It Is Expected To Be A - City Of San Diego: Fill & Download for Free

These are clear reasons why airports require lots of land, but there is another reason why an airport might want it. A larger land area gives an airport flexibility.Let's look at two examples: Denver International Airport and San Diego International Airport.San Diego International Airport (SAN for short) is tiny for the number of passengers it serves. Located on the waterfront at North San Diego Bay, SAN is the busiest single runway airport in the United States and the second largest in the world. It serves an average of 525 operations per day [1]. The airport is constrained by roadways, environmentally sensitive areas, and military facilities. It sits on 661 acres [1], making it smaller than most other airports with similar operations levels.This airport's small size and simple configuration make it a favorite among many passengers, but SAN lacks flexibility. It can't expand to meet all future demand.Eventually, San Diego will not be able to accommodate all of the flights that the city would otherwise attract. The airport cannot build another runway because there simply isn't room for one. Airport managers have discussed this problem for years, but it has yet to be solved.If San Diego's passengers continue to grow as expected, the airport will have limited long-haul flights and passengers will experience crowds and delays. The extent to which this matters to the San Diego region is up for debate. According to current estimates, the airport may need to serve 28 million annual passengers by 2035, a substantial increase from the 18 million served in 2014 [2]. Predicting precisely when congestion will start to be a serious problem is difficult, but some stakeholders focused on economic development see the airport's lack of expansion as a liability, keeping the region from expanding as the economy grows more global [2].Many stakeholders suggested moving the airport to a different site, and this idea became a 2006 ballot initiative in San Diego County [2]. It proposed:That the airport move to Miramar, using 3,000 of the Marine Corps' 23,000 acresThat this new airport could have had 4 runways, allowing SAN to compete with other west coast hubs for long-haul flights to Asia [2].That the move would preserve military readiness and create no additional costs for the militaryVoters rejected the measure with a whopping 61% of the vote [3].This left San Diego with limited expansion options. The airport finished its Green Build in 2013, and is working on a (likely) final development plan. It is focusing on modernizing existing facilities within its current, tiny footprint.San Diego's approach preserves the airport's "small" feel, keeping passenger walking distances short and maintaining quick access to downtown. Voters clearly wanted to keep the current airport as it is, and the Airport Authority is honoring their wishes.Denver took the opposite approach, moving operations from a small downtown airport to a larger one with greater flexibility.Today Denver is a massive, bustling airport 25 miles from downtown, but its predecessor was a smaller airport immediately adjacent to the city. It was called Stapleton International.Stapleton served the City of Denver from 1929 to 1995. Like San Diego, it lacked expansion opportunities. Stapleton had no room for additional gates to meet demand from new airlines. Bad weather brought flight delays because the runways were too close together. Local communities complained about the aircraft noise. On top of all that, the city and its air traffic demand were growing [4].Stapleton International Airport, 1966.The City of Denver decided to build a new airport. It annexed a plot of land in nearby Adams County for the purpose, and voters in both regions approved the measure in the late 1980's.Several billion dollars later, a new airport was born. And this one was not going to face any constraints if it wanted to expand. This airport was designed with particularly flexible features:It sits on 34,000 acres, giving Denver the largest land area of any commercial airport in the United States.The midfield concourses and 6 runways ensure that aircraft can move to and from each runway with minimum queuingThe varied runway directions minimize weather delays.Denver's 16R/34L runway is a full 16,000 feet long, allowing the largest commercial aircraft to serve Denver year round, despite high altitude and hot weather.These facilities allow for significant expansion, should the airport ever need it [5].Denver International Airport SkylineGenerally Denver's approach has served the airport and the city well. Currently, it is the 5th busiest airport in North America by passenger traffic and serves as a hub for Frontier and United Airlines [6]. The City of Denver is growing rapidly, and its airport is very well located for serving as a hub in the foreseeable future.Neither city's approach to airport planning is right or wrong. San Diego chose to keep a smaller, more convenient airport intact at the risk of delays and limited air service in the long run. Denver chose to move its airport farther from the city to allow for greater expansion. Each city decided its own priorities for aviation and passenger convenience. From an airport's perspective, though, there is no question that flexibility is an advantage.[1] San Diego International Airport > Education > History[2] San Diego International Airport: successfully fighting to grow, despite opposition to relocation[3] Proposition A: Commercial airport at MCAS Miramar[4] Stapleton International Airport[5] Denver International Airport[6] Airport Traffic Reports

