school. In my county, there is a law that halts development when the local schools reach 100% capacity, but other than that the county takes on the burden of buying land and building schools to keep up with development: http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/schools/ph-ac-cn-old-mill....

Maybe not everyone wants to be packed in areas and have their cities turn into an ugly hate-filled clone of new York City?

That's fine! Mendocino is gorgeous and Ashland Oregon is positively stunning. Grass Valley, Bodega Bay, Eureka, Crescent City, Klamath... there's lots of profoundly wonderful low density affordable places to live. Tens of Thousands of them, the vast majority of the world in fact.

But SOMA and Manhatten isn't on that list.

While I agree, your argument doesn’t hold water with affordable housing advocates. There are currently people living in the Tenderloin and SOMA who couldn’t afford it if we let developers simply build only at-market buildings. Now what?

So it's our responsibility to make sure they can stay put in a highly desirable place? I'm more then happy to contribute to make sure people have a roof over their head, are well fed and educated. I'm not willing to support people staying put where they are. That's regardless of the case being like her someone blocking potential prime real estate or like elsewhere people staying in dying communities where there are no opportunities.

I'm not espousing this view. I'm simply pointing out that the folks that are actually active in submitting their opinions to the planning department and planning commission mainly block new development by making this argument.

There was a lot of panic when the city supervisors started tweaking the required percentage of below market rate (BMR) housing, and even suggested they might no longer allow the fee payment mechanism (instead of having 20% of units as BMR, contribute a similar dollar amount to an affordable housing fund). I personally think the microhousing projects (funded by those payments) have the most promise, but I worry that it's a repeat of The Projects from the 50s and 60s.

I think the BMR percentage scheme is a perfectly reasonable compromise. But now the focus needs to be on maximizing volume, and even with percentages set, the affordable housing people are still trying to minimize it.

Yes, both "do nothing" and "free market anarchy" are bad ideas.

Urban planning is a proper field of academic study with scholarly journals, university departments, doctoral programs, etc. MIT has a department awarding PHDs to people trying to tackle that problem.

So there isn't some simple bold brash bumper sticker sized solution here and thinking there is is part of the problem.

Didn’t SOMA go pretty much directly from commercial space to tech worker housing? My understanding is that this is why so much development was allowed: no one to gentrify.

Regardless, as long as the pace of housing development is held below the pace of job growth and migration, the region will continue to get less and less affordable for everyone.

I think the (ongoing!) tale of 75 Howard [1] makes for a good exemplar of the challenge of building in San Francisco.

tl;dr: It’s a very fancy building replacing a parking garage on the waterfront, so a well-meaning contingent have been trying to stop them because they’d prefer affordable housing. The YIMBY perspective would be “Who cares what they pay for housing? Let ‘em build.”

There’s lots of stuff that gets people riled up. The distinction between San Francisco and places that move ahead regardless is the set of decisions in the 70s and 80s to give the public a say in basically any development. Whether that’s your living space being plunged into darkness or a demand for affordable housing, you can bring your concerns to the planning department and planning commission (mostly in person, sadly).

The Planning Department and Commission are woefully understaffed, underfunded, and in an awkward position. The Board of Supervisors can overturn their decision at a moments notice, and thanks again to the conflicting desires of the loudest folks per district (hello Telegraph Hill!), it’s easy to see how they have to be conservative and move at a glacial pace if they want things to stick.

The one bright spot, is that thanks to some of the neighborhood plans in SOMA though (which then serve as “the overall community clearly believes X”), thousands of units were built in the last few years finally making a dent in the downtown market. Sadly, we seem to be going backwards with the so-called “Central SOMA Plan” which due to some lobbying now calls for something like 50000 people worth of offices and maybe 7000 people of housing.

FWIW, transit studies are required of all large projects because of CEQA unless I’m mistaken. Most of them are garbage though, and see above about the planning department being understaffed and generally outgunned.

[1] http://www.socketsite.com/archives/tag/75-howard

> It's anti-growth NIMBYs who have caused SF real estate prices to fly off to the Moon.

