WELCOME TO
THE SAN FRANCISCO
BAY AREA
Dennis Tvrtkovic & Shazeen Tejani
WHERE IS IT?
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HISTORY
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- 1848 : The California Gold Rush
- Saw an increase in population from 500 to 30,000 in 3 years
- 1870s : The Cable Car became the prominent mode of public
transportation
- Allowed for residents to move faster and further away from
CBD
- Remains San Francisco’s ‘venerable symbol’
- 1906 : Major Earthquake – 7.6 on the Richter Scale
- Caused a widespread fire that burned for 3 days
- 80% of the city was burned down
- Reconstruction by David Burnham – an attempt to make it
the “Paris of the Pacific”
HISTORY cont..
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- 1940s : The ‘Beats’ Generation
- A literary movement that represented a ‘counterculture’
- 1960s : The Hippie Movement
- Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll
- 1967 : ‘Summer of Love’
- 1970s : Progression towards the ‘Gay Mecca’
- Became ‘gay-friendly’ capital of the USA
- 1995 – 2000 : Dot-Com Boom – Silicon Valley
- The birth place of various famous software companies like
Adobe and Google
SF HARBOUR CIRCA 1851
SF GOLD RUSH 1848
SF FIRE of 1906
BACKGROUND INFO
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- San Francisco Bay is a dense area that includes:
- San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland
- The ‘Bay Area’ is comprised of 9 counties:
- Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San
Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma
- San Francisco Bay Area contains a population of 7,150,739
- The city of San Francisco itself has a population of 805,235
- Has notably the highest amount of cultural activity in the region
- Mayor Gaven Newson has put emphasis on programs & initiatives
related to arts and culture
- Wants San Francisco to be a place of innovation
- San Francisco as an arts and cultural destination
- A city with a diverse selection of festivals, events and
expositions
THE CREATIVE CLASS
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“The Creative Class consists of people who add economic value through their
creativity. Their property – which stems from their creative capacity – is an
intangible because it is literally in their heads”
- Richard Florida, 2002
“The Creative Class within the labor force has particular preferences for work
and private life, such as high-quality housing, work empowerment, and
specialized consumption”
- Lorenzen & Anderson, 2009
“Florida demonstrated empirically that the U.S. Creative Class has a more
unique trait: it prefers to locate in cities with particularly high levels of cultural
services, ethnic diversity, and tolerance toward nonmainstream lifestyles”
- Lorenzen & Anderson, 2009
THE CREATIVE ECONOMY
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THE 3 T’S FOR A CREATIVE
ECONOMY
TALENT
TOLERANCE
TECHNOLOGY
TALENT
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“ The ‘talent index’ is a measure of highly educated people defined as those with a bachelor’s
degree and above.”
- Richard Florida, 2002
According to the U.S Census Bureau, about 51% of San Francisco
population possess a Bachelor’s degree of higher in 2005-2009.
San Francisco Bay Area contains a large number of higher educational
facilities. Some which include The Art Institute of San Francisco and
Academy of Art University.
Other internationally recognized schools are Stanford University and
University of California, Berkeley residing in the Santa Clara Valley
and Berkeley, California
CLARK CENTER, STANFORD
UC BERKELEY CAMPUS
TOLERANCE
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“Gays can be said to be the ‘canaries of the Creative Age”
Gary Gates, 2002
According to Richard Florida (2002), San Francisco was ranked
number one on the ‘Gay-index’ in 1990 and 2000
Recent studies highlighted by the Daily Beast (2011) indicate that
San Francisco is now ranked third in the United States for being the
most tolerant.
Factors taken into consideration were hate crimes, diversity and
attitudes towards same-sex marriage.
San Francisco contained a high portion of same-sex couples and
diversity. However, it lost top ranking due to its high number of
hate crimes (Daily Beast, 2011).
Florida and Mellander (2007) argue that “bohemian, artistic and
gay populations reflect a…tolerance or open culture premium”.