(Via A2A)"Which is the better city?" is not a simple question to answer. Better for whom? A college student? A blue-collar family with young children? A couple of middle-aged gay attorneys with a cat? If we confine ourselves strictly to the city limits of each, San Diego and San Francisco are difficult to compare directly. San Francisco packs 825K people into a mere 47 square miles of land area. San Diego has half again as many people with a population around 1.3 million but sprawls over 372 square miles of land, and depending where you are in the city your experience of living "in San Diego" may be very different.My perspective on this question: I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area (but not in San Francisco) and have lived in San Diego for nearly 10 years (but will shortly be moving on). As for why I moved down here and stayed for so long, well-- the truth is I did it for love. Some things you just can't account for by looking at housing prices and average temperatures.Short AnswerSan Diego will overall be more liveable for more people due to lower cost of living, less pressure on land use, and greater diversity of neighborhood environments. San Francisco is a better choice for some people and interests and has a more robust economy. I am mostly going to confine my analysis to the city limits of each rather than try to compare whole metropolitan areas.Cost of Living, Employment, and EconomySan DiegoSan Diego is an expensive place to live. It's about #10 among the most expensive places in the whole US. [1]Salaries are low relative to the cost of living due to the "sunshine tax" or "paradise tax" [4]Unemployment is higher in the San Diego metro area than the SF area, though not by much [3]The military and the tourism industry are big employers in San Diego. The job market in areas like software and computer technology, finance, and other professional services is considerably weaker. Big name employers like Google have never had a presence in San Diego and other tech companies like Adobe have shut down their local offices. I have always struggled to reconcile the high cost of living (in particular the cost and quality of housing) with the health of the local economy.San Diego is losing Millennials in droves to other regions. I do not view this as a positive sign. [6]San FranciscoSan Francisco is a really expensive place to live, ranking around #3 nationally [1].Much of the difference is taken up by rental housing costs which rival prices in New York City [2]. Expect to have heavy competition for apartment rentals.If you are interested in buying a single-family house with a yard, I wish you good luck.Better job opportunities and higher salaries in the tech and professional services areas. Lots of big name employers in San Francisco as well as startups locating there rather than in the traditional boundaries of the Silicon Valley.More culture of workaholism in SF and the Bay Area.EducationI have no personal experience with or opinion on the public K-12 school systems in either locale.San DiegoThe San Diego Unified School District scored well on the Academic Performance Index among large districts in California [5].The University of California, San Diego campus has a good reputation as part of the UC system. San Diego State University is also starting to get national attention.San FranciscoSan Francisco Unified public schools do not have a good reputation, but they basically have the same API score as SDUSD [5]. This may be a wash.SF is located near two world-class universities (Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley) but has no notable institutions serving both undergraduate and graduate students within the city.Climate and EnvironmentSan DiegoSan Diego well known for its year-round mild climate-- thus the sunshine tax. If you like sunny weather and warm-to-hot temperatures this is a great place to live. If, like me, you are pale and tolerate heat poorly you may feel overcooked after a while. Today, March 16th, it was 90 degrees out. Bleh.The further east you go, the hotter it gets. Wildfire is an annual danger in the late summer and fall.Lots of access to nature right in the city with parks, canyons, and the beach.Most areas are very clean.San FranciscoSan Francisco's fog layer is so famous it has its own Twitter account [7]. The weather is frequently damp and chilly even when other parts of the Bay Area are sunny and warm. One of my aunts, born and raised in frigid Minnesota, swears that nearby Oakland felt like the coldest place she had ever lived. If you prefer a cooler climate you will be happier here.Limited access to natural areas and green space in the city.Public areas are often filthy with trash, spills, and, um... better not to ask, really.Arts, Culture, and RecreationSan DiegoSan Diego is a great place to live if you enjoy outdoor recreation and beach activities. You can swim comfortably in the ocean without a wetsuit during the summer. There are some beautiful areas for hiking in and around the city, and you can get to both desert and