Let’s raze Silicon Valley and put a green Manhattan in its place

Instead of building skyscrapers in the city, The Awl's Ken Layne argues that San Francisco should be seen as "the Brooklyn to an as-yet-unbuilt Manhattan." Layne's proposal? Knock down the outdated strip malls, office parks, and office buildings in the fallow parts of Silicon Valley (Google's, Apple's, and Stanford University's campuses are presumed cool) and build a glittering new mixed-use metropolis laced with public transit, a California fantasyland. If Jane Jacobs were here, she'd probably say that elites' sweeping plans to knock out neighborhoods they don't like for infrastructure they think their region needs rarely end well.