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Google Businesses Technology

Google Pledges $1 Billion To Tackle Bay Area Housing Crisis (bloomberg.com) 212

Google pledged $1 billion over the next 10 years to try to address an affordable housing crisis California's Bay Area. From a report: The tech giant will re-purpose $750 million of its own land for residential use, allowing the development of at least 15,000 new homes, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said in a blog post on Tuesday. Another $250 million will go to incentives for developers to build at least 5,000 affordable housing units. The success of Google and other Silicon Valley technology companies has contributed to massive housing cost increases in the San Francisco Bay Area. The firms employ tens of thousands of high-earners who have bought or rented homes, leaving fewer options for poor and middle-income residents. Meanwhile, the supply of new houses and apartments has not kept up with demand.

Read about hundreds of Silicon Valley residents living in RVs to make ends meet. "Our goal is to help communities succeed over the long term, and make sure that everyone has access to opportunity, whether or not they work in tech," Pichai said. He noted that just 3,000 homes were built in the South Bay area last year. Silicon Valley is the most expensive housing market in the country, with a median existing-home price of $1.2 million. The San Francisco and Oakland metro area is second with a $930,000 median, according to the National Association of Realtors.

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Google Pledges $1 Billion To Tackle Bay Area Housing Crisis

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  • "Another $250 million will go to incentives for developers to build at least 5,000 affordable housing units."

    It took me a moment or two to realize that the reference to "developers" in this case was about builders, not software developers!

    • by lgw ( 121541 )

      "Another $250 million will go to incentives for developers to build at least 5,000 affordable housing units."

      It took me a moment or two to realize that the reference to "developers" in this case was about builders, not software developers!

      Also "affordable housing units" is a bit of a euphemism.

      Launching Google newest product: The Google Ghetto! Finally, the people who mow our yards and clean our toilets will live nearby - everyone wins!

      Google will naturally abandon the project after a few years, like they do with almost everything, making them the biggest slum lords on the West Coast.

    • Re:Developers (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @02:18PM (#58783508)

      "Another $250 million will go to incentives for developers to build at least 5,000 affordable housing units."

      When I saw this line, my first thought was to check housing costs in San Fran. Average price for a house is $1.3M. So, some quick division, and I find that Google is going to be lowering prices by 4% or so, best case.

      I'm not sure how lowering the cost of housing from $1.3M to $1.25M is going to do anything other than give Google some more deductions on their Income Tax....

      • Re:Developers (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @02:56PM (#58783790) Homepage Journal

        If they build it close enough to the Mountain View campus, it can help reduce the traffic problems near the Rengstorff and Shorline freeway exits.

        But really, I'd rather them announce that they're adding a new Bay Area campus with 15,000 jobs in Gilroy. Spreading the tech industry out so that it extends significantly beyond the south bay and peninsula would make a much bigger difference in the long term than anything that can realistically be done within the south bay or peninsula. After all, the south bay is an order of magnitude too dense for traffic to work correctly, but a couple of orders of magnitude too sparse for public transit to work effectively. :-/

        • But really, I'd rather them announce that they're adding a new Bay Area campus with 15,000 jobs in Gilroy. Spreading the tech industry out so that it extends significantly beyond the south bay and peninsula would make a much bigger difference in the long term than anything that can realistically be done within the south bay or peninsula.

          It would also mean Max Zorin couldn't wipe out the entire tech sector in one fell swoop.

        • Wouldn't it make more sense to go North/East towards Walnut Creek or Concord where BART already reaches and you're not limited to one route (highway 101) to get in or out?

          This could also be due to my preference for the preservation of Santa Cruz and the rest of Monterey Bay

          • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            One problem with that is that the East Bay isn't nearly as tech-heavy, so you'd have a huge, already-dense city between the two tech areas, and instead of causing people to drive in the reverse commute direction, the main impact of that would be to cause more people to move to the East Bay, increasing gentrification in an already dense urban area. Morgan Hill and Gilroy, by contrast, are fairly sparse (and for that matter, so is Salinas). You could build up a LOT without displacing anything but farms, so

        • Or anywhere. Are you telling me that if Google built a decent sized headquarters that people wouldn't move there? You could do it around Davis, Folsom, hell rebuild Paradise and put your office there. The foothills are great, smart people will follow you, especially if it means a chance a a decent quality of life versus the SV rat race.

          What's interesting is that for all the claims of innovation, new ways of doing things, and so on. These tech companies resemble GE, GM, and IBM more than anything new. E

          • Yes, this is what surprises me. The group pretty much responsible for making things work remotely, adding communication to the far reaches of the planet, and can't move their offices out of one area California.

