The year is 2072 and due to unforeseen circumstances from global warming and the melting of the ice caps, the sea level around San Francisco has risen by 200 feet since 2012. Or at least that’s the fascinating idea behind Burrito Justice and cartogpraher Brian Stolke’s topographical map showing the new archipelago of San Francisco surrounded by a series of small islands. With fun new places like Cape Dolores, Cow Landing, and the Van Ness Rapids, this map is really focused on putting the “Bay” into Bay Area.
Of course, the rise in sea level decimates most of the lower lying neighborhoods, covering the Mission, Sunset, Hunters Point, SOMA, and the Financial District in up to 33 fathoms of murky Bay water. Despite the decrease in land mass, the population quintuples, here hitting 4 million residents by 2072. No word on underwater rent prices, but we still expect them to at least be higher than underwater East Oakland’s.
But don’t worry, much of SF is still pretty much the same here. In an alternative history published as part of SPUR’s Urban Cartography exhibit, the old Victorians have mostly been converted into floating houseboats, high-rise apartments along Cape Dolores are being protested by the Submerged Historic San Francisco Preservation Association, calling into memory the beauty and life of Valencia Street via old Flickr archives, (despite only the rooftops still being visible), and taco trucks are now taco boats, still classed as the best in America by a 94-year-old Nate Silver. Muni sea busses are still slow.
Citylab explained the origins of this project, reporting that Burrito Justice tweeted, “Brian made a topo map, I was joking around, wanted to know when Potrero & Bernal became islands. 200 feet is where things got interesting.” Sadly for future Mission Gulf scuba divers and Muni Ferry drivers, melting icecaps are only supposed to raise San Francisco’s sea levels by 3 feet by the end of the century, although Burrito Justice notes that the Bay did once used to be an island.
You can buy wall maps of the submerged city from Zazzle in threedifferentsizes, which come in a “pseudo three-dimensional stretched canvas print.”
Residents of the new San Francisco still say that they “do miss the fog.”
[Via CityLab/Burrito Justice]
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