In other words, the arts and culture which is present
throughout San Francisco “increases [the cities] vibrancy and
diversity” (Florida and Mellander, 2007).
TECHNOLOGY
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The Southern part of San Francisco Bay Area contains some of the world’s
largest technology corporations.
Silicon Valley experienced a rise in the knowledge economy beyond many
other American cities.
Business such as Electronic Arts Inc (EA Sports), Adobe systems, Google
Inc., Twitter and Apple are some of the largest software companies to come
out of the San Francisco Bay Area (Xavier, 2012).
CULTURE
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“Artists and bohemians are direct producers of amenities; their location will thus directly reflect
higher levels of amenity”
- Florida and Mellander, 2007
There is a large Bohemian population in the San Francisco Bay Area. According
to the U.S Census Bureau, San Francisco’s Bohemian index was ranked ninth in
North America.
“Artists and Bohemians are direct producers of amenities; their location will
thus directly reflect higher levels of amenity” (Florida and Mellander, 2007).
San Francisco’s diversity and openness to different cultures, ethnicities, genders
and races have made it into a melting pot society. Reported in 2005 to 2009 by
the U.S Census Bureau, approximately 34% of the population was foreign born.
JAPANTOWN
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FILLMORE DISTRICT
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CASTRO DISTRICT
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THE ARTS
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Annual San Francisco International Arts Festival
One of the first cities in the US to initiate a public art program
2% of the construction cost of civic buildings, transportation
improvement projects and many more had to be allocated for public
art
Third Street Light Rail Public Art Program
1% Art Enrichment for Private Buildings Program for the city’s “C3 zones”: downtown commercial zones
According to the 2000 US Census, there were over 11,000
individuals employed in both the non- and for-profit sectors as
visual artists in the occupations of art directors, craft artists and fine
artists
In performing arts, the San Francisco CMSA boasted over 7,000
actors, close to 5,000 musicians and singers, and over 600 dancers
and choreographers
There are Currently over 400 theatre companies across the Bay Area
TOURISM
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Tourism is a big part of San Francisco’s economy, bringing in approximately 15.7
million visitors in 2005 (Gertler, Tesolin and Weinstock, 2006)
The city has a budget of just over $13 million in annual funding; $700,000 of which
goes towards cultural tourism
Every year, tourists flock to see Alcatraz, a once solitary prison on an island in the
San Francisco Bay. It was once home to some of the most notorious criminals in
North America
Another major tourist attraction is the cable car system, one of the only remaining
systems in the world.
The Golden Gate Bridge itself acts as a tourist attraction because of its incredible
length; measuring at 2.7 km long.
BUT DON’T TAKE OUR WORD
FOR IT…
SEE FOR YOURSELF!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k6GLikwJR0
CULTURAL INITIATIVES
SILICON VALLEY
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_
Effort to develop a strategic
Cultural Plan for the City of San Jose and Santa
Clara County
In 1997 – created a plan called: 20/21: A Regional Cultural Plan for the
New
Millennium
One of the main strategic directions of the 20/21 plan centered on increasing
arts and cultural education
Surveys indicated the poor state of arts-based education as an issue of great
concern.
3/4s of the population (a population that works predominantly in the hightech sector) wanted their children to engage in creative learning activities,
much like they do
As a result, the non-profit organization Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley
DISCUSSION
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Markusen (2006) discusses whether cities should continue to develop cultural
districts or encourage “decentralized” district where cultural activities merge
into the neighbourhoods. What do you think?
In 2000, San Francisco and New York experienced a domestic out-migration
of approximately 200,000 and 545,000 respectively. Malanga (2004) critiques
Richard Florida’s creative cities stating “many of his ‘talent magnets’ are
among the worst at attracting and hanging on to residents”. Why do you
think San Francisco and other major cities such as New York experienced
high levels of out-migration despite having been rated at the top of the
Creative Cities index?
Taking into consideration the various ‘Creative Plans’ or ‘Culture Plans’ you
found for your various focus cities, do you believe any of them have the
potential for being successful? Why or why not? How so?