      • I was thinking the same thing.

        I sympathize with the low-income people in these areas, but they would be much, much, MUCH better off if they relocated. It can be very difficult to migrate when you're poor, but $50,000 (Google's incentive per affordable housing unit) is more than enough to move a low income individual/family to a less expensive region of the country that is also much more likely to have need of their lower skilled labor. You could probably get the job done for a lot less, like $10k, allowing

        • That's actually a really good idea, pragmatically. But think of the headline. "Google pays $250M to move the undesirables away." That would never fly.

          Maybe, "Google pledges $250M to help improve the lives of families struggling in Silicon Valley"?

        • I think you misunderstand the problem. Although wanting to "stay in your home" (that you don't own) is an issue, these people have no trouble finding work in SV. A high population of high earners requires a large service industry. The problem is that they can't reasonably live anywhere near their place of work.
        • You're also talking about moving those low income people who do necessary work.
          Are the Software Engineers going to clean their own toilets, mop the floors, cook at restaurants, wash cars, repair cars, drive buses....i could go on forever.
          A working society needs people to do these jobs. You NEED these people in every city. I'd argue they're more important ( though earn less) than your average coder.

      • by zifn4b ( 1040588 )
        The funny thing is the entire problem was created by state government subsidizing Silicon Valley creating a rate of growth that would normally have not occurred. Anytime this government gets involved in just about anything, what follows usually isn't good or at the very least has serious consequences. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. By the way, California already threw a similar amount of money at this problem and it didn't do a damn thing. Not sure how much good this is going to do. Bu
    • Does that mean I can't get any of the money for building virtual houses?
  • Stop the suburbs (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ryanrule ( 1657199 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @01:48PM (#58783246)
    Stop the space wasting campuses. Stop the midrises and single family. Build TOWERS. Big ones.
    • Re:Stop the suburbs (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @01:51PM (#58783284)

      Stop the space wasting campuses. Stop the midrises and single family.

      Build TOWERS. Big ones.

      Don't blame Google. This is caused by the zoning and planning policies of the city of Mountain View.

      Google's proposal is just a PR stunt to highlight the problem. The probability that they will actually be allowed by the city to implement it is exactly 0%.

      • Downtown San Francisco is where they can build towers. Salesforce did.
        • by Anonymous Coward

          Yes, but then you'd be in San Francisco.

        • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @02:29PM (#58783608)

          Downtown San Francisco is where they can build towers. Salesforce did.

          Salesforce built an office tower, not residential.

          Office towers provide jobs, tightening the labor market, make the housing shortage worse, and push up real estate prices. So they are popular with voters who want to see their property appreciate.

          A residential tower would do the reverse. So they are unpopular with voters, and generally not allowed to be built.

          People that live in SF get to vote. People that want to live in SF, but can't afford to, don't get to vote.

      • Not that it might not help. I could see the rich and powerful not wanting their views blocked by towers. But what about the people living in the towers? Would you want to raise a family in a 100 story high rise with little or no sun and zero chance of a backyard?

        I moved to a big city for work, but I hate it. I'm stuck in an Apartment, my car just had a wheel stolen off it and the city is dirty, cramped, smoggy and lossy for biking. But here I am, where the work is. Could I work from home 100% and live w
        • Would you want to raise a family in a 100 story high rise with little or no sun and zero chance of a backyard?

          Gee, maybe you are right. I guess the low demand is why housing is so cheap in San Francisco.

          • my point is to find ways to get people out of San Francisco. Right now people move there not just because it's a nice city but because they're moving where the work is. Where they can make a living, even if it's not a decent one. If you haven't been to the rust belt or the deep south you don't really know how much of a blasted out hell hole a lot of America is, see here [youtube.com]

            The idea would be to stop folks from rushing into over crowded cities just because there's jobs there. To do that you'd need a concerted
    • You want them to build TOWERS in time for the Big One [sfchronicle.com]? Sounds legit.

    • Do you really want to live in a east bloc concrete urban wasteland? Because that's what you get when you build a shit ton of giant towers in the name of affordable mass housing.

      It's not going to be the fantasy of an architecturally inspired living space with a ton of amenities. It's going to be square miles of poured concrete.

    • Your solution to housing will cause problems with traffic, water, etc. The real solution? MOVE SOMEWHERE CHEAPER!
  • Like back when coal mining companies built towns where they owned the houses and the stores, and rented them to their employees.

