San Francisco’s Historical Infrastructure and

Urban Development
San Francisco lies at the center of the world’s business community. In this regard, it has an
elaborate transport infrastructure. The San Francisco Municipal Railway operates on a 24-
hour basis alongside a fleet of diesel buses, modern light rail vehicles, electric trolley
coaches, alternative vehicles that run on fuel, and the famous cable cars. Furthermore, the San
Francisco International Airport ranks number seven among the US busiest airports and 22nd
in the world. The airport handles 95% of international flights within the Bay Area with
modern cargo airplanes allowing businesses to transport goods across borders in a matter of
hours (Storper, Kemeny, Makarem, & Osman, 2015).

The opening of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936 marked the onset of the
region’s modern road network considering that San Francisco was going through remarkable
engineering transformation and political achievements. San Francisco also replaced city’s
cable car and streetcar lines with buses between the 1930s and 50s allowing workers and
passengers to access cheap and convenient transport. This was a major development despite
the ongoing World War II. Today San Francisco has an elaborate transport system including
ride-hailing companies making over 170,000 vehicle trips on a typical weekday.

Energy infrastructure

In 1879, San Francisco became the first city to have a central electricity generating station
meeting the rising demand for electric light within factories. The California Electric Light
Company constructed a second station in 1888 to increase production capacity. San Francisco
has been struggling to relieve itself from the monopoly of using energy that is controlled by
the Pacific Gas & Electric Company for most part of the post-war era (Storper, Kemeny,
Makarem, & Osman, 2015). In this regard, the government is developing renewable resource
projects like solar, wind, and wave energy to supply San Francisco with clean power
effectively. The history of limited power transmission into San Francisco has also contributed
to the need to come up with alternative power sources that are generated within the local
areas.

The fishing village north of San Francisco rejected Pacific Gas & Electric’s first
commercially viable nuclear power plant in 1958 for environmental concerns until the
projects forced abandonment in 1964. In the post-war era, PG&E aggressively promotes its
environmental image through renewable sources campaigns but has had to lay off thousands
of employees from its closed nuclear plants. As of today, more than half of San Francisco’s
electricity generation is by natural gas-fired power plants. San Francisco also ranks among
the largest hydroelectric power producers in the US (Storper, Kemeny, Makarem, & Osman,
2015).

Industrial production

San Francisco’s industrial production was active in the early twentieth century with factories
and warehouses being built across the city (Hesse, 2016). However, the onset of San
Francisco’s industrial woes began with the earthquake of 1906, that saw people and
businesses flee to the suburbs (Storper, Kemeny, Makarem, & Osman, 2015). The event
changed San Francisco’s physical landscape besides killing over 3,000 people and destroying
almost 80% of the city. Manufacturing in San Francisco began with the outset of the
industrial revolution creating employment for residents. The first great industries were
ironworks on the south waterfront in 1868 (Walker, 2005). However, with time these
industries started to move away. Manufacturing began moving out from the earliest days of
industrialization, and mostly after the Civil War, when industries moved beyond the city
limits towards South San Francisco.

Today, the region has adopted the wave of innovation within the IT sector and biotechnology.
The area is likely to face an ongoing loss of industries in favor of easing the cost of housing.
Increasingly, San Francisco is consistently changing from industrial land in favor of other
uses. Currently, industries cover only 14 percent of San Francisco, approximately 3254 acres
(Storper, Kemeny, Makarem, & Osman, 2015). Most of the jobs in San Francisco today are
office jobs while the industries are in small-scale production like the print media. The
presence of small-scale manufacturing activities can be linked to the adoption of new
technologies and the increasing importance of information and knowledge in the production
process.

Telecommunications infrastructure 

In San Francisco, the first real telecommunications infrastructure began with the invention of
the electrical telegraph that used telegraph lines connecting one location to another in 1853
(Schafran, 2013). After that, Alexander Graham Bell made a successful telephone call to
Thomas Watson in San Francisco marking a milestone in telecommunication technology.
This enabled businesses, industries, and government agencies to communicate
instantaneously regardless of distances. Towards the end of the 19th century, San Francisco
boasted of several telephone-line exchanges. Wireless technologies like the radio and TV
currently rely on physical infrastructure for transmission. After the World War 1 ban on
wireless communication ended in 1918, Lee De Forest set up the first Radio station in San
Francisco in 1919. Businesses ripped from this invention as they advertised on radio. Today,
the internet comes in as the most widespread form of communication. However, internet
service providers are still dependent on the old physical infrastructure that facilitate telephone
and radio communications. Cell phones have brought a raft of new telecoms providers into
the lives of San Francisco’s business and leisure users. The rapid evolution of personal
computing has virtually minimized time and distance in communication. San Francisco has
turned into a world of digital communications, allowing workers to interact with employers
and clients regardless of location (Schafran, 2013).

Utilities

San Francisco faced a huge water shortage during the Gold Rush. Despite the existence of
several freshwater streams, they were far from settlement for them to be useful, whereas
wells were scarce. Later in 1923, the O’Shaughnessy Dam was completed and connected
with the necessary pipelines allowing San Francisco residents to use water from the Hetch
Hetchy Reservoir. In the postwar era, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is
responsible for the provision of water for both domestic and industrial use (San Francisco
Public Utilities Commission [SFPUC], 2005). The commission also handles sewage
treatment for San Francisco. Depending on the geography of the different areas within San
Francisco, pies, hydraulic structures, and pumping facilities are used to transport clean water
and collect wastewater from different locations such as residential areas, schools, and
industrial parks. Wastewater is taken to treatment facilities to undergo physical, biological, or
chemical processes that help remove organic matter, solids and other pollutants before the
water is treated and discharged into the ocean.