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> It's these local city governments like Palo Alto and Mountain View that allowed Google to massively expand without also allowing developers to build housing t

by danans 7y ago

> It's these local city governments like Palo Alto and Mountain View that allowed Google to massively expand without also allowing developers to build housing to support the employees for that expansion. There's probably plenty of blame to go all around. IMO companies like Google (disclosure: I work there) caught on to the magnitude of the problem too late, and when they did, they ran into the local political resistance. Why were they so late to catch on? Well I only have theories, including that it's only in the last few years that the cost of housing has made life difficult even for well paid employees, and those employees have voiced their frustrations. In some ways I don't think that Google (and other companies that might follow them) deserve so much praise for finally attacking this by the horns at this late stage.

derekdahmer 7y ago
Blaming or praising Google is irrelevant. This is simply a response to a broken political system where regional housing supply is wildly inadequate relative to demand. It isn’t the job of