snow within a couple of hours.There is not much in the way of arts and music culture here. We have a few small museums but nothing on the level of the LACMA or SFMOMA. The local opera company just announced that they are shutting down due to lack of funds. I've been going up to LA for a couple of weekends a year to get my "fix" of culture. Shows and events that come through SF or LA may not make it further south, and while San Diego often gets lumped in with LA as part of "southern California", in practice it is too far away to make quick trips convenient.For food and dining, San Diego does well with mid-range neighborhood restaurants and the "farm to table" and local sourcing movements are strong here. However, after getting a real boost around 2007 lately the restaurant scene has settled into a sort of local maximum of places serving craft beer and "urban comfort food". Our craft beer scene is justifiably famous and some of this urban comfort food is delicious, but we are getting saturated with burgers and short ribs. Diners here tend to be more conservative and less able or inclined to support innovative restaurants... and to be fair, the restaurants here don't always back up their innovation with quality of execution.For international foods Vietnamese and Mexican restaurants are well represented here but again at the low- and mid-range only (and most of the really good Mexican food is actually down in Chula Vista). Lots of basic pho and taco shops, but fewer places concentrating on regional specialties or current trends.There are a few very good Korean and Japanese restaurants. If you want good Chinese food you should just make the trek up to the San Gabriel Valley.Tacos in San Diego > tacos in San Francisco.San FranciscoGoing to the beach? Bring a coat. You can get a good workout climbing up and down all those hills but that isn't nature hiking.SF has excellent and well-supported museums and fine arts institutions, and plenty of shows and other cultural events happening throughout the year.San Francisco and the Bay Area in general is famous for its food and dining culture. Alice Waters and Chez Panisse in nearby Berkeley kicked off the original organic and "farm to table" movement back in the 1970s. In my experience the mid-range restaurants in SF are both more adventurous and more reliably good than the equivalent bracket in San Diego, and prices aren't all that much higher. There is also more diversity in the international foods available, including cuisines like Burmese and Malaysian that can't be found in San Diego at all.Weekend brunch is practically an economic sector in its own right. Expect epic lines.Burritos in San Francisco > burritos in San Diego.Transportation and AccessibilitySan DiegoIt is possible to live in San Diego without a car-- I know a few people that do-- but not easy. Public transit coverage is poor and some trips, including some common commute routes, cannot reasonably be made without a car.Central San Diego is so easy to drive in that I don't think it counts as "urban driving" at all. Roads are wide and parking is ample. Taking your car someplace is almost never a problem.Some older neighborhoods are dense and walkable, but much of the city is effectively suburban and unfriendly to pedestrians and cyclists. Drivers all over are often dangerously inattentive to walkers and bikers.The city is so spread out that discovery and access can be very challenging.SAN is a small, regional airport. Convenient for trips around the western US but cross-country and international flights will often require extra stops.San FranciscoSan Francisco has the best urban public transit network on the West Coast, but those of you who are familiar with urban transit systems on the East Coast and outside the US will understand that this is setting the bar very low. It is possible to live and work in SF without a car.Driving in SF makes me gnash my teeth, I loathe trying to park there, and gas is more expensive than in San Diego... but because some trips aren't that easy on public transit, you might want to hang on to your car anyway.High density and walkable neighborhoods make discovery and access easier.SF is notorious for pedestrian fatalities and for clashes between bicyclists and drivers, but these modes of transit are more visible there.SFO is a major international airport with good connections worldwide.Crime and SafetySan DiegoSan Diego is generally very safe with a crime rate below the national average [8]. As with any big city some areas are better than others, but there is no obvious equivalent to SF's Tenderloin or Bayview/Hunter's Point districts. There are few parts of the city where I feel actively unsafe, even at night.San FranciscoSan Francisco's crime rate is higher than the national average and certainly higher than San Diego's. I feel concerned for my safety in some areas.Other Miscellany, Intangibles, and Matters of Personal TasteSan Diego has a reputation for being conservative but this is not entirely accurate. Overall the region skews purple on those red/blue political maps and the central neighborhoods are quite liberal. Compared with San Francisco-- famous for its liberalism and counterculture movements-- alternative lifestyle and counterculture activism is much less visible in San Diego. Certainly no one is seriously lobbying for public nudity down