It's tech companies who keep insisting that they must have their headquaters in SF. Even YC who should care about giving their founders maximum runway insist to force them upon valley and bleed money on rents while eating ramen. Why? Software does not have any need or reason to be only built in the valley. Sure, you come to valley to hire, get funding but then you should leave! Run away to cheaper places and work from there! There are large number of people in SV exceedingly frustrated by home prices, school situation and commute and they will be more then happy to move out to Austin or wherever else.

In fact I would say doing a startup these days in SV is almost brain dead. You would burn too much of your funding in high salaries, office rents and all kind of taxes. Virtually every talented person I know outside of valley does not want to move in to valley because of CoL. If you are startup in valley you are closing door to large pool of these talent while exposing yourself to local talent that is actually non-existent at startup level salaries and have huge attrition anyway.

Very few tech companies have their HQ in SF. Of the top 100 tech companies in the valley, only Salesforce has their HQ in SF. Apple, Cisco, Oracle, Intel, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Adobe, Ebay, they all have HQs in the peninsula south of SF. But they all open engineering offices in SF because that's where many (not all) of the engineering talent wants to live. People want to live in SF, and as tech skills are in demand, companies open up offices in locations that make it easier to attract talent. If anything, I see companies trying to hire outside of SF and promote other offices in lower cost areas -- e.g. Adobe in Utah.

Over time, the rising cost of living will at some point drive people to want to live elsewhere, and then companies will be under less pressure to purchase expensive office space in SF. But believe me, it's not some irrational desire to make less money that causes tech companies to "insist" on leasing office space in the SF market rather than in the cheaper markets in other parts of the bay.

The real problem here is that programming is driven by the young, and they generally don't have the same demand for cheap housing as those who are starting families. Generally speaking, people move out of SF when they have kids and are looking for good schools and more affordable housing. So I guess the cost of providing the more expensive office space for the cheaper (younger) worker works out for tech.

So what you need is a sea change in the desirability of living in SF on the part of the younger/cheaper recruits that tech companies need. This is just a business decision at the end of the day.

> Apple, Cisco, Oracle, Intel, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Adobe, Ebay, they all have HQs in the peninsula south of SF.

It's more accurate to say “south of SF” instead of “in the peninsula south of SF”. Apple, Cisco, Intel, Netflix, Adobe and eBay are in the Santa Clara Valley. Generally, people say the peninsula starts at Mountain View and Los Altos.

Personally I'm a big fan of skyscrapers for a practical reason: they have more capacity, which a city like San Francisco certainly needs. Can't help but feel the writer has an axe to grind.

I'm a fan of high-density work spaces, as long as they're built in tandem with high-density residential spaces and high-density transportation systems.

San Francisco does the former without the latter. BART is an embarrassment when compared with Manhattan's subway:

* Manhattan subway map: https://i.imgur.com/jOJO2C3.jpg

* Bay Area subway map: https://i.imgur.com/9vKbKoq.gif

* Manhattan compared to SF: https://i.imgur.com/nAvcoS3.jpg - the entire first subway map fits in the white space of this one

Price is the big argument against BART... because we're thinking so small. More ambitious expansion benefits from economies of scale. If we could coordinate projects in multiple metropolitan areas, standardizing technology (boring, rails, power, etc), prices would drop even further... that's where Musk's Boring Company comes into play.

The size comparison is a bit off; Manhattan is about half the size of SF (https://www.comparea.org/r2552485+r111968). Of course, NYC is over 6x the size of SF (https://www.comparea.org/r175905+r111968).

Thanks, I didn't know about that tool. Better than the images I provided.

Still, NYC subway is far denser both within Manhattan as well as the surrounding area.

I've heard SF described as a Brooklyn without a Manhattan.

Which generally checks out in numbers. Brooklyn's density is ~14,700/km^2, SF's is ~18,500/km^2.

By comparison, Manhattan is 27,800/km^2.

