Man Page Writing: Life/Times of Man Page Writer

The other day, I was complaining to a friend of mine, a resident of San Jose, about the high cost of remodeling where my wife and I live in Palo Alto. My friend suggested that my wife and I sell our house and buy in a less expensive neighborhood in San Jose. In what sounded even to me as snobbish, I said, in effect, no way. Too much congestion, too hot, too big. San Jose, not for me.

The alacrity of my response reminded me that my feelings about San Jose run deep. I spent my adolescence in that city. My parents moved there when I was about 11, when San Jose was still mostly an ag town. I left for college and then the Army at 18. I never again lived in San Jose for any extended period of time. However, my parents remained, and I've been in and around frequently. My youngest sibling, my brother Bill was born and raised in San Jose--the only one of the eight Gibson children who was born outside of Chicago.

For the young edition of me, the growth of San Jose was urban development gone insane. It was the extirpation of everything that made San Jose--the capital of the Valley of Heart's Delight--distinctive. It became (and is now) a city where the car is king. There are cities that were more clumsily developed--Houston and Miami come to mind. Going further afield...visit the suburbs of Moscow if you want to see an egregious example of bad planning.

In truth, the San Jose of 2008, is undoubtedly, still, one of the most desirable places in the country (and, therefore, the world) to live. Yet I have a hard time getting over the ruination of what was there. In the overheated climate of the early 70's (my early 20's), I viewed it as a desecration.

I understand, at least to a dilettante's level, the economics of land use. I know, too, that without the economic prosperity brought about by the development of Santa Clara Valley, I (and tens of thousands of others) would not have enjoyed the standard of living I have. But the development of San Jose could have gone along different lines than it did. We knew, in 1970, that the reign of the automobile would not be forever, that oil would become increasingly scarce, that dirty air would damage people's health.

The short-run thinking that guided the development of San Jose is no different from what one sees more often than not, and not just in the U.S. Again, though, San Jose had so much and is now so thoroughly ordinary.