San Francisco Bay Area ... Today

The "Today" of the title was the year 1973 when San Francisco was in the midst of a development spree. A later book, Splendid Survivors: San Francisco's Downtown Architectural Heritage, reacted forcefully to the overbuilding of San Francisco's downtown with brutalist high rises. While Splendid Survivors dismissed the aesthetic value of these newcomers, San Francisco Bay Area... Today celebrated them.

The Urban Land Institute, an almost 90 year old nonprofit organization dedicated to real estate and infrastructure development, compiled this book. While Splendid Survivors focused on architectural style and historical context, San Francisco Bay Area ... Today examines those factors as well as the bottom line. The entries look at the construction cost, each project's function and the amenities offered.

The book only dedicates the opening section to San Francisco's downtown. It also looks at the redevelopment projects of that time such as those at the Embarcadero / Golden Gateway, Japantown, Yerba Buena Center, Diamond Heights and the reconstruction of Market Street. 

As the title suggests, San Francisco Bay Area ... Today covers the wider Bay Area, devoting almost sixty percent of its pages to projects outside San Francisco. Many of the projects detailed are suburban shopping malls and housing developments. The book also has an excellent chapter on the development and technology of the nascent BART system. There are black and white photographs throughout, sometimes show the before and after of a project, throughout the book.

An artist's rendering of an unbuilt Sports Arena at Yerba Buena Center

San Francisco Bay Area ... Today / Compiled by Carla C. Sobala, Meetings Division Director, Urban Land Institute, 1973 Fall Meeting. ([Urban Land Institute], 1973).