    • Google is proposing build-to-sell, not build-to-rent.

      Let's look at the math: The land is worth $750M. They propose building 15,000 units. The construction cost of a nice condo in the South Bay is about $200k. The sale price is easily $1.2M per unit.

      Cost = $750M + 15,000*200,000 = $3.75B
      Gross = $1.2M * 15,0000 = $18B.
      Profit = $14.25 B

      This would be an extremely lucrative project for Google.

      But it would be equally lucrative for many other builders to receive building permits.

      The NIMBYs and BANANAs will no

    • Like back when coal mining companies built towns where they owned the houses and the stores, and rented them to their employees.

      Back then, the miners weren't even paid in dollars, but "company currency" that would only be accepted at "company stores".

      Hmmm . . . maybe the plan is to pay Facebook and Google employees in Libras . . . ?

    • Like back when coal mining companies built towns where they owned the houses and the stores, and rented them to their employees.

      Sounds like it already is one.

  • $1 billion? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nwaack ( 3482871 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @01:52PM (#58783304)
    It'll take almost that much just to clean up all the feces.
  • San Francisco will never stand for building any kind of large scale housing.

    The only solution? Underground capsule apartments. Have Musk's crack borers construct miles of tunnels that can be converted into dirt cheap (get it??) apartments.

    Lots of people in SF live already is super crowded apartments or closets that are way worse than a tunnel with no view. You can easily manage ventilation and other issues, it would keep the top pretty locking while providing space for anyone who really wanted to live in

    • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @01:58PM (#58783354)

      San Francisco will never stand for building any kind of large scale housing.

      TFA isn't clear, but it sounds like they are proposing building housing in the South Bay (Santa Clara Valley), not San Francisco.

      But it isn't going to happen either way. The NIMBYs and BANANAs will stop it.

  • by Chalex ( 71702 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @01:54PM (#58783318) Homepage

    $1B is only 1000 $1M homes. If they want to build ~20k homes, that's only ~$50k per home. With South Bay housing construction prices at ~$0.5-1M per unit, that's only a small subsidy. That would roughly cover the cost of the various permits needed to start construction.

    Better than nothing, I guess.

    • $50K is about what it costs to actually build a modest 3 bedroom house. That doesn't mean they actually sell the finished house for $50k, though. Some is profit, some is land costs, some is taxes and fees.

      • by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @03:05PM (#58783844) Journal

        $50K is about what it costs to actually build a modest 3 bedroom house.

        That's too low. A modest three-bedroom is about 1200 square feet, call it 1000 to make the math easy. So you're claiming $50 per square foot, which is well below typical costs, even excluding land. $100-150 per square foot (excluding land) is more typical. I recently went through the exercise of designing and costing out a home, with the assistance of an experienced contractor who was also a family friend and therefore willing to be more open about the cost breakdown, including his profit (which I insisted had to be reasonable). My home was designed with high-spec materials, but built in a region with low to moderate labor costs, and it was coming in at about $200 per square foot, excluding the land (which I already owned). The contractor fees amounted to about 15% of that. There were no taxes other than sales taxes on the materials and payroll taxes for the labor, taxes that are generally considered just to be part of the cost of each item, and fees were very small, well under 1%.

        In the bay area, land is ridiculously expensive, of course... of that $1.2M home price, probably $1M is for the lot to put it on. And labor is also much more expensive than elsewhere in the country, precisely because the laborers have to live within commuting distance of the job site, and living there is expensive.

        • So you're claiming $50 per square foot, which is well below typical costs, even excluding land.

          Yes, after I posted I realized I should have specified it was reasonable for material costs.

          • So you're claiming $50 per square foot, which is well below typical costs, even excluding land.

            Yes, after I posted I realized I should have specified it was reasonable for material costs.

            Materials only, and low-end materials at that, yes that I can believe. Labor cost roughly matches materials cost, boosting it to around $100K for that modest three-bedroom. Add another $50K for the postage-stamp lot to put it on, and now you're up to $150K, which is a reasonably-normal price for a new-build three-bedroom in much of the country. Except in the bay area where the postage-stamp lot will cost most of a million, and that being the case you may as well go premium materials all the way on the co

      • Jeff is from 1970.
        Jeff, let me help you out with looking up what it costs today, we'll use a computer and the intertubes:
        https://lmgtfy.com/?q=What's+t... [lmgtfy.com]

    • by stikves ( 127823 )

      Unfortunately the construction costs are also astronomical in the Bay Area. Not only the hourly rates for work is higher, there are lengthy permit processes (which costs in terms of man hours just to follow), and very rigid building codes [for example, solar is now mandatory: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0... [nytimes.com] ]. All put together it would be around half a million dollars for construction alone:

      https://homeguides.sfgate.com/... [sfgate.com]

      The only way to bypass this is building on Federal land (no California laws), and u

    • $1B is only 1000 $1M homes. If they want to build ~20k homes, that's only ~$50k per home. With South Bay housing construction prices at ~$0.5-1M per unit, that's only a small subsidy. That would roughly cover the cost of the various permits needed to start construction.