Where did you get 18,500/km^2 for San Francisco? 870,887 / 121.46 km^2 = 7170. More like Queens, not Brooklyn.

Ah, I got it wrong. Mixed miles and square kilometres.

You mixed up some units here: Brooklyn is way denser than SF (about twice as dense). Your SF number is people per square mile, not per square km.

Same units, Brooklyn is ~35,300/m^2, SF ~18,500/m^2

Manhattan ~69,400/m^2

all from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

My figures are based on square kilometres. A square mile is quite different.

Edit: bonus round! I got Manhattan right but did the reverse error for SF (quoting km^2 for miles^2).

There is also the MUNI metro as well. But it's true that even those two combined are inadequate.

That's true, a fair comparison would include metro and Caltrains, and NYC's equivalent long-distance commuter lines... what just makes NYC look even better.

BART does exactly what it's supposed to: indulge the public's desire to live in single family detached houses while benefitting from an urban economy.

I'm grateful that we decided to do this in a way that has fewer negative externalities, and probably lower total cost to society, than a freeway expansion. Seriously, we're lucky that the intention behind BART gave us anything resembling a train.

If you try to read it as a way to connect urban neighborhoods (like Manhattan's subways), you're going to be disappointed, because it isn't one.

Remember that most city land area is essentially suburban, and that SF/Oakland/SJ are less than a third of the region's population. Transportation that serves the needs and preferences of the regional electorate is vanishingly unlikely to resemble the Manhattan subway system, or make any sense for the tiny minority of us living on urban blocks. It's going to look like BART and Caltrain: infrequent stations in low-rise neighborhoods with big parking lots, infrequent service outside peak commute hours, etc.

It's still epic bullshit. Here's the Menlo Park station: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4548376,-122.1829295,3a,75y,....

Here's the Metro North station in New Rochelle, NY: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.911459,-73.785247,3a,75y,93..... Lot's of parking, but also several 30-40 story high-rises within walking distance.

This is Mamaroneck, a fancy NY suburb: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.9537644,-73.7359993,3a,75y,3....

This is Portchester: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0002183,-73.6633792,3a,75y,2.... New York is the only place I'm familiar with where a Costco out in the suburbs is accessible to people taking public transit.

"New York is the only place I'm familiar with where a Costco out in the suburbs is accessible to people taking public transit."

The Sunnyvale CA Costco is literally next door to the Lawrence Caltrain station and has been for over 30 years (it was originally built as a Price Club).

Caltrain isn't exactly as cheap as a bus, and the schedule is focused on commuters, not suburban shoppers. It's actually looks cheaper to use Uber if you combine bus and Caltrain fares.

Wouldn’t most Peninsula households have at least one car for non-commute trips, even if they ride Caltrain to work?

Yeah, the whole article is one giant "sic transit gloria mundi".

And yet, the city grows bigger and taller every year. And that's awesome. Fuck the NIMBY crowd.

I’m sure there’s a pun in there about “sick transit”.

Skyscapers are fine, but the housing in them can really only be so cheap, since they're inherently expensive to build. SF could do with a lot more low- and mid-rise buildings too.

They are also very expensive to maintain which is why they are often sold after a decade or two often below cost.

For sure. By area, SF is still mostly single-family homes. Neighborhoods like the Sunset and Forest Hills are shockingly underdeveloped.

Yeah -- "inescapably"? Tyler Cowen would call this mood affiliation.

Indeed, the twin towers alone were capable of accomodating Google and Apple who currently exist as gigantic suburban sprawl

Imagine all of that replaced by public transportation and two buildings

NYC is no wonderland with its antiquated infrastructure but get it together Cali

I just hate the design of salesforce tower. it's a recycled take at the architects same building in Hong Kong and Santiago[0,1]. Not sure why you would make such a landmark, dominant building look so unoriginal and unremarkable.

0: https://www.google.com/search?q=pelli+hong+kong&source=lnms&...

1: https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=762&tbm=isch&sa=1...

