Spatial & Regional Interaction
Since its rapid growth in the 19th century, San Francisco has remained one of America’s top cities. This is partially attributable to the city’s high, sustained, degree of spatial interaction. Even with a relatively small bounded geographical space, San Francisco offers unique economic and cultural opportunities that attract both regional residents, as well as international interests.
This interaction can be explained through Truman Hartshorn’s concepts of complementarity, intervening opportunity, and transferability. For example, San Francisco’s financial district is among the top twenty globally, with more than 30 international finance institutions. The city is able to offer high-level investment and banking services that global businesses seek (providing a complementary supply for the demand). Furthermore, it provides this service well enough to keep the trade from filtering into banks closer to corporate headquarters outside of San Francisco (thus preventing intervening opportunities). Hartshorn argues that these strong “banking linkages” make San Francisco a nationally connected metropolis—in his words, a “second-order city” [12]. While this example demonstrates San Francisco’s global connectivity and interaction, other industries better illustrate the city’s significant regional interaction. The robust arts and culture scene in San Francisco meets the surrounding population’s desire for entertainment, education, and enrichment. Surrounding cities in the greater metropolitan Bay Area cannot provide the same concentration of unique museums, theaters, music halls, restaurants, etc. Because of this complementarity and lack of intervening opportunity, the city has maintained strong interaction with smaller cities and towns in the region. Some argue that the region needs to produce more alternative supply in arts and culture, so that the principle of transferability will decrease some of the pressure San Francisco faces from large levels of interaction. However, San Francisco’s rich history of art and progressivism is not easily replicable, which maintains its competitive advantage in cultural attractions. Overall, San Francisco’s regional spatial interaction drives many of the current conditions in the city—notably the need for improved transportation networks and the crisis of affordable housing.
Financial services and cultural attractions are examples of significant drivers of the central city’s interaction within regional and global economies. However, on a different scale, industrial growth and transportation patterns have propelled the San Francisco metropolitan area’s growth. To discuss San Francisco’s modern regional interaction, it is imperative to look at what historical forces have made its metropolitan area such a dominant economic player in national and global economies. These forces are well illustrated through two regional interaction models: the Circular-Cumulative Causation model and the Metropolitan Dominance model.
This interaction can be explained through Truman Hartshorn’s concepts of complementarity, intervening opportunity, and transferability. For example, San Francisco’s financial district is among the top twenty globally, with more than 30 international finance institutions. The city is able to offer high-level investment and banking services that global businesses seek (providing a complementary supply for the demand). Furthermore, it provides this service well enough to keep the trade from filtering into banks closer to corporate headquarters outside of San Francisco (thus preventing intervening opportunities). Hartshorn argues that these strong “banking linkages” make San Francisco a nationally connected metropolis—in his words, a “second-order city” [12]. While this example demonstrates San Francisco’s global connectivity and interaction, other industries better illustrate the city’s significant regional interaction. The robust arts and culture scene in San Francisco meets the surrounding population’s desire for entertainment, education, and enrichment. Surrounding cities in the greater metropolitan Bay Area cannot provide the same concentration of unique museums, theaters, music halls, restaurants, etc. Because of this complementarity and lack of intervening opportunity, the city has maintained strong interaction with smaller cities and towns in the region. Some argue that the region needs to produce more alternative supply in arts and culture, so that the principle of transferability will decrease some of the pressure San Francisco faces from large levels of interaction. However, San Francisco’s rich history of art and progressivism is not easily replicable, which maintains its competitive advantage in cultural attractions. Overall, San Francisco’s regional spatial interaction drives many of the current conditions in the city—notably the need for improved transportation networks and the crisis of affordable housing.
Financial services and cultural attractions are examples of significant drivers of the central city’s interaction within regional and global economies. However, on a different scale, industrial growth and transportation patterns have propelled the San Francisco metropolitan area’s growth. To discuss San Francisco’s modern regional interaction, it is imperative to look at what historical forces have made its metropolitan area such a dominant economic player in national and global economies. These forces are well illustrated through two regional interaction models: the Circular-Cumulative Causation model and the Metropolitan Dominance model.
Scroll through images to learn more about San Francisco's interaction with the region.