My previous post about the attempt to
establish a “Silicon Valley East” in upstate New York made it clear that if an
increasing number of young professionals do come to Malta, the concrete curbs
off the asphalt roads already in place demonstrate that their places of
employment in Malta will be laid out as an industrial park, with space for
parking lots already built into the park’s subdivisions. The work half of any “integrated community”
seems planned to be dependent on roads; the size of the parking lots suggests
that it will be automobiles that take them to work. But what about where they will live? Is there any chance of an after-hours
community of residences, services and entertainment that might reflect the
supposedly revolutionary future its inhabitants are bringing about?
Should the Malta area actually grow into a size resembling a “Valley,” the
land it will need to expand the footprint of its Industrial Park sites already
exists, divided and laid out. No so
with nearby potential residential and leisure locations, at least beyond the
one apartment complex that exists currently.
Such rawness invites speculation about the area’s future. What might this new, still to-be-created
community look like? Given the existing
evidence of industrial park spread, my speculation largely ignores the
workplace aspect and tends to wander about the questions of the lifestyle to be
enjoyed by the legion of future residents that the combination of money and
political influence hopes to lure to this largely “virgin” area. Where will the employees live and where will
they recreate? What will the local
supporting infrastructure—residences, cafes, restaurants, service businesses,
etc.—look like? Can an integrated grouping of residences/services develop in
Malta? If so, what form might it take?
There is an almost total lack of such infrastructure in Malta
itself. A very few employees wishing to
live near their work have found local pre-existing houses, and proposals for
housing developments are appearing, but arrivals in the near future earning
less than a very high salary appear to have only one local destination: an
apartment complex still under construction.
The site may actually become a complex, with floors of apartments above
what is planned to be commercial space.
Only the renting agency occupies any such space at this point. The site is not far from the Luther Forest
Technology Campus, and a shuttle bus operates between the two, so its residents
do no not need an automobile to get to work, just for everything else. As far as thought to multi-modal
transportation goes, a shuttle bus may be it.
That is largely because there are three factors that argue persuasively
against any attempt to plan an integrated work/residence/recreation city of the
future in Malta, N.Y. The first is the
area itself. Malta’s primary selling
point—an abundant amount of land—renders any attempt to plan an integrated
work/residence/recreation community at least questionable from the very
beginning. Add to that the already
substantial investment in road and intersection upgrading in the general area
(see my previous post for more on this), some already in place and some under
contract; together they suggest that sprawl is expected to be more profitable to
the area’s developers than integrated planning.
Second is the little problem that Malta’s location in upstate New York
brings with it. It’s called winter. In Silicon Valley, winter is a chronological
abstraction. In Malta, N.Y., it’s real,
and it hangs around for a while. A bike
path connects the Technology Campus and the apartment building, but this past
winter should at least have poured cold water, if not actual snow, on any
dreams of the bicycle as a viable daily transportation alternative. Speaking of water, I must point to my readers
in the San Francisco area that it actually rains in New York, and I am not
referring to those persistent showers that go by the name in the Bay area. Real rain can be an impediment to commuting
that is too little appreciated out here.
In fairness, however, the area around Malta is gorgeous, and bicycle
trips through the countryside during the warmer months would certain beckon
those so inclined. So, bicycles for recreation most definitely, but day-to-day
transportation? No.
While any integrated work/residence planning would seem to violate the
basic ethos underlying the project, a third factor may actually be the relevant
component to the evident resistance to such planning. It’s that annoying variable that comes when
you don’t just proclaim free choice, but enable it. Those greatly improved roads that lead to
Malta also lead away from it. In other
words, will the techies that come to work in Malta want to reside and recreate
there when other locations beckon? If
they are anything like the techies currently pouring into Silicon Valley, the
answer may very well be no.
I, as a San Francisco resident, can testify that while the latest wave
of techies are quite willing to work in Silicon Valley, they don’t want to live
there. They want the urban experience,
not the corporate blandness that surrounds their work sites. Of course, when it comes to urban
experiences, San Francisco pretty much heads any list of American cities in
offering a variety of them. For those it
doesn’t, there is always Oakland.