      Better than nothing, I guess.

      What Google is proposing to do, I think, is not to build houses, but to make the land available for a reasonable price, and to try to push through the zoning changes needed to repurpose the land from commercial to residential use... and maybe even to try to get the city (or cities; I don't see any information about where the land is located) to allow higher-density housing construction.

      The latter two items are the really hard ones, but I suspect Google believes that by providing a large chunk of land rath

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      $1B is only 1000 $1M homes.

      Only if they cost $1m to build, which they never do. Maybe 1/10th of that.

      Anyway, TFS says that 3/4th of the billion is just land they already own and are giving over to residential development.

  • by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @01:55PM (#58783334) Homepage Journal

    I'm glad Google is being generous, but we need sustainable solutions, not charity. Solving social problems is the purview of government, not corporate generosity. That money ought to be taxed away from the wealthy and spent through the democratic process, not undemocratically donated on the whims of wealthy.

    • Solving social problems is the purview of government, not corporate generosity.

      That's exactly how you get Venezuela. Putting all your charity eggs in one very inept basket.

      You are arguing against things like the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders, who do far more than any government to really help people...

      • You guys really need to stop with the idiotic Venezuela trope [currentaffairs.org]. There is a huge difference between authoritarian socialism and social democracy. Do some reading. Educate yourself.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          > There is a huge difference between authoritarian socialism and social democracy. Do some reading. Educate yourself.

          I have, I just finished reading a collection of short stories by survivors of the Khmer Rouge the other day, in fact. I remember the story of one woman yelling at Angka telling them "how is this free! how is this equal!" even as they were about to execute her, as they did to everyone who questioned the regime, who had any connection to Lon Nol's regime, who had any sort of education, etc

          • When Scandinavia's social democracy devolves into the authoritarian hellscape you assume is so inevitable, then I'll buy into your slippery slope argument. Until then, it's merely a slippery slope fallacy. One that has been refuted thousands of times by people with clearly better media diets than you.

      • You are arguing against things like the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders, who do far more than any government to really help people...

        Actually, they don't. For example, US Foreign aid is far, far, far, far, far, far, far more money than Red Cross or MWF. And as a result, does far, far, far, far, far more than those groups.

        • US Foreign Aid is a subsidy program for American farmers and companies as the country receiving aid must spend the money on American goods and food. The local farmers are hurt because American food has been bought and is being distributed instead of what they have been able to grow. While there's normally an emergency that has impacted their crops, by passing what they have grown makes it nearly impossible for the local farmers to be able to pay for the next years supplies. Even a small part of of a normal

    • by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @03:16PM (#58783900) Journal

      I'm glad Google is being generous, but we need sustainable solutions, not charity. Solving social problems is the purview of government, not corporate generosity. That money ought to be taxed away from the wealthy and spent through the democratic process, not undemocratically donated on the whims of wealthy.

      The government should be solving this problem, but the solution does not require, and would not really be facilitated in any appreciable way by, taxation. Mostly, the government just needs to stop getting in the way. It's regulations that have created the problem, by restricting most of the available land to single-family homes, and by enforcing strict height limits (four stories) on the few apartment buildings and condominiums that are permitted. This makes commercial development much more lucrative and attractive and drives up the price of what little housing is available.

      Google is trying to break the logjam, a little, by making a bunch of land that is currently intended for more valuable commercial use available for residential development. Hopefully they're also going to use the "gift" as a lever with the local government to pry loose permission to allow high-density housing on that land.

      I suppose you could use tax money to enable local government to buy up expensive commercial real estate, zone it as residential and sell it at a loss, but that would be a very wasteful approach. Much better for local government to simply issue more permits for apartment and condominium complexes, which are lucrative enough to justify residential instead of commercial development. Even better if they allow truly high-density (high-rise) housing, and high-rise commercial development, to make much more effective use of the space. Per square-foot cost of both housing and commercial space would drop, even if land prices stayed high.

