Towards a new high technology development in the Silicon Valley : a 21st century urban design vision

Abstract

Santa Clara Valley, perhaps better known as the Silicon Valley, is currently facing many problems and uncertainties. The explosion of the high technology industry has changed the regional scene faster than anyone could predict The once agriculturally based community has became urbanized overnight. It fostered major growth with many new opportunities but at the same time brought many unforeseen physical and social problems to the region. New employment opportunities led to dramatic increase in population over the past twenty years and consequently, a greater demand in housing. An imbalanced land use distribution has caused limitations in residential land, emphasized the problem of chronic housing shortage and rapidly inflated housing prices. Housing prices in the valley are rising much faster than average household income in the region and is inevitably forcing most of the workers to live outside of the region. Intensive commuting patterns have caused traffic chaos, pollution and a deteriorating living and working environment. Despite the imbalanced land use distribution, for tax base reasons alone, there is still the need to continue planning for more industrial land to accommodate the growing industries. In the heart of Silicon Valley region, San Jose will be the center of future high-tech industrial expansion. This is not only because it contains most of the industrial land available for this kind of development, but also because these sites are located in close proximity to the newly redeveloped CBD and are linked together by a new 20 mile light rail mass transit system and other major planned road networks. Since the manufacturing functions of the hi-tech industry are gradually moving out of the region, it is slowly changing its composition towards a heavier concentration of research, development, marketing, and corporate headquarter functions. This thesis explores for potential forms of future high technology industrial development, and an examines their implications in relationship to future urban form. The objective of this thesis is to envision the future through a hypothesized design in the context of San Jose. By resolving specific issues, the new prototypical design should represent an idealized physical model toward a better living and working environment.