I'm neither an architect nor a designer, but my gut reaction is that you can only get so creative at 1,070′. Without any evidence to back this up, I'm going to say that physics will force most skyscraper designs to converge.

But yes, it's not particularly beautiful or original

If you look at the tallest buildings they all have unique designs.

http://www.hearandplay.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/t...

The competing design for transbay (salesforce) tower was much nicer but their group didn't win because they bid less money on the project. [0]

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zKV9lrNlb8M/maxresdefault.jpg

0: http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2007/09/pelli_clarke_pell...

That looks so much better tbh.

I think the Burj Khalifa disagrees with you.

After capkutay's and anonfunction's comments, I disagree with me too, haha

Congratulations on being a reasonable human being.

I'm really unsure why this got down voted, I was genuinely glad to see someone change their opinion (however minor) when presented with facts that discredited it.

Maybe someone was upset at the use of "human being" because of a perceived connotation that people who behave irrationally thereby lose some of their humanity? (I'm sure you only meant "congratulations on being willing to change your opinion".)

Wow, guy is setting up franchises... San Francisco has its own McTech building now.

I think it looks very good by itself, since you don’t have other skyscrapers around. If they build a second one, they will have to get more creative.

Also I believe they have to conform to very strict earthquake standards.

I'm not sure what earthquake standards has to do with the aesthetic of the building. The main thing they need to do is drill 200 ft below surface into bedrock.

The competing design had a similar shape/weight distribution but was much more beautiful and unique:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zKV9lrNlb8M/maxresdefault.jpg

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The competing design reminds me of 1 world trade center, which I do not like.

  The main thing they need to do is drill 200 ft below surface into bedrock.

But will they? The builders of the Millennium Tower sure didn't.

Yes, they did. Salesforce Tower’s foundation is anchored into bedrock.

This is both easy to look up and not relevant to the conversation about design.

I agree it looks nice by itself, but the similarity to the building in Hong Kong also really bothers me way more than it should.

As you may not be aware, the top 9 stories of the tower will be an LED art piece designed by Jim Cambell:

"The upper two-thirds of the [building] crown consists of perforated aluminum panels. [...] The exterior of the aluminum panels will be lit with 11,000 LED lights, which will display low-resolution moving color imagery. The images would be a combination of pre-recorded images and those taken from cameras surrounding the City. The crown of the tower also incorporates three internal lighting systems."

https://sf.curbed.com/2017/5/4/15551324/salesforce-tower-led...

I've been following the project closely (as you can see from my links dating back to 2007) so I am aware. I just think that was an after-thought to salvage some portion of the project.

I have a hard time believing they'd give up the top nine floors, just to salvage the project. I'm betting they used it to get the extra height (as part of a public space requirement) with the unspoken goal of reclaiming those floors in 10-20 year.

This building was designed and begun without any Salesforce involvement. Only after did they put their name on it and lease the office space. It would have been built with or without Salesforce.

While it's true that they're only leasing part of it (and thus got their name added later), it was still built to serve some hoped for tech company office. So while I'm not in agreement with the article, the point is that tech companies caused this to be built.

The number of skyscrapers being built in the US pales in comparison to other parts of the world today. Besides Salesforce Tower, there's the upcoming Vista Tower in Chicago, and a few in New York: http://www.skyscrapercenter.com/country/united-states

I'd like to see more, as well as maybe a focus on more detailed craftsmanship along with pioneering engineering. That story mentions the original Call building in SF: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Call_bui...

I'd love to see a resurgence of that kind of stonework and masonry in elements of future architecture. What has happened to all the basic brick and granite structured ornamentation, and the elaborate tilework in modern buildings?

Maybe it's pent up demand after a lull that lasted a few decades. It's just a feeling, but I don't recall much building happening in the 90s and 00s. Not that there wasn't any at all, but it seems after the 70s boom, there was a tapering off and a resurgence in the late 00s. Could be wrong though.

The entire China Basin area exploded in developments in the wake of the ballpark construction (Pacific Bell Park opened April 2000).