      Basically, they need to allow the area to become a city, not a suburb. Government attempt to crowd a city's worth of businesses and people into the area while maintaining a suburban feel is just never going to work. It's awesome for the property values of the people who already own the land, though, which is exactly why they've done what they have.

    • "Undemocratically donated"? That's a hell of a doublespeak term. Your argument suggests you'd rather compel (that is, *force via gunpoint*) wealth redistribution rather than allow voluntary charity.

  • by pablo_max ( 626328 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @01:58PM (#58783360)

    Ironically, the housing issues as well as the epic homeless problems in the bay area are a result of the bleeding heart liberals.
    How can that be, you ask?
    Simple. For decades, developers have been trying to build more apartment stacks and high density housing units.
    Due to the wonder proposition system in CA, laws were enacted which gives residents a say in zoning and what can and cannot be built.
    So.. every single time they want to build housing someone can afford, these asshats vote it down because they do not want to decrease their property values.
    I guess they are only in favor of a socialist agenda when it does not personally affect their property values.

    • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      Which conservative city gives landowners the right to do with their property as they wish? Even Houston won't let you open a bar unless you also provide enough parking for all your drinking customers!

    • Due to the wonder proposition system in CA, laws were enacted which gives residents a say in zoning and what can and cannot be built.

      And here's where you're completely wrong.

      Zoning is done by the city, or county if the location is unincorporated. Zoning was not changed by propositions. It was changed by those city councils, at the behest of the current landowners. Rich folk like low-density housing, and they love scarcity driving up the value of the property they already own. These folks also tend to lean conservative, especially on economic issues.

      Meanwhile, the folks who can't afford to live in that city can't vote for the city cou

  • Google is planning to build a new San Jose campus [mercurynews.com] for 20,000 workers. Good thing Google is taking care of their workers. What about housing for the Cityview Plaza project [mercurynews.com] next door that will add 17K to 23K workers?
  • Sounds good but even a billion won't translate into much.

  • by ErichTheRed ( 39327 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @02:20PM (#58783526)

    I live in Metro NYC. While we don't have the insanity-level prices that is the Bay Area, we do have very high real estate prices and very high taxes. We're experiencing similar issues here with house prices...crappy houses are selling for WAY more than they're worth just because of proximity. There are only 2 things that will solve the housing crunch long term:

    Let the retirees cash in their ATM and move, Don't forget that most people have only their house as an asset to retire on. There are going to be bucketloads of retirees soon, and they all want to get the money out of the house they bought for $40K back in 1978 that is now worth $4 million because it's right down the road from Apple's HQ. Once enough of these retirements happen and inventory goes up, prices will have to come down. The issue is that you'll probably have people who want to hang onto the house forever...I'll admit that SF/SV climate is probably the best in the US but I'd hate to deal with all that traffic and the insane cost of living.

    Tech companies, stop insisting that everyone live and work in Silicon Valley. Branch out and place offices in more affordable cities. IBM used this strategy before they became an Indian outsourcer and AI-peddler...they'd stick product engineering groups in smaller cities where they could still get talent, but that talent would have fewer places to go, so they created an internal labor market. If you stopped forcing your employees to come in and shoot Nerf guns at each other, eat 3 meals a day "on campus" and collaborating in an agile manner, you could avoid paying basic engineering people $300K and have that just be subsistence income given that they need to buy a $1.8M house.

    Seriously, those two things will fix things faster than any affordable housing plan.

  • Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @02:23PM (#58783564) Journal
    Nothing makes prices go down like throwing lots of money at goods.
  • Housing in the Bay Area is so expensive that if a Silicon Valley company wants to dump a large sum of money into building new units, it can explore the sort of high-end futuristic solutions that would otherwise be outside the realm of possibility.

    Let's see now...drill thousands of feet below SF and blast out a Project Plowshare nuclear cave? Seabed apartment buildings offshore? A base tunnel and maglev line under the Sierra to reach cheap housing in the Owens Valley? Replace Google HQ with a saled off high

    • Replace Google HQ with a saled off high rise arcology that incorporates housing, offices and all the necessities of life?

      They definitely should do that. They really really should. Apple's problem was they didn't think big enough with their silly "spaceship" crashed UFO headquarters. Google is also thinking too small.

      It actually fits with Google's current ethos. The word "arcology" is explicitly a portmanteau of "architecture" and "ecology" as stated by Paolo Soleri, the Italian architect who coined it. (He died in 2013 at the ripe old age of 93.) Google will want to downplay the Soleri name though, as he allegedly sexua

      • Apple will not appreciate being upstaged. It will insist on putting its Spaceship into orbit.

