Motor City Mayor Immediately Cries Foul
As San Jose celebrated its leap onto the “Top Ten Largest Cities in America” list, Detroit decried the latest ranking and immediately cried foul. During a noon press conference, Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick immediately discounted the results because of “miscounts and imperfect information gathering processes.”
“We Detroitians demand a recount.” stated Mayor Kilpatrick. “We know for a fact now, that none of the Pistons and their groupies were counted - they were on a road trip. Besides, judging a city shouldn’t be based solely on population. There are other contributing factors that should be taken into consideration.”
When pressed, the Mayor rattled off a few examples: “Our hockey team has won 10 Stanley Cup championships; we have great crime statistics that support our ‘big city’ status; I’ll stack our manufacturing up with any of those other towns; and we have more ‘johns’ per capita than any of the other, larger cities ahead of us, and that’s what makes a real economy tick. How do you like THEM apples, San Jose!”
An official statement released by San Jose Convention and Visitors Bureau tried to downplay the Detroit controversy by simply stating: “It’s just sour grapes.”
Later, while coming from his morning workout, Mayor Gonzales expressed more direct thoughts about Mayor Kilpatrick’s sentiments by saying, “We’ll win our share of Stanley Cups, our manufacturing fuels the world’s economic engine, and if we wanted the crime we would just open a few more nightclubs downtown. And the only reason they have so many ‘johns’ fueling their economy is because we ‘greyhounded’ all of our prostitutes there in the 70’s. So to answer your question, we LIKE them apples!”
I heard the BAD BOYS of detroit will move to San Jose arena to get more fans. Gonzo will broker the deal in a back room. He has promised the players they can be garbage men in off season. He also promises to bring them to Core de Valle for free golf compliments of whoever is willing to pay.
In the days when San Jose was known for its’ rich soil, lots of APPLES & GRAPES were grown…also some beautiful ” tomaytahs”, so we’ll take it Detroit!
Is it just me, or does surpassing DETROIT seem like kind of an empty victory?
Does a bigger population necessarily mean a better city?
And what, exactly, are the 10th Largest City bragging rights…more traffic, pollution, congestion?
(Oh well, I guess I won’t get that job at the Chamber of Commerce…)
Forget Detroit, the way SJ is building housing units our city Humvee will be a flash in the rearview of the number 9 city Prius doing 55 on South 101 at Bernal off peak.
Can someone please explain to me why SJ is closing schools during an influx of residents?
Also I am curious what our national ranking is for vacant commercial properties…
CI of SJ
Guess it’s time for a new slogan that doesn’t mean anything. Capital of Silicon Valley just sounds so insignificant now. Maybe something like, “San Jose – Ours is Bigger than Yours,” or maybe “San Jose – No Stinking Orchards to Get in Your Way.” There are so many possibilities that the mind numbs just thinking about it.
I’m sure the City, Chamber, ConVis, etc. are already working with focus groups and consultants to come up with the perfect slogan. They are probably already working with an army of graphic artists to develop a logo that will have to be explained to anyone who sees it.
Of course, all this does is add to SJ’s inferiorty complex. Now, instead of telling people we’re 50 miles south of SF we can also tell them we’re number 10—like they will care. Until we stop trying to make something out of nothing and appreciate what we are and what we have it doesn’t matter how many people we have if we have no identity.
Yesterday, amid all the hoopla about San Jose becoming the 10th largest “city” in the United States, Mercury News columnist Scott Herhold wrote: “After all the huffing and puffing, San Jose still acts like a city of about 100,00, enveloped by a suburb of more than 800,00.”
Thank you, Mr. Herhold, for injecting a bit of reality into all of this. What no one has bothered to mention is that the only reason San Jose is even in the top 50 cities is the enormous area within its political jurisdiction, encompassing 171.7 square miles, compared to only 46.7 square miles for San Francisco. So, just as Mr. Herhold suggests, San Jose does in fact incorporate enormous swaths of suburban sprawl. Its urbanized “city” is actually quite small, probably including only 200,000 or so souls, making it about the size of Madison, Wisconsin, the 77th largest U.S. city.
