In Mountain View, home to Google, there are over 2000 luxury apartments and condos under construction. The situation is similar in several other Silicon Valley cities. This is a huge increase in apartment construction since 2010.
It is a similar pattern to San Francisco and other big cities mentioned in the Guardian article. The new construction is aimed toward generally young, generally single, tech workers at Google, Apple, Facebook and other employers within easy commuting distance of Mountain View. Many existing apartments have remodeled and boosted rents, effectively evicting many people with lower paying jobs. There is minimal construction of apartments for lower paid folks.
Google has the political clout in Mountain View to get more apartments for its tech employees despite the NIMBYs. Rental costs are a major negative for Google since the high cost means California tech salaries are actually among the lowest in USA adjusting for local cost of living. The disparity with the Plano Texas region (so-called Telecom Corridor) is astonishing.
People with lower incomes who are disproportionately Hispanic in California don't have a powerful force like Google to stand up for them.
There was a rent control measure (Measure V) passed in Mountain View about one year ago and remarkably actually enforced despite legal challenges.
More units, even luxury units, are good for everyone, even lower income people. The people trying to advocate for lower-income people by blocking housing are making it worse for the very people they're trying to help!
That is not necessarily true. Under some circumstances it can be true. For example, if a community builds more luxury apartments entirely in addition to existing apartments, then yes some well paid people will probably move out of the existing apartments into the new luxury ones, making apartments available to the lower paid.
However, if inexpensive apartments are either bulldozed or remodeled to become luxury apartments, eliminating inexpensive options for the lower paid. That has been happening in Mountain View and probably in San Francisco which the Guardian article directly discusses.
It is a similar pattern to San Francisco and other big cities mentioned in the Guardian article. The new construction is aimed toward generally young, generally single, tech workers at Google, Apple, Facebook and other employers within easy commuting distance of Mountain View. Many existing apartments have remodeled and boosted rents, effectively evicting many people with lower paying jobs. There is minimal construction of apartments for lower paid folks.
Google has the political clout in Mountain View to get more apartments for its tech employees despite the NIMBYs. Rental costs are a major negative for Google since the high cost means California tech salaries are actually among the lowest in USA adjusting for local cost of living. The disparity with the Plano Texas region (so-called Telecom Corridor) is astonishing.
People with lower incomes who are disproportionately Hispanic in California don't have a powerful force like Google to stand up for them.
There was a rent control measure (Measure V) passed in Mountain View about one year ago and remarkably actually enforced despite legal challenges.
https://mvtenantscoalition.org