  • by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @03:20PM (#58783926)

    People talk about universal basic income, but perhaps we should consider universal basic housing for zero rent. Something that provides shelter, safety and cleanliness but that someone with cash would want to move out of as soon as they were able.

    Put physical and mental health facilities, along with a police station in the basement.

  • San Francisco's leftwing interest groups refuse to let more housing be built [battleswarmblog.com]. A property owner spent nearly 5 years and $1.4 million trying to convert his laundromat into new housing in San Francisco’s Mission district, only to be stymied by far-left interest groups at every turn.

    The free market would build more housing if regulators would let it. In California, they refuse to.

    • by jonwil ( 467024 )

      Google should do what big corporations have been doing for decades and just throw briefcases full of money at politicians until it gets what it wants. That said, the amount of money it would take to convince the politicians to tell the special-interest groups (who probably have a fair bit of power when it comes to getting people to actually vote for or against said politicians) to "get stuffed" is probably more than even the mighty Google is able to spend.

  • I mean, is this really a problem we should be tackling as a society? If people want to pay astronomical prices to live in a shithole why is this a problem that needs solving? There are options. Live elsewhere. Work elsewhere. Telecommute.
  • Offer relocation bonuses to boot. Miles cheaper I'll bet, and better for everybody- including the cheaper failing location they choose to move to.

    What is it about the bay area that convinces people to accept the insane cost of living? I can't get my head around it. If I'm accepting a 2x pay increase, but it comes with a 10x COL increase... I don't think the math works. Not to mention all the other cultural oddities that come with living in the bay area.

  • That city is done, it's finished. Life there is miserable.

    At least don't expand there anymore, use other locations.

  • by SoftwareArtist ( 1472499 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @05:03PM (#58784524)

    You can't solve this problem with isolated programs like this. You need to think about the big picture, decide what you want the region to look like, and get all the cities to work together.

    There's no right amount of housing to have. There's also no right number of jobs. But if you have too many jobs for the amount of housing, prices skyrocket. So you add more housing, but everyone takes that as encouragement to keep adding more jobs, so the problem doesn't get any better.

    You need to decide, how many people do we want living in this region? Then you create enough housing for all of them and no more, and enough jobs for them and no more. And you also plan your infrastructure around it. What kind of transportation network do you need? Do you have enough water supply for everyone (really big issue in Silicon Valley)?

    But instead it's all being done without a long term plan. Oh, housing prices are too high, so let's build housing! But we'll also keep adding office space because it makes a lot more money than housing, so housing prices don't get any better. You're right back where you started, only now the traffic has gotten worse because there's more people but no good public transit network.

  • ...Google could spend 1/10 that, build their hq in Topeka or Buffalo (because why does their physical location actually matter?), and both materially improve the standard of living of their employees and massively take a role in improving a whole metro area more or less to their specifications...but then their management wouldn't get to build their monuments to ostentatious consumption or live in the trendy coastal hipster zone.

    • ...Google could spend 1/10 that, build their hq in Topeka or Buffalo (because why does their physical location actually matter?)...

      Physical location matters because of vertical supply chain and suppliers located in the area that need not only to move material but have meetings, the current economy needs a large pool of skilled workers for how it is currently set up and used, and because those skilled workers more often than not, decide where they want to live and then look for a job. As somebody that came from a short drive from Topeka, no way would I want to live my life there. As there isn't a huge amount of people there, pretty much

      • "Physical location matters because of vertical supply chain and suppliers located in the area that need not only to move material ..."
        Nonsense. Google's not taking giant truckloads of freight from a factory down the street. Whatever "google the hq" is having delivered enmasse is likely manufactured in China. So why do they need to physically be in SFO, again?

        "..but have meetings..."
        Again, sorry, that's nonsense. This isn't Mad Men 1960. I work for a PAPER company (one of the oldest and most hidebound o

  • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Wednesday June 19, 2019 @05:39AM (#58787076)

    It's infrastructure.
    15000 homes is a town of 30-50.000 people.
    Before building you need streets, street-lighting, water, natural gas, electricity, waste-water, fiber, waste-water treatment plants, water pumping stations with at least 1 tower, schools, public transportation, policing, ...

    Just putting a bunch of tickytacky houses on a few hills doesn't cut it.

  • "Google decides to build company town", because does anyone really believe that's not what it will be?

C for yourself.

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