Where is bay area

Catalan Festival. California: Culinary. California's Celebrity Chefs. Taste the delicious dishes from these amazing California chefs. California: Luxury. World-class accommodations in world-class locations. Spotlight: Oakland.

Edgy, artsy, diverse. Top Bay Area Museums. Explore the cultural fabric of the Bay Area. Farm-fresh produce, culinary adventures. Laura Flippen. Spotlight: Santa Cruz.

Surf's up at NorCal's friendly beach getaway. California: Outdoor. Must-See State Parks. From Gold Rush history to 8th wonders of the world, visit these favorites. Make memories at some of California's family-favorite beaches.

Alex Farnum. Performing Arts. Museums, music, and a hint of bohemia. Mill Valley Film Festival. Jonathan Scott Shensa. Chris Andre. World-Class Dining. Dig into a foodie heaven. Spotlight: San Jose. Tech savvy, international flair. May 11 - May Amgen Tour of California. It's simply a very romantic place. Just one look at any of those streets, and you couldn't be anywhere else -- it's so beautiful, and there's that location, and the sense of the free spirit.

Who couldn't become ravenous in such a place? Julia Child. Dining Hot Spots. Sample ultra-fresh, hyper-local, and downright amazing. George's at the Cove.

Spotlight: Silicon Valley. If you don't believe us, just Google it. Old-fashioned fun in the Golden State. Tai Power Seeff. Mavericks Challenge. According to legend, Winchester Mystery House's maze of passages and building oddities were designed to confuse the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles.

Kids get an inside look at wildlife, space, and more. Special VIP Tours. Check these amazing experiences off your bucket list. Muir Woods National Monument. Cross the Golden Gate Bridge to the land of the giants.

Tesla Road - Livermore Wine Country. Unhurried charms east of San Francisco. Abundant beauty, family fun, culture. Discover a window into the past and amazing views of San Francisco at this oceanfront playground. Shopping Hot Spots. Where to release your inner fashionista. South Coast Plaza. Ranches, vineyards, and relaxed appeal east of San Francisco. Take a fresh look at the Bay Area on these scenic walks. John Muir National Historic Site.

Explore the East Bay home of the legendary conservationist. More To Explore. Discover Orange County. Discover the Central Valley. Discover Los Angeles County. California Questionnaire: Mario Lopez. Regions Pick a region from the map or the list below to explore. Shasta Cascade 2. North Coast 3. Gold Country 4. San Francisco Bay Area 5. High Sierra 6. Central Valley 7.

Central Coast 8. Deserts 9. Since the s, numerous regional agencies have been operating with jurisdictions across the nine-county Bay Area. Two agencies whose staffs recently merged focus on the entire nine-county region: the Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Together they draft and adopt Plan Bay Area , the comprehensive land use and transportation plan for the nine-county Bay Area.

Given this history, precedence and wide use — plus the fact that data are often most available at this scale — SPUR will continue to do research, promote policies and make recommendations at the nine-county scale.

The Bay Area is part of an emerging Northern California megaregion that combines several adjacent metropolitan regions. Many of the important factors that shape life in the Bay Area — including water and energy systems, development patterns, housing affordability, the transportation network and the economy — have never been entirely contained in nine counties. This first-ever report on the subject revealed a county core area surrounded by an additional county sphere of influence that extends from the Bay to Fresno and Reno.

The Northern California megaregion better captures our growing connection with places outside the Bay Area. Tracking trends in this larger megaregion is crucial to addressing many of regional issues. For example, without looking at this larger geography, we would not necessarily see that in percentage terms, the counties outside the traditional Bay Area are growing faster than those within the nine-county Bay Area, with some of the new residents commuting to the nine-county region for work.

However, population growth in absolute terms is still larger in the cities within the nine counties. Anticipating and planning for these trends, or giving more people options to live closer to where they work, are important policy responses for the region. Although it will be important to look at larger geographies than the traditional nine-county region in order to tackle regional issues, we should not assume that our problems are the result of simply having too small of a region.

We cannot simply draw larger regions and expect that this makes us more able to solve problems. Any attempt to rethink regional boundaries must be met with a fair bit of humility: We should only expand the scale to match the problem if we are serious about trying to solve it and reasonably confident that extending a geography is critical to success.

Commutes reveal the geographic spread of our economic patterns. Over time we can track these connections to either create new definitions of what constitutes an economically interdependent region or understand how important collaboration across regions could be.

Population and commute data have been used to define regions called core-based statistical areas across the United States and Puerto Rico since To do this, the U. What about music? Growing up, I remember rappers shouting out the Bay Area. I asked rap journalist Eric Arnold where these artists are representing. There have been a plethora of styles and eras — too hard to put a boundary around.

Could it be our politics? Bay Area voters do have a reputation, and track record, for being left leaning.

Take the presidential election. Santa Clara County has an urban growth boundary, Marin County restricted development on two-thirds of the land, and the East Bay Regional Parks cut across two counties. What does unite us all? The thing nobody can ignore? How expensive the Bay Area is. Cost of living is a definition that came up over and over again when I asked people how they define the Bay Area. Search-Icon Created with Sketch. KQED is a proud member of. Always free.

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