# USA Sprawl Festival continued: Silicon Valley



## zerokarma (May 29, 2005)

At least there is more trees with these ones.


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## Vince (Dec 22, 2004)

America enjoys good air and water quality only because of its vast land area. If you were to compact the polulation into smaller urban centres and continue to consume the same amount of resources and churn out the same amount of wastes, American cities would be the most polluted in the whole world. By sprawling outwards, you need more energy to move around, maintain the infrastructure, maintain communications and so on. Why can't denser urban centres with better urban transport systems be built? Urban sprawl not only harms America, but to emit 30% of the world's greenhouse gases and the wasteful consumption of goods are simply affecting other parts of the world. Heard of global warming? Silicon valley was originally an arid area devoid of vegetation. Do you think growing trees and to create more green spaces would justify urban sprawl? How do you irrigate water to such places? Pumps? Energy created from what? Oil? Nuclear power? more wastes? You think about it.



titeness said:


> Yeah the USA consumes resources at an alarming rate, but apart from out CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions, I see no major problem! Am I crazy, no, Americans enjoy good air and water quality because of our world leading emissions controls (at least the more dense and less volatile gases and particulate matter which stay close to the earths surfaced) especially when you consider the massive industrial and service output; For example, most "third world" countries, and I use this word for a lack of any better term as the word "developing" doesn't apply to many nations in the world cause their economies are straight tanking - have huge issues with water and air quality despite the fact that they use comparatively tiny amounts of resources. Clearly the issue is not consumption of land and other resources, but how we return the "waste" products back to the environment, i.e. if we plant enough trees to absorb the CO2 we release, or if we treat our waste water and enrich it with the naturally occurring microbes, then whats the problem?


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## Vince (Dec 22, 2004)

Do you need urban sprawl to create technology? You don't make any sense here. IT boom has nothing to do with urban sprawl. You may think that Silicon Valley is very densely built up and not a waste of space as you only compare it to the rest of the USA. Obviously you haven't been outside Uncle Sam. Read the above posting if you want to catch my drift.




Paddington said:


> Waste of space and resources? You're sitting on your fat ass making posts on the internet precisely because of what's contained in the above photographs. hno:
> 
> Also, Sillicon Valley is quite densely built up compared to the rest of the U.S.


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## Bond James Bond (Aug 23, 2002)

Since I first did this thread, Windows Live Local has filled in a bit more coverage of Silicon Valley, in the northern parts of the Valley. So I thought I'd add a few more pics.  Only some of these are in the northern part of the Valley, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to add some more from the rest of the Valley anyway. 

Also, rather than create a whole new thread, I thought I'd just add them to this one.










The Oracle campus.




































Close-up of typical "older" houses.



























Some older parts of some of the cities do have grids. Not so sprawly, I suppose.

















































































Cannot emphasize how much stuff like this there is in the Valley . . .









. . . and this.






















































Light rail line.


















Close-up of fancy new houses in south San Jose.









Light rail line again.


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## ROYU (Jul 19, 2004)

This is the american way of living. Sprawl!!!


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## WinoSoul (Sep 14, 2005)

Very nice! I liked so much!


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

I like it too. Dutch sprawl only consist of rowhouses, very booring compared to these suburbs. Although you might get bored too seeing miles and miles of this stuff.


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## Xpressway (Dec 2, 2006)

USA Sprawl Festival is one of the best set of threads in SSC. I love it!


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## shurik (Sep 9, 2005)

its like attack of the clones....boring..


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## arturo (Apr 14, 2006)

The Cebuano Exultor said:


> How come there are too many car parking slots in medium-sized malls? Based from those pictures, they sit there largely empty! Yes, I know there are 270 million registered auto-vehicles in the U.S. but I believe that America has just overbuilt itself with car parking lots.



Most of what's pictured is actually offices, not malls, and the pics appear to have been taken on a weekend. I can assure you that ALL of the main malls in Silicon Valley are full on weekends and holidays and finding parking is a pain in the arse!


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## arturo (Apr 14, 2006)

Vince said:


> Do you need urban sprawl to create technology? You don't make any sense here. IT boom has nothing to do with urban sprawl. You may think that Silicon Valley is very densely built up and not a waste of space as you only compare it to the rest of the USA. Obviously you haven't been outside Uncle Sam. Read the above posting if you want to catch my drift.



For some reason valley companies have discovered they work best in clusters of low-rise, 3-5 story buildings. Only Oracle and Adobe house their employees in high-rise structures. The Oracle headquarters have already been posted, here are the Adobe ones:


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

I'm a strange fish... I really like modern American sprawl's look... but have no interest in living in it 

This looks great: http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/1336/siliconvalley42jt1.jpg

If there's room for it by all means build it - AS LONG as it doesn't kill the real cities!


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Mr_Denmark said:


> I'm a strange fish... I really like modern American sprawl's look... but have no interest in living in it
> 
> This looks great: http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/1336/siliconvalley42jt1.jpg
> 
> If there's room for it by all means build it - AS LONG as it doesn't kill the real cities!


Danish sprawl looks quite the same as American sprawl on Google Earth. Can you confirm?


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## Bond James Bond (Aug 23, 2002)

^
He already has. 
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=546497


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

Chriszwolle said:


> Danish sprawl looks quite the same as American sprawl on Google Earth. Can you confirm?


 Yes to some point..

When actually comparing them side by side it's rather hard to find pictures that look identically and the feel on the ground is very different - but the idea is the same and if anything Copenhagen sprawl are even more space consuming with unused lawns everywhere 

One of the dead give away it's the US is density and parking lots.. where space and row houses tend to be the trait of CPH..

( oops I've said too much with the competition running  )

Come join - win a beer! http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=546497


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