Can San Jose Show Us The Way to Creating Dense, Vibrant Urban Neighborhoods?

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

San Jose, the Bay Area’s largest city, grew at the peak of car-heavy, sprawling urban planning. Most of its nearly one million residents live in single-family homes. These days, many California cities are looking for ways to concentrate more residents near transit to reduce carbon emissions, improve livability and address the Bay Area’s housing crisis. But even with the best intentions and a new mentality, can cities reinvent sprawl into dense, walkable neighborhoods? We’ll talk about San Jose’s attempt to shift toward density and what other cities can learn from it. Guests: Adhiti Bandlamudi, housing reporter, KQED Chris Elmendorf, housing professor, University of California, Davis, School of Law Michael Brilliot, deputy director of planning, city of San Jose Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Support for KQED Podcasts comes from Landmark College, commemorating 40 years of educating people who learn differently, with programs on campus and online for both students and professionals.
0:12.0	Learn more at landmark.edu.
0:14.7	Switch to Comcast Business Mobile and save hundreds a year in your wireless bill.
0:18.8	Comcast Business, powering possibilities. Restrictions apply. Comcast business powering possibilities.
0:21.4	Restrictions apply.
0:22.1	Comcast business internet required.
0:23.4	Compar's two unlimited intro lines and lowest price 5D plans of top three carriers.
0:26.4	Tax on fees extra, reduce speeds after 30 gigabytes of usage.
0:28.8	Data thresholds may vary.
0:31.1	From KQED.
0:32.1	Thank you. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:48.3	San Jose is one of the defining cities of the mid-20th century.
0:52.3	Just 9% of the housing stock was built before 1950.
0:56.0	So when San Jose was in its high-growth phase, it was not in the era of streetcar suburbs or the denser cities of the 19th century.
1:06.0	Instead, this was a city built around the car, low-density, single--family homes connected up via highways to the emerging jobs of Silicon Valley.
1:15.7	To meet the climate goals laid out by legislators, San Jose and the rest of California must prepare for a future that's denser, less sprawling, less dependent on automobiles.
1:25.0	Can San Jose become that kind of city?
1:27.0	That's coming up next after this news.
1:34.3	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. There's something about the low density sprawl of San Jose's neighborhoods that feels so familiar.
1:43.3	If you put me down in a car anywhere on the grid,
1:46.0	I bet I could find my way to a taco or a CBS within like seven minutes,
1:50.0	just using only native West Coast navigation instinct.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KQED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KQED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.