True. I'd consider those mid-rises though whereas the article is talking more generally about high rises.

>I'd love to see a resurgence of that kind of stonework and masonry in elements of future architecture. What has happened to all the basic brick and granite structured ornamentation, and the elaborate tilework in modern buildings?

This is just speculation, but I suspect it has something to do with maintenance. There are tons of beautifully detailed stone buildings in New York, but half of them are either weathered and run down or in the process of being fixed up. Also I think modern architecture has moved away from detailed carving in favor of more minimalist designs.

In modern skyscrapers, the exterior walls are no longer load-bearing; rather they add to the weight that must be borne by the core of the building.

The marginal cost of adding ornamented granite and brick on the exterior of a modern skyscraper would be much higher than the cost of adding ornamentation to a building whose structural design already calls for a heavy material for the walls.

Here’s a grainy photo of the Salesforce tower I took while flying out of San Francisco on a foggy day earlier this week.

https://i.imgur.com/qdGUhc1.jpg

It would be pretty fun to be on a higher floor on a day like this!

Wow, I look at the building everyday but this is the first I've seen it from that vantage point. Thanks for sharing.

Found another photo that is a little closer:

https://i.imgur.com/Px7Apnq.jpg

eye-roll... as if the existing skyline wasn't composed by corporate temples to greed like the transamerican building?

It's like when the people who gentrified SF yesterday complain about the people doing it today... news-flash, it's always been an expensive pretentious place to live and do business, and yes, it's always smelled rather rotten and moldy as well...

This seems needless. It’s big, yes, but it’s no different to the TransAmerica Pyramid.

It’s more newsworthy that it’s the first major one in so long tbh

The TransAmerica pyramid and its travails are discussed in the article. It was different.

Not really. The article is utterly unconvincing there.

The writer obviously chose a conclusion and tried to make it fit. It’s a very weak piece if you don’t come into it with the same conclusions

I've been out of SF almost 2 years to the day. I went back for Christmas and was driving around and BOY has the downtown SOMA area east of 4th street changed. So many new apartments and condos popping up. The new train station is going in. Sales Force 1 sticks out of the sky. It's crazy, but for some reason I can't wait to move back.

A recent trip to Hong Kong really highlighted San Francisco's inability to handle a rising population density.

As of mid-2014, HK's population was 7.24 million across the Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories [1]. The main Island alone has a population density of 16,390/km^2 with an area of 78.59 km^2 [2]. The city is covered in high rises and there is still a drastic housing crisis [6]. However, public transportation was readily available, on-time, affordable, and clean. I was able to travel across the region, to/from Macau, and to/from Shenzhen using only these services. At no point did I need to call a Lyft/Uber/Didi/taxi.

Looking at the 9-county portion of the Bay Area, we have a population density of 425.7/km^2 over 18,040 km^2 [3][4]. I realize it's more difficult to support a larger region with accessible public transit, so let's focus on the 7x7 in the city: 7,170/km^2 over 121.46 km^2 [5][7]. Over 40+ km^2 with under half of the population and we can barely keep MUNI/BART running, residents can't afford rent increases, and employees are commuting hours to reach the city [8]. How is the city so far behind HK with a 2016 GDP $470.5 billion (compared to HK's 2016 GDP of $319.7 billion) [9][10]?

These articles that complain about skyscrapers changing the skyline or ruining the historic feel of the city drive me nuts. How else will the city be able to keep up with the growing housing demand? We're on a peninsula - we have a fixed area in which we can build. The construction of SF tower has brought 60-ish floors of new employee space into the city without providing an equivalent number of apartments (yes, there are condos but those are certainly not housing all new employees). As these office high rises are constructed, we need to be pumping investments into public transit (a new 60 floors worth of employees will now be commuting within the city) and high rise apartments. They don't need to be luxury apartments (ie. Jasper) but affordable options that can house more than the standard 3 story house in Pacific Heights.