here. If your politics skew more towards the libertarian than towards big-government liberalism you will feel more welcome in San Diego.Neither city is known for its stylish population. Lots of all-black and fleece in San Francisco, lots of flip-flops and shorts in San Diego-- but while San Franciscans will dress up for an occasion, getting many San Diegans to dress up for anything is like pulling teeth. Dinner at a nice restaurant? Shorts and flip-flops. Concert? Shorts and flip-flops. Memorial service? Shorts and flip-flops.While one shouldn't always have to put on a coat and tie to get a nice meal, the always-casual vibe represents a broader attitude that has always irked me about San Diego-- namely that little is special enough to merit recognition or be worth making a special effort for yourself. There is a certain pressure to look and act like you are relaxed and on vacation all the time, and not only is this difficult to reconcile with the financial pressures of life in this area, I also think it can lead to a culture that embraces unchallenging mediocrity and confuses effort with pretension. Don't harsh my mellow, man. While there is less culture of workaholism down here-- and that's good-- it is also very difficult to get people organized around common interests or goals.It's always so nice outside. You can always do it tomorrow.[1] Most Expensive U.S. Cities to Live In-Kiplinger[2] Top 10 priciest U.S. cities to rent an apartment[3] Unemployment Rates for Metropolitan Areas[4] The sunshine tax: Just how much is it?[5] Page on sandi.net[6] Millennials Flock to Washington After Abandoning City in Recession - Real Time Economics - WSJ[7] Karl the Fog (KarlTheFog) on Twitter[8] murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, thefts, auto thefts, arson, law enforcement employees, police officers statistics

I think that the American city of Buffalo, in upstate New York on the shores of Lake Erie next door to Ontario could well thrive. It is a city with excellent infrastructure, a city that despite its post-war depopulation has a lot of potential for further growth. Its geography is a huge advantage, too. CityLab noted in December 2019 that the environment might make the city well-situated to thrive in a time of climate change.While warmer weather has fueled fires in California, hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, and flooding in the Midwest, climate change has left western New York mostly untouched. Vermette found no evidence that rainfall has grown more severe, or that heat waves have grown more frequent — Buffalo had only one 90-degree day in 2019. He said the breeze off of Lake Erie acts like a natural air conditioner, helping to keep the city cool.“When I would present this data, I was somewhat apologetic, because I couldn’t find some of the trends that we would expect to be seeing in western New York,” said Vermette, author of The Face of WNY's Weather. “It’s bad news if you’re trying to demonstrate that the climate is changing.”Vermette thought there must be a gap in the data or a flaw in his analysis, so he crunched the numbers again and again, every time arriving at the same result — a flat line. It was only after repeated attempts to find evidence of worsening weather that Vermette started to think that western New York might be responding to rising temperatures differently than the rest of the country. This was a revelation, and one he would see corroborated by other experts.“The way I described it at a meeting once was, ‘With climate change, the world is going to suck, but Buffalo may suck less,’” he said. “We may not only be able to adapt. We may actually thrive as a region in a world where the climate is changing.”In a city now said to have only two seasons — winter and the Fourth of July — climate change will mean longer summers and shorter, milder winters. And where other cities like Los Angeles and San Diego will be plagued by drought, Buffalo will have a steady supply of water. The Great Lakes region is home to around 20 percent of the world’s surface freshwater, much of it flowing past Buffalo’s doorstep along the Niagara River, which connects Lake Erie with Lake Ontario.Experts expect these facts will drive people to move to Buffalo, and they say the city will have room to accommodate them. Since the population of Buffalo peaked in the 1950s at around 580,000 people, residents have steadily left the city, bringing the current population to around 260,000. As a result, Buffalo has enough land, housing, sewer infrastructure, and water infrastructure to support hundreds of thousands of additional people.Too, as I noted elsewhere Buffalo is well-positioned relative to Canada, only the border keeping the city from being a plausible member of the Golden Horseshoe conurbation of southern Ontario stretching around Toronto and the western end of Lake Ontario.Buffalo could thrive from Golden Horseshoe connections, too, with an airport that might become attractive for Canadians looking for cheap American domestic flights and plenty of other attractions like its food and its architecture and its neigbourhoods. (Me, I am drawn especially to the Buffalo Metro Rail, Buffalo’s subway-like light rail.)Can Buffalo recover its former prominence as a major North American city? It has the potential to do so. The city just needs the right policies.