HOW GREEN IS MY VALLEY
I came upon this photo of Silicon Valley at the San Jose State University website, and it stopped me in my tracks. No, 
it wasn't just seeing the who's who of the technology industry all laid out geographically across the Valley. But that was good too.
No, it was just seeing, almost for the first time, how much GREEN exists in the Bay area.
Especially when compared to almost any other highly urbanized spot, on any coast, in the developed world.
And most of that GREEN is on the "good" side. Towards the ocean, where you'd least expect it.
Want to see what I'm talking about a little clearer?
Let's just remove the icons, shall we? Just for a minute.
You then get this picture, from the USGS site.
Just look at all the green on the left side of the lower peninsula.
This isn't from a few decades ago. This is recent. At the beginning of the 21st century, in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Now for someone who's traveled to the Bay area almost every week from New York for over a decade, this should not be a novel revelation.
Almost anyone who's either lived in the area, or traveled there extensively, can probably relate to even just the joys of driving up and down the 280 vs. the 101 interstate.
And that's regardless of how much traffic might be clogging up those freeways.
We all love open, green spaces.
But finding them in such abundance despite the obvious, common sense, business, political, and market forces that must prevail, is reason for pause and appreciation.
The reasons for this bucolic, urban reality are many, and unique to the area. Not the least of it of course is the historic role played by Stanford University.
But regardless of the reasons, it's important to just stop for a second and see it all from a very high level.
Perhaps even zoom down a little and see it a little closer, via say, this link from Smugmug (a great photo site, but that's the subject of another day).
Fred Wilson talks in a post today about how rare and important just simple ball parks are in a great city like New York. As a New Yorker for over two decades, I couldn't agree with him more.
And in the same vein, it's important for urban communities to have greens parks and spaces.
So when an entire urban area like Silicon Valley, spanning so many towns and cities, has so much of it, spread out across such distances, and so many institutions, despite all the political and market forces, it is worth acknowledging. If only for a moment.
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