The result is commuter traffic between home and work, which allows me to
bring up what is currently the hottest issue in San Francisco: “Google
Buses”(Google it and see). Actually,
it’s an array of buses chartered by several companies (with comfortable seats,
air-conditioning and wi-fi, of course) that pick up the techies at specified
times along fixed routes in the city, whisk them to work, then back home again
in time for those evening pleasures that urban areas do best. This makes them the perfect metaphor for
class conflict, which is dear to the soul of every true San Franciscan. The image of the very well paid and
technologically savvy few who board their luxury coaches at public bus stops
while those who clean their offices and maintain their new apartment complexes
are waiting nearby for crowded, uncomfortable municipal buses is quite potent. These two very different groups are also increasingly
making their respective journeys in the opposite direction. The influx of the well-heeled is driving up
rents at such a rate that fewer and fewer of those people who clean and
maintain for the techies can afford to live in the city at all; their numbers
are dropping steadily. The new techies
have thus found themselves the somewhat bewildered (if not altogether innocent)
objects of class warfare.
Could the anticipated wave of techies into upstate New York emulate
their western predecessors, spurn the local campus area and develop
work-residence relationships akin to Silicon Valley-San Francisco? Might they in turn be accused of committing gentrification if not class warfare? If they do, three cities beckon, each with a different answer to that question. The closest city is also the smallest, Saratoga. Two—Albany and Troy—lie to the south, directly accessible from Interstate 87. Schenectady to the southwest is actually closer than Albany or Troy,
but lacks the direct Interstate connection to Malta.
The city most likely to see an influx of techies as unwelcome is
Albany. This is the largest nearby city,
of long standing and with built-out neighborhoods. Many thrive, but the state government itself
occupies a substantial area, rendering it a classic governmental
dead-in-the-evenings sector. The city’s
residents are virtually cut off from the Hudson riverfront by elevated
Interstate highways, and that is definitely a black mark. In Albany, the reception of techies and their
buses would likely vary with the local street community.
Troy is the most likely destination for the new techies, and for good
reason. Troy, which pretty much wrote
the script for “once proud river town fallen on hard times,” has steadily
rebuilt itself. My visits there, which
span the previous decade, have provided me with visual evidence of how real
this is. Troy offers new techies the
most, including housing that is both available and affordable, within a
stimulating environment of urban riverfront revival that seems to keep
producing new restaurants and cafes on a regular basis. It’s a work in progress, but that may be its
chief attraction. Residence in Troy
offers the opportunity to get in early on a happening thing, a
siren call I expect many of the new techies will heed. I also suspect that if the Malta techies were
to somehow foreswear driving to and from work, the private buses that would
traverse the streets of Troy to pick up and drop off large numbers of new, free-spending
residents would be considerably more welcome there than they are in San
Francisco.
And then there is Saratoga, the closest of them all. Saratoga is not just a horse of a different
color but an actual, living horse. Several
of them, in truth, at least in the summer.
Saratoga is one of the few American cities east of the Mississippi that
can, in the 21st century, lay claim to possessing a horse-based
economy. They are no longer a ubiquitous
presence on the city streets, of course (for which all can be grateful,
particularly in the summer), but they still are on the famous old
racetrack.
Saratoga has a vibrant urban
scene, particularly in the summer, when the local population is inundated by
visitors arriving to breathe in (often quite literally) the atmosphere of a
bygone age. Visitors used to arrive by
railroad, and stay in hotels; the old station still exists, now converted, of
course, but the hotels are pretty much gone.
Now they arrive by car, and occupy the cardboard hotels that line the
highways close to town. Saratoga has
trendy restaurants, nightspots and the most expensive apartments for many miles
around. Could Saratoga become to Malta
what San Francisco is to Silicon Valley, the place they would rather live,
while they commute to work? Might enough
of Malta’s new techies be attracted to Saratoga to justify company buses to
transport them? Would an influx of
techies further drive up Saratoga’s already pricey rental market, creating a
mini San Francisco? Could we see an
anti-techie reaction among the residents of Saratoga, and if so, could anyone
actually call it class-based?
It's pretty much potential at this point (okay, that GlobalFoundries "fab" can hardly be called potential), but Malta, New York has the infrastructure in place to accommodate the hoped-for reality: an industrial park, with an emphasis on the park part (as in cars), a nascent apartment complex for the less well paid or the just temporary, and three nearby urban areas that stand ready--more or less--to accommodate the anticipated wave of techies everyone involved hopes will flock there. All enabled by the automobile, to which due homage is being paid. In such a context, even buses to transport the privileged few could be pitched as environmental awareness. That's a shame for a location with no past, little present and is supposedly all about the future.