Does anyone really believe that San Jose is actually a bigger “city” than San Francisco, in any traditional sense of the word? Have you actually been to the downtowns of both cities, recently? Let’s compare apples to apples: throw a 171.7 square mile cordon around San Francisco, and its population will dwarf San Jose’s easily. San Jose’s urban area is actually a lot quieter than its suburbs. To wit: an article in the Mercury News last year called San Jose “a centerless, sprawling mess”.
San Jose is deluding itself with this obsession about its purported size. In fact San Jose’s downtown is still dead most of the time, and oftentimes depressing, as recently affirmed by knowledgeable observers, including a former San Jose mayor, on this blog.
One of the ways to address this problem is to leverage the city’s most under appreciated and under-utilized asset: the founding campus of the California State University system, created by the California Legislature on May 2, 1862 as the California State Normal School, and currently known (to the detriment of its students and graduates) as “San Jose State”.
People who really support San Jose, and particularly the revitalization of its moribund downtown, should support the growing movement to restore San Jose as “California State,” the CSU system’s founding campus and flagship. For more on this movement, see http://www.gostate.org . We envision the California State University, San Jose, as a residential “destination” campus, the equivalent of Oregon State (Corvallis) and Washington State (Pullman). If marketed correctly, the appeal of this identity will bring real notoriety to the City of San Jose, including many more bright young people living, shopping and playing downtown instead of commuting from the “city” of San Jose’s vast suburban hinterlands.
On a more immediate basis, restoring the freedom of San Jose grads to market themselves under the superior CSU brand name will also help them compete in the competitive Bay Area job market.
http://www.gostate.org
Do San Joseans really have an inferiority-based obsession with San Francisco? Or is it that what we acknowledge to be a collective inferiority complex is nothing more than an expression of the egos of certain city leaders; their desire, as individuals, for greater recognition? I have never known a single local resident who thought San Jose had the potential to compete with San Francisco’s beauty, big city feel, and international renown. But it also should be said that there seem to be very few San Joseans who’d ever want to live in San Francisco.
Most of us have heard the politicians and noted their envy, resentment, frustration; though I’ve never confused any of their hype with the desires or concerns of my friends and neighbors.
Does anyone really believe that when Ron Gonzales moved from Sunnyvale to San Jose he had, packed in his bags, an ounce of identity as a San Josean? Not a chance. Our streets and neighborhoods held no nostalgic, innocent memories for him. To him, San Jose was merely a place better-suited for his ambition and considerable ego.
The bad news for the public is that waiting eagerly for the arrival of someone with big-time ambition and a needy ego were those City Hall denizens who measure community betterment by how much it fattens their wallets. Some call them developers and lobbyists, I prefer to use the simpler, more exacting term: Johns. (Yes, in the past, some, those with a bit of breeding, behaved as would polite suitors; but that was in the past.)
It didn’t take long for the cruising Johns to spot the new face—the flirtatious, hot Latin twirling around the sign pole. And if the Grand Jury is to be believed, one particular encounter may have gone like this:
“Are you dating?” asked the garbage truck driver, easing his stinking rig to the curb.
“Depends on what you got to spend,” came the Latin’s coy reply.
“Are you the law?” asked the passenger, suspiciously. “I can’t risk another arrest.”
Putting a hand on a hip and striking a daring pose, the Latin said, “How ‘bout you big, strong guys meet me back there in the dark where we can have some privacy. Then I’ll show you what I think of the law.”
Decency prohibits any more details, but suffice it to say it was a good trick. The Johns were satisfied and eagerly went back to work. For the sassy prostitute it was nothing special, after all, a trick is just a trick.
Except, thought the scheming Latin, strutting past the competition especially tall atop 7” spikes…
“My god there are a lot of Johns in this town. I can turn tricks here for years… I love San Jose!”
You don’t need population to gain respect, but you do need a downtown. All of the great cities in the world have world class, destination downtowns. Create an urban core that people want to visit and you will have yourselves a world class city.
