Anyway, read Mark's post below. I think he does a great job of making his point.
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From Think Bigger San Jose by Mark
When you visit any city, the best way to learn about that city is not from a book or even the internet, though those resources are helpful. The best way to find about any city is from the locals, that is except for in San Jose. San Jose is rich in history, technology, unique foods, cultures, events, and museums, yet ask an average San Josean to point you to places of interest and they’ll probably send you to San Francisco. It’s not their fault. The people of San Jose are just under-informed, they have no idea what is actually happening within the city they live in.
Lake Cunningham with Raging Waters in the background
The best way to remedy this problem is advertising within San Jose. Other cities advertise their “products.” They show off the best their city has to offer. The only thing that I have seen advertised in San Jose and throughout California is the Winchester Mystery House. Yet San Jose has the Egyptian Museum, The Tech Museum, The San Jose Museum of Art, Kelly Park which includes Happy Hollow and the Historic Park San Jose, Lake Cunningham, the Guadalupe River Park and Trails, Japantown, many historic homes and churches, countless art galleries, and many other museums and districts.
So it starts with educating San Joseans as to what is available around them. Advertising can be as little as the city putting up more signage for places of interest, to as big as advertising on local and national TV, radio, Pandora, internet, billboards, magazines. But it must start within the city limits of San Jose. Making the citizenry aware of the their surroundings in a good way. If the citizens love the city, the visitors will love the city. If the citizens know the places that are uniquely San Jose, then they can pass those insights on to the visitors. Even in as the self-titled “Capitol of Silicon Valley,” word of mouth is still the best way to promote a restaurant, club, shop, store, gallery, and yes, even a city. Spread the word.
Why repost an old post from a site that is linked to this site. There are plenty of new stories about San Jose(Like the fact that the EarthQuake stadium is possibly not going to open until 2014) yet you keep rehashing the same exact stories.
ReplyDeleteThanks for updating the site at all, but you should take a lesson from better neighbourhood blogs like Capitolhillseattle,QueenAnneview, and vancitybuzz.
It's not even /that/ old! wtf.
DeleteIts pretty old WTF..;)
DeleteI would love to cover every interesting development happening in San Jose, but this is a very part time gig unfortunately. I'm also on vacation, so instead of shutting down the site for a couple weeks I had to focus on content that was quick to post about. Mark's post is also definitely worth discussing, and I'm glad that so many people posted about this. I was hoping for some conversation around this post.
DeleteOne sidenote, we're always looking for additional bloggers so if you would like to contribute, just shoot me an email and I'll provide more details.
I don't think Josh's blog is "latest-news-only" type of blog. His blog is a little more personal-oriented, and I like that. He's reposting the link as a "wishlist", as a reminder to us San Joseans, and I think it's a good thing. He can dream of what we can do with San Jose, that kind of thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's what this blog is about, one person's declaration of love for the city they were born, raised, and living in.
And obviously, Josh is one man, he can't be always be seeking out news everyday. He probably has a job and a family to take care of, and this blog is his hobby endeavor, and that's OK! Truthfully, most of us who are following the Quake stadium build already found out about the open date yesterday already. It would be nice if Joshua post that here, but the fanatics have already found out some while ago.
Those other blogs you mentioned are from cities that are more "happening" than ours (as of this point), they obviously have more "stuffs" to be updated with and more ready information in the city. We'll get there at some point, I'm sure :)
"Thanks for updating the site at all, but you should take a lesson from better neighbourhood blogs like Capitolhillseattle,QueenAnneview, and vancitybuzz."
ReplyDeleteA bunch of northwest blogs? Eh, ok.
All nice blogs, but they are ad-supported and likely have at least one person that is close to full time. We're not quite there yet and I'm not sure if we'll ever go the ad-supported route.
DeleteAnonymous #1, start your own blog.
ReplyDeleteAs for falling in love with SJ, I really want to, but I just got a huge reality check after visiting Vancouver. We are so far off from being a destination city.
The problem is that all the things that are mentioned are technically in SJ but nothing is centralized. If I were a tourist in DTSJ, it would be impossible to get to any of these places or even Santana Row without renting a car. And if the things listed are the best we have to offer after the overpriced scam that is the Winchester Mystery House, we've set ourselves a very low bar. San Pedro Market Square is definitely a shining light, but c'mon.. you're telling me San Jose is worth a visit because of that and Kelly and Guadalupe River Park?
And our transit system is so outdated and inefficient. When I used to live near St. James park it was actually faster for me to walk to Diridon than to take Light Rail. And Caltrain is a mess. Which train do I take to SF? I have to look at a schedule, figure out the train number, map that to the list of track numbers on a separate chart, and hope that the UNMARKED train that is sitting at the track is the right one.
When friends visit the Bay Area, I can't honestly recommend SJ over SF. I'll gladly will when we have the equivalent of a Ferry Building, a Coit Tower, a California Academy of Sciences, MOMA + Legion of Honor, a Golden Gate Park, a Union Square shopping center, a Haight-Ashbury, that's all interconnected with a direct line to the Airport.
I like this and TBSJ's post's attitude and I think SJ's aiming in the right direction but for now I have to accept the reality that San Jose is still a sprawled out suburb with a stunted downtown paying for the mistakes of city planners of the past.
I think at the end of the day, it's very hard to have the equivalent of what SF has, simply because SF has a much different geography than SJ does. All hills, while SJ is a valley.
