Reporting from the epicenter of tech, more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Beginning over 160 years ago with the famous California Gold Rush, the San Francisco Bay Area has successfully carved out a unique pioneer character unlike any other in the American West. This incomparable social, political and economic identity persists to this very day.  

To the south lies Silicon Valley – the home of computer giants Apple, Google and Facebook, to name a few – placing San Francisco at the epicenter of innovation of much of the world's cutting-edge technology.

With the state capital of Sacramento immediately to the east, San Francisco is in close proximity to the inner workings of a state government which runs the 12th-largest economy in the world, as well as to the legislators who pass some of this country's most aggressive and forward-thinking laws affecting energy, natural resource conservation, climate control and some of the most progressive legislation affecting individual civil rights.
Many believe that “how goes California, goes the nation,” and San Francisco’s location is crucial to coverage of several serious ongoing issues whose resolution can affect the entire country.

The serious crisis surrounding the state's massive criminal corrections system – with its overflowing prisons and conditions thought by some to be inhumane – has clear implications across the country. Furthermore, with California’s fertile Central Valley providing a majority of the country's agricultural production, the expectation of serious draught conditions takes on an increased urgency that can set the precedent for nationwide water conservation and developing existing and alternate sources of fresh water. Also on the environmental front, state legislation to responsibly control the growing "fracking" initiative to tap the world's largest shale oil deposits lying deep beneath much of California has strong potential to set the pace for all other such initiatives throughout the country.  

Last, but not least, California Gov. Jerry Brown is launching the largest and most expensive infrastructure project in the United States since the interstate highway system and dam construction in the middle of the last century. The nation's first bullet train connecting San Francisco with Los Angeles in under three hours is viewed by many as providing a huge economic jump start, employing tens of thousands of workers and bringing billions of federal dollars into state coffers to improve and expand upon existing infrastructure. Yet many are convinced it is a colossally wasteful boondoggle that will never be finished and waste billions of taxpayer dollars in the process.

Al Jazeera America's San Francisco news bureau is well placed to cover not only the nuts and bolts of these issues, but their relevance to the individual and the entire nation.

-- Jim Kyle,
Al Jazeera America San Francisco producer