Adding insult to injury, they have then made every effort to stall, delay, or cancel the high speed rail segment that was planned between San Francisco and San Jose, leaving only the strained diesel CalTrain and the clogged freeways.
You can't have it all, Silicon Valley; you have to choose. If you want to be a world-class economic engine, you have to accept housing density. Otherwise, we can dig it all up and go back to apple orchards.
I'm surprised, sometimes, with all the perks that Google offers, they don't own an apartment building near the Googleplex. They're already 90% of the way to "company town" status; might as well embrace it.
http://www.mv-voice.com/print/story/2012/07/13/google-housin...
It should be tenable to increase density with the right community support in MV, Palo Alto, etc.. - a regional agreement which is perhaps not as binding as it should be requires those cities to approve housing equal to the population increase of all the office developments they approve.
When Mountain View and Palo Alto approve office developments which welcome 100k new workers and apartments for 20k, they shuck the responsibility for residential civic planning onto SF and surrounding areas and collect the corporate taxes. And fuck them for that.
Just make sure the lease includes some clause that requires around 3 months notice if being evicted due to losing your job. If enough employees refuse to use the housing unless they are given those kinds of assurances the employer would have to cave.
Secondly, the analysis that it's a few rich homeowners is not accurate. Since the early 1960s, Silicon Valley has been associated with low-density housing and low-slung office buildings. Which is why the space between SF and San Jose looks the way it does. It's an entire cultural perspective this issue is up against, not just a few homeowners.