FenFen,
“Very few San Joseans who’d ever want to live in San Francisco”? Well that is news to me-in fact as a lifetime resident of San Francisco, I’d love to have more of you quaint San Joseans come visit our sandbox. Some recent developments we have instituted on a city-wide level
1) We opened a Hooter’s last year
2) The SF Symphony now sells beer and tee shirts during intermission
3) More mini-truck accessible parking downtown
4) Pac Bell Park hosts an annual Monster Truck extravaganza
5) SF Hair Salons have added mullets to their options
The fact of the matter is, even though many consider San Joseans churlish and under-educated, I personally look forward to Friday nights when I can see a gaggle of 40 year old divorcees riding around the Marina district in limos popping their heads out the sunroof like a bunch or drunken gophers.
Vince
I know Steve Bland, and believe me, you are no Steve Bland. He was a serious “B” student at Santa Clara University, in fact the only reason I graduated was because I copied his test answers in most of my classes…I am not defending him because of our “experimental relationship” at SCU but because he speaks the truth, brother.
When I was single, I frequented the local Marina watering holes, trolling for my future wife on a bike, not in limos as Steve suggests, but never-the-less I found plenty of willing paricipants in the national chains like, Hooters, Crispy Creme, or any Mitchell Brothers establishment that I can’t find in San Jose. If I lived in San Jose, I contend that I would be a loveless, shell of a man, bent on self-destruction and self-pity, whiling away my nights sitting on a couch eating peanut butter from a jar watching “Friends” reruns.
Plus we have Gavin…
MJP-The difference is that in San Jose men tend to marry women.
SFB-The Marina was never a hangout for San Franciscans, especially on weekends. That would be like looking for a Los Gatean in downtown Los Gatos on a Saturday night.
Get a MLB team, an NBA team and then we can talk about being in the top ten.
Stephen-
I can tell your the type of guy that busses himself into a trendy wine bar in the Marina district in San Francisco on Fridays, after finishing up your job at Starbucks in Palo Alto posing as a Stanford student, all the while hiding the fact that your East Palo Alto zipcode was the reason your application for the Pennisula Club got turned down three times, trying to act intellectual and garrulous as you sip from a crate-and-barrel wine goblet, secretly hoping that the well-to-do inhabitants of the over-priced saloon-cum-affluent drinking club invite you to some “after party” where you will try and cover your real identity and birthplace in Fresno by posing as Barry Hall.
JD,
According the SJ Mercury, single Los Gatos males “find their greatest opportunities for dating either through on-line Dungeon and Dragons tournaments or Star Trek conventions”…interesting.
And as for your clever observation that SJ men, unlike SF men, marry women…I applaud your clever irony-good show, lad. I look forward to your next posting when you can insert an equally ribald “pull my finger” reference.
Now get cleaned up for breakfast, your mother has already knocked on your door twice…
Need a relisting. San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento. even L.A. are not cities, they are burbs. San Francisco, Oakland, Detroit are cities. Detroit is something like the 4th largest city, and S.J. is maybe the 4th largest Burb. Burbs are places that have major league “downtown core” jazz festivals with no jazz clubs, even with a population of one million. Cities have places like the Tenderloin where cops assualt when phycically threatened rather than when verbally abused. Cities have neighborhoods like “the Mission”, Castro, Sunset, Haight, that envision a definite vision of place and character in your mind. All I envision here is a sense of Barry S and K&B… and a golf cart poking trash on Sundays around downtown, and hundreds of squad cars surrounding the weekend evening meat market scene, at tax payer expense.
Mike and all you guys, San Jose has a world class downtown that’s alive most of the time, not dead most of the time. Come to downtown during the weekdays, and you’ll see how lively it is. Also go there after 11 pm Thurs-Sat. It’s packed with club goers. During the Weekends, go to Paseo mall area around Camera 12 and Johnny Rockets. You’ll see alot of people. During most evenings, check out San Pedro Square dining area. You guys never been to downtown in the new millinium. You’ve only been there in the past when it was a moribound one, not anymore! Every now and then, it’s quiet, and that’s fine.
How does a city get neighborhoods like Little Italy, Little Havana, Chinatown….and why doesn’t SJ have them? There should be a definite push in the city to create these neighborhoods because it will give San Jose the character it so sorely needs!