Recent Land-Use Changes in the San Francisco Bay Area
1957; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 47; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/212013
ISSN1931-0846
AutoresRobert N. Young, Paul F. Griffin,
Tópico(s)American Environmental and Regional History
ResumoB ETWEEN 1940 and 1955 California's population climbed spectacularly, from 6,907,387 to an estimated 13,000,000, a growth of 88 per cent. The population of the San Francisco Bay Area increased at about the same rate, from 1,734,308 to about 3,200,000. An ample salt-water harbor with sea-level access to the Central Valley has given this area a gateway position, which has been an important factor in its growth and development. In the two decades between 1920 and 1940 metropolitan San FranciscoOakland remained the major center of population but new communities arose that later became nuclei for suburban growth. Interurban electric streetcar lines and railroads with commuter service traversed much of the area, with direct routes into San Francisco from the Peninsula to the south and with ferry connections north and east across the bay. The Southern Pacific railroad was primarily the reason for much growth on the bayside flatlands between San Francisco and San Jose. Shortly before 1940 the two transbay bridges, Golden Gate and San Francisco-Oakland Bay, brought new suburbs within easy commuting range, and shortly after World War II local freeway or expressway construction was begun, linking outlying suburbs even more directly to San Francisco and Oakland. These modern thoroughfares, built in an attempt to reduce travel time, resulted in a population expansion in the area tributary to the central cities and at the same time encouraged several subcenters to develop a semi-independent econoil-y. For example, San Jose, once primarily the market center of the productive orchards of the Santa Clara Valley and long the nation's leading fruit-canning center, formerly exported a large part of its surplus through the port of San Francisco; today the growth of diversified manufacturing has weakened San Jose's economic ties with that city. In spite of recent tendencies toward suburban development, the urban core of the Bay Area is still in San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, where six
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