[1] https://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/factsheets/docs/populati... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20090824065021/http://www.statis... [3] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/popest/counties... [4] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/popest/total-me... [5] https://www2.census.gov/geo/docs/maps-data/data/gazetteer/20... [6] http://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-coffin-homes-housin... [7] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/06075,0667... [8] I'm getting tired of finding citations, but there have been numerous articles re:housing/transit/commute posted to hacker news these past few months [9] https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_metro/2017/pdf... [10] https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/02/weodata/weo...

>As these office high rises are constructed, we need to be pumping investments into public transit

Salesforce Tower is accompanied by the adjacent Salesforce Transit Center and several residential skyscrapers built over the last few years. It's not enough, but it's something. Not as egregious as a giant Apple/Google expansion with 0 homes.

>How else will the city be able to keep up with the growing housing demand?

Why would it do that? Less than 10% of the population is exposed to market rate rents. That segment (tech-driven transplants) also happens to be regarded as obnoxious, privileged, and undesirable.

Tech-driven transplants strike me as a related but slightly separate issue. Yes, they make up a large portion of the recent influx and gentrification needs to be addressed. I don't have a good solution for this and it deserves a lot of discussion, but ignoring the rising housing demand is certainly not the answer. If anything, that will force out even more tenants who can't afford tech-salary rents, right?

The Bay area is at the heart of the Third Industrial revolution and hopefully will continue to be a driving force in the Fourth. Not evolving city infrastructure and housing to match this strikes me as Luddism.

Funny you should mention the industrial revolution, because resisting tech-industry-driven growth is done under the banner of progressivism, with the same pride and zeal of old-timey Peogressives fighting for better labor conditions in factories.

I don't follow. Progressivism advocates for the general improvement of society. This applies to both technological advances and social reform. Why not modernize social structure, infrastructure, and technology simultaneously? That should at least to the goal - hindering one will likely hinder the others.

Stopping money from getting what it wants (which in this case is housing, infrastructure, and attendant changes in the character of the region) seems to be enough of a social reform to be satisfying on its own, regardless of the consequences.

SalesForce Tower looks like one hack of a ugly building. Does anyone else feel buildings in US are becoming exceedingly bland and uncreative in architecture? Just look at skyscrapers in places like Singapore, Dubai or Shanghai and you would be amazed at diversity and imaginativeness of people who built them.

Ironically largely from western architects.

What is up with the NYT being negative about the tech sector? Especially on the west coast. Can you imagine the headline:

"Manhattan’s Skyline, Now Inescapably Transformed by Finance"

> The skyscraper came late to this city, a shipping and manufacturing hub for much of its existence.

Huh? The Pac Bell building (which Yelp is now in) is a classic 1920s skyscraper [1]. San Francisco never ended up with as many tall buildings as say NYC, but that's also partly a function of city size.

NYC had 5.6M people in 1920 [2], while San Francisco was about 500,000 [3]. Even if you compare just to Manhattan to avoid metropolitan area comparisons, we're talking about 2.5M almost (so 5x).

If anything, it would be apt to say that skyscrapers never caught on in San Francisco like they did in Manhattan. New York currently has ~10x as many skyscrapers (buildings taller than 150m) than San Francisco [4 and 5]. The article even goes on to point out that early newspaper folks competed over tall buildings:

> San Francisco has always been like this. There were so few skyscrapers in the city’s first century that the ones that were built tell a tale of rampant egos and unrestrained power. At the end of the 19th century, the city’s newspapers had hubris and wealth to rival today’s internet companies. In 1890, the owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, M. H. de Young, erected a 10-story building worthy of his publication. It was the tallest building on the West Coast.

The Bay Area is just spread out compared to NYC. It developed much later and wasn't a big city before automobiles were popular (and didn't have a real metro until 1980!). With Silicon Valley being in the peninsula, and tech only developing somewhat recently, San Francisco simply wasn't that big of a commercial city (in comparison to New York) to dictate large skyscrapers.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/140_New_Montgomery

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_New_Y...

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_San_Francisco

[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in...

[5] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in...

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