ReplyDeleteBut sometimes, we just have to remember that SJ is a very late-blooming city. All the other "happening" cities were already way ahead of SJ by at least 50 years. That's a rather HUGE head start...
But I think it's great we're having these kind of conversations...Heck...several years ago nobody in the city even bothered to give half a lick about it. Now, we have people who do care, even though there're more lamentations than there are praises, but at least a good number of us are paying attention to the city, realizing its faults, and hopefully eventually make it better.
That alone is incredible progress, in my opinion.
Great comment. SF's headstart is actually closer to 100 years. If we continue to have these types of conversations I think we can accelerate our path to having equivalent amenities.
DeleteI think one of the road blocks to San Jose falling in love with San Jose is this town is made of provincial residents. Maybe this happens in all big cities but we have an awful lot of fiefdoms here. Folks in Almaden think only about "their" valley and get bent at having to cross Blossom Hill. And East Siders stick to Eastridge and Capital Expressway like a lifeline, while residents of Willow Glen think the center of the universe is at Willow Street and Lincoln Avenue. Alviso is about about Alviso, Evergreen is all about Evergreen, the Rose Garden is all about the Rose Garden etc... This is a hard town to unify.
ReplyDeleteDoes San Jose have a tourism association? SF has a large one and they work closely with the city to promote attractions, wayfinding, etc. and enhance the visitor's experience.
ReplyDeleteJosh, thank you for the post. Instead of always focusing on what we dont have, we should focus on what we like and want to see happen.
That's perhaps the biggest difference between this blog and San Jose Inside. Instead of focusing on what is broken, I would like to focus on where we can go next.
DeleteI agree with your first point - San Joseans are always prepared to recommend visitors see SF. We had some house guests staying with us for a week - we did send them to SF, but we also provided them with an agenda for a two day visit to San Jose. It was wonderful to see their vacation photos - San Jose's trails, City Hall, Tech and Children's Museum were all highlights. Travelers do want to see landmarks like the GG Bridge, but they also want to feel like they know a place and understand the locals. San Jose can be very memorable if we engage with our many visitors and point them to resources where they can learn about our City - the San Jose Trail Program site (www.sjparks.org) includes a Tourism page that provides visitors an opportunity to learn and experience from the trails.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sjparks.org/trails/Tourism.htm
I think the focus on tourism is missing the point. The goal should be making people happy and proud to live here, not to make others want to visit. Sure, the greatest cities in the world have both, but we've got a long way to go. To this end I think we should be comparing San Jose to Oakland more than San Francisco. Yes, Oakland. Hear me out. For all its obvious problems, the people who live there are fiercely proud and feel a sense of connection and responsibility for the entire city, not just their neighborhood. We could learn from that.
ReplyDeleteThe extreme end of pushing for tourism is Las Vegas. That's a city built for visitors, but not the most pleasant place to live. Outside the strip all the complaints about San Jose suburbia apply.
In other words, I'd rather live in Oakland than Las Vegas. Wouldn't you?
This is a step in the right direction. I'm so happy to see SPUR here. Maybe we'll finally get some vision in this town.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.spur.org/sanjose/events/calendar/designing-silicon-valley
@Jon
Yes, Oakland over Vegas any day. Oakland is an amazing city. It has tons to offer, a beautiful setting, a thriving art scene, great restaurants, wonderful weather, close to nature and the city, etc.
Great points. As a resident, I of course love living here and choose to over SF, the Peninsula, and the East Bay. And the comparison to Oakland is fair; I frequently have to defend my choice and have very little ammo when I do, other than pointing out the faults of other areas (parking, uppity-ness, riots).
ReplyDeleteIn the spirit of the original post, here are a couple of things I wish we had as ammo, some of which have been brought up on previous Wednesdays: a DT "brain district" with companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Adobe all in one area of high rises (imagine if they all had ground-level HQ retail stores open to the public like Apple's in Cupertino); restaurants and bars that have balconies, patios, and walkways along the Guadalupe River (in Little Italy, next to HP Pavilion, or where the Almaden/Woz parking lot is currently, much like San Luis Obispo's DT); and a high-end shopping lane like Robson in Vancouver (basically Santana Row in DT).
I think we all like the progress at San Pedro Square Market. I'm not wanting SJ to be a tourist destination necessarily but it's still lacking key elements that would make me express my love of San Jose with others. (I'm sorry but an Egyptian Museum or our sad Japantown doesn't cut it for me.) Maybe I do just need to be more patient.
Just a little more patience. Whenever people visit from out of town I always show them my version of San Jose and usually the reaction is: "I had no idea San Jose was this evolved." It is definitely possible to deliver a great tourist experience in San Jose, but you have to know where to go and what to do, and it's not easy to pull off without a car.
DeleteOne big step towards tourism is also the San Jose/Silicon Valley bus tours that have started up (they tour starts from the San Pedro Square Market) in addition to a new walking tour that I'm going to plug soon.
I want a light tower smack dab at St. James Park. A huge one, whose four legs anchor each corner of the park. Make it about 400ft high, and we'll be able to view it from pretty much anywhere within 10 miles of downtown. That'd be something to behold. Imagine drinking coffee on a balcony somewhere and looking towards the tower rising amidst our low-rise buildings at sunset....
ReplyDeleteAhhh...I can dream....
You and me both.
Delete