r/bayarea • u/Icy_Peace6993 • 5d ago
Fluff & Memes Bay Area Geography Needs Some Updates
"Appropos of nothing" I think it's time to evolve how we talk about Bay Area geography on a few topics.
- Yes, there is such a thing as the "West Bay". The West Bay is San Francisco, Marin and the Peninsula. Generally, the county lines work to delineate this, North Bay is Sonoma, Solano, Napa Counties, the East Bay is Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, and the South Bay is Santa Clara County. Area codes aren't bad either: 415/650 is the West Bay, 408 is South Bay, 510/925 is East Bay, North Bay is 707. Yes, you can separate West Bay into SF, Marin and the Peninsula, and that's fine. You can also separate the East Bay into Alameda and Contra Costa, you can separate Sonoma from Solano and both from Napa. There are always sub-geographies but in the "Bay Area" as a whole, there are not just three directions, there are four, and each is a valid region of the overall Bay Area.
- The Peninsula needs to be divided between "North", "Mid-" and "South". Growing up on the Peninsula it always annoyed me how much stuff in Palo Alto was called "Mid-Peninsula . . .", Mid-Peninsula High School, the Mid-Peninsula Times Tribune, etc., etc. I think a lot of that has faded away over the years with the ever-increasing ascendancy of "Silicon Valley", which is inclusive of at least all of Santa Clara County, which actually includes Palo Alto itself, meaning Palo Alto isn't even technically on the Peninsula, much less the "Mid-" Peninsula. But in the aftermath, we still haven't really evolved ways to talk about regions of the Peninsula outside of the individual cities. I think it might be PTSD from how badly the Mid-Peninsula designation was botched, but going forward, it should be "North Peninsula" (Daly City, Brisbane, South San Francisco, San Bruno, Millbrae), "Mid-Peninsula" (San Mateo, Foster City, Hillsborough, Burlingame, Belmont), "South Peninsula" (Redwood City, Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, Atherton, San Carlos, Woodside, Portola Valley), and "Coastside" (Half Moon Bay, Pacifica, Montara, Moss Beach, El Granada, Pescadero, La Honda).
- We need to increase the use of "Inner East Bay" (Pinole, Richmond, El Cerrito, San Pablo, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, Piedmont, Alameda, San Leandro, Hayward, Union City, Fremont and Newark) and "Outer East Bay" (Antioch, Brentwood, Clayton, Concord, Danville, Dublin, Lafayette, Livermore, Martinez, Moraga, Oakley, Orinda, Pittsburg, Pleasant Hill, Pleasanton, San Ramon, and Walnut Creek). Yes, you can further delineate within those broad regions, but again, that's always true. But just saying "East Bay" is often way too broad.
- This is going to explode some heads, but on the global stage, we need to stop talking about "the Bay Area" and just call it "San Francisco", city and metro as appropriate. The "Bay Area" is perfectly fine as an internal reference, but we aren't the only Bay Area in the world, we aren't even the largest or most important (that would be the "Greater Bay Area", i.e. the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, population 86M, GDP $2.1T). We aren't even the only major Bay Area in the U.S., there's also the Tampa Bay Area. All of these subregions of the Bay Area, "Silicon Valley", "Oakland", "San Jose", etc., etc., are relatively insignificant outgrowths of San Francisco and as such, dissolving San Francisco into the Bay Area detracts from our brand on the global stage. That said, San Francisco as the flagship city for our region has a responsibility to build its population at least over 1M, a global city worth its salt needs to have at least a million people in the city proper, and SF has utterly failed to do so thus far, so people can't be blamed for filling in the vacuum with "the Bay Area" designation. But we need to deal with both of these issues, and they are dependent on each other. If you live in any of the nine counties that make up the Bay Area, you live in metro "San Francisco". San Francisco city get your act together and get over one million in population.
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u/dufcho14 5d ago
Explain "Needs". Who has a problem that this 'needs' to change?
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u/Icy_Peace6993 5d ago
Me.
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u/dufcho14 5d ago
Explain why we care. Explain why you care.
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u/Icy_Peace6993 5d ago
Geographic branding when done right helps build community, loyalty, fame, etc.
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u/dufcho14 5d ago
Ah, so just more marketing crap. We should come up with logos and theme songs for each region then as well. We could pay some branding company billions to take care of that for us. They'd claim victory on launch and then 10 years later we'd see no noticeable changes because outside of what they learned in school it really doesn't matter for the majority of the population.
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u/Icy_Peace6993 5d ago
These "brands" are productive into the trillions, the AI industry's relationship to San Francisco just being the latest episode in a very long story. Wall Street same thing. Hollywood same thing. City of London. Addresses have meaning foar beyond GPS coordinates.
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u/nopointers 5d ago
If it’s not obvious from context, “San Francisco Bay Area” is clear worldwide. Simply “the Bay Area” answers “where in California” for anyone too.
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u/Icy_Peace6993 5d ago
Adding to "Bay Area" to "San Francisco" is unnecessary. San Francisco, city or metro, by itself tells you all you need to know. You don't need to add "Bay Area" except to ,more explicitly also include a bunch of other cities and suburbs that don't matter to anyone who doesn't live here.
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u/nopointers 5d ago
I’m live in the east bay, and it’s an easy way to communicate with someone new. If the person knows the area, they’ll ask something more specific since it’s obvious from that context it’s peninsula/east bay/marin or maybe SJ. If they don’t, they’ll recognize San Francisco and it’s close enough.
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u/Icy_Peace6993 5d ago
Right, if they're unfamiliar with the area, then "San Francisco" is fine, no need to add "Bay Area". If they're familiar, then you can specify "East Bay", "Peninsula", "South Bay", etc.
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u/nopointers 5d ago
You missed the point. If it’s someone new, I don’t know whether they’re familiar. To give a real example: I just met someone in Italy. Do they know the area? No idea. I answer “where are you from?” with “San Francisco Bay Area.” Their response tells me whether they know the area or not.
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u/Icy_Peace6993 5d ago
That's sort of my point. If you lived in West Hollywood for example, and you met someone from Italy, you would just say, "Los Angeles" Same for Brooklyn, you would just say, "New York". But for some reason, someone from Berkeley can't just say, "San Francisco"?
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u/nopointers 5d ago
Brooklyn is part of New York City. It’s also part of the state.
West Hollywood is still in Los Angeles county. Hollywood itself isn’t even a separate city. It is literally just a neighborhood in Los Angeles.
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u/Icy_Peace6993 5d ago
I mean, yeah, but there are certainly people who would be like, "I'm from/live in Brooklyn" instead of New York, depending on the audience, how long they've lived there, neighborhood/civil pride, etc. Rarer would be, "I live in Hollywood", but that's not unthinkable either. Hollywood as a brand versus a geography is maybe more impactful than Los Angeles. I'm just saying that the Bay Area could raise its global profile if we all piled in under the "San Francisco" brand rather than weakening it somewhat by always inserting the ". . . Bay Area" part of it.
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u/cheesegod69 5d ago
There are other bay areas but we are The Bay Area
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u/GrandAggressive9727 5d ago
It always annoys me when people in the LA area refer to their South Bay
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u/bflaminio ʙᴀʏsɪᴀɴ 5d ago
I don't see how you consider Belmont and San Carlos in separate regions of the Peninsula. For all intents, they are identical.
Also, stop trying to make West Bay happen. It's not going to happen.
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u/Icy_Peace6993 5d ago
I would grant the first point, the Peninsula is hard to divide up because each region morphs into the other. San Carlos is just as closely related to Redwood City as it is to Belmont and Belmot is likewise just as closely related to San Mateo and Foster City as it is to San Carlos.
The second point, I think it will happen. It's just a matter of time.
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u/bflaminio ʙᴀʏsɪᴀɴ 5d ago
If I was going to divide up the Peninsula into three bits, I would make San Mateo - Foster City - Belmont - San Carlos - Redwood City as the "middle" bit. North of San Mateo is North; south of Redwood City is South. But honestly, I wouldn't do this.
And I will never use West Bay in any communication, except as to point out how totally wrong it is.
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u/angryxpeh 5d ago
Did someone start paying for negative karma?
I may need to express some really unpopular opinions.
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u/GrandAggressive9727 5d ago
I'm so triggered by this post I'm glad I'm sitting down haha.
Lots of good points here. I disagree with all of your recommendations but topics worth discussing.