The Bay Area Thinks Bigger

kernals12

Banned
April 18, 1906
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San Francisco residents were awoken at 5 in the morning by a massive earthquake. Thousands were killed by the shaking and 2/3 of the city's population was left homeless by both the quake and the fires that it started.

Not until Hurricane Katrina in 2005, would a big American city be so thoroughly ravaged by a natural disaster.

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Amidst the ruins, Danield Burnham, the greatest architect of the City Beautiful era, stepped into the fray. He had drawn up plans before the quake and now the plans, miraculously found intact in the ruins of City Hall, could be put into motion.

There would be a great network of Parisian style boulevards, massive civic centers, lots of monuments, and a crap ton of parks, with 1/3 of the city being taken up by park land. The parks had to be shrunk down due to their impractical size, with Rancho San Miguel and Merced being greatly reduced in size.
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Telegraph Hill
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Twin Peaks
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Civic Center

Once all this was done, San Francisco was the most beautiful city in the world, since Paris didn't have a bay.

Furthermore, the redevelopment included something radical for the time, controlled access roads that was grade separated in places such as the Embarcadero, it was the world's first freeway system. The system meant you could drive from the Ferry Building along the northern shore, and down Great Highway, all without encountering a single intersection.
 
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The giant statue needs to be bigger (like Christ Redentor in Rio) and go on the Marin Headlands tho. With a cable-car leading to it across the Golden Gate. Maybe as a WPA project.
 
Ok more seriously, what about a steel truss bridge from Lands End to Point Bonita? Longer crossing but across much shallower water.

[ Maybe in a world where a Galloping Gertie style disaster happens first, and a Golden Gate suspension bridge isn't considered. Or where a Golden Gate Bridge is built and it gallops apart... ]
 

kernals12

Banned
Ok more seriously, what about a steel truss bridge from Lands End to Point Bonita? Longer crossing but across much shallower water.
I'm probably going to do that. There will be no less than 3 Golden Gate Crossings due to so many people being priced out of San Francisco into Marin County.
 

kernals12

Banned
I've just decided 1/3 of the land for parks was too much. Lake Merced and San Miguel will still get developed.
 

kernals12

Banned
I've changed my mind about making SF denser. There is no 20th century precedent of any city in North America rising to that density. It would require replacing rowhouses with stacked apartments. So, SF will be smaller than IOTL.
 

kernals12

Banned
Conveniently, Burnham envisioned the Outer Boulevard as grade separated as it went by the Embarcadero, giving us a freeway during Woodrow Wilson's Presidency!
 

kernals12

Banned
1924
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San Francisco began constructing a rapid transit system which used a mix of elevated and subway lines. Travel was sped up dramatically compared to the old streetcars as they weren't held up by traffic.

San Francisco had put the earthquake in its past and was growing by leaps and bounds. All those parks and boulevards attracted many people, especially immigrants from Mexico who would make up a large portion of the Bay Area's population.
 

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kernals12

Banned
1930

The Great Depression devastated the country and San Francisco was no exception. Unemployment soared and new home construction came to a standstill.
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And yet, this was also the decade that San Francisco gained its most iconic monument, the Golden Gate Bridge. Its construction was made possible by a bailout of the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District by Bank of America founder Amadeo Giannini. When it opened in 1937, it was the longest bridge in the world, as it connected San Francisco to Marin County.

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Also built during this decade was the Bay Bridge from SF to Oakland. This bridge wasn't as beautiful but it was even crucial as it linked up the 2 biggest cities in the Bay Area (San Jose was still a bunch of Orchards at this point).

Both of these connected to the Great Outer Boulevard system.
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And by the Bay Bridge's halfway point at Yerba Buena Island, .9 square miles of land were reclaimed from the sea. This was used for the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939. The land would become named Treasure Island.
 

kernals12

Banned
1945

World War 2 was over but it left a great impact on the Bay Area. Hundreds of Thousands of people migrated for jobs in the war industries, most famously at the Kaiser Shipyards. Sailors who were stationed here decided to stay permanently with their families. By 1950, the 9 counties of the Bay Area had 4 million people, and that was just the start.
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In 1948, San Francisco began construction of a Freeway system. They already had a good skeleton with the Outer Boulevard. All was needed was to widen it in a few places and straighten out the winding curves to enable speeds of 65 mph. The Great Parkways from the Burnham plan were fully grade separated and turned into freeways and 2 new parkways were built along the sides of Golden Park, plus another one through the Financial District to the Bay Bridge.
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All over, communities began taking advantage of the vast amounts of reclaimable land they had. In 1955, Marin County began filling in Richardson Bay.
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And the bay off the coast of Emeryville, Berkeley, Albany, and Richmond was filled in in 1961.

All buildings on the reclaimed land had to be built atop a slab of solid concrete in order to mitigate soil liquefaction, a great earthquake risk.
 

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kernals12

Banned
1962

The Bay Area was booming. The result was a great bonanza of new freeways, new suburban developments, and more filling in of the bay.
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The isolation of Western San Mateo County was ended by a freeway stretching from Daly City to Santa Cruz plus another one going from Half Moon Bay to San Mateo.
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More land was filled in on the eastern side by the bay in the area between Hunters Point and SFO Airport. This provided space for another freeway and thousands of new homes. And the fill was obtained by excavating the San Bruno Mountain, with the levelled area providing space for even more housing.
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In Marin County, the proposed Marincello development was approved in 1965. This planned community of 30,000, located on the Marin Headlands, would, by virtue of its stunning views and easy access to San Francisco, become the most desirable town in the Bay Area. Another freeway was built through Marincello, along the gorgeous coast, through Muir Beach, Bolinas, and into Point Reyes, opening up that area.

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But all the new highways were no match for the ever rising tide of traffic. It was decided the Bay Area needed a space age rapid transit system. This was called BART and would link up the great cities around the Bay.
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For Marin County, this meant running trains under the Golden Gate Bridge. Service would begin on BART in 1971, with complete build out by 1985.
 

kernals12

Banned
1972
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The Bay Bridge was running way over capacity, so a second, southern crossing was built. It was opened in 1976 by President Ford at a ceremony.
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Still more land reclamation was going on. Land on both sides of the Lower Bay was filled in, whether it be Salt Ponds, Marshes, Tidal Flats, or Shallow Bay. When it was over, space for over 1 million residents was opened up, plus space for yet more freeways. You were also now able to throw a football from Hayward to San Mateo.
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The same was going on up north, with Richmond Bay and San Rafael Bay being filled in 1979.
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The extreme growth of Marin meant the Golden Gate Bridge was inadequate, even with BART. So a second Golden Gate crossing had to be opened in 1981, going to Tiburon. In 1980, the San Francisco Bay Area was home to 7.5 million people. These people were living with skyrocketing housing prices as Silicon Valley started to emerge. Officials started looking at a great mass of shallow bay up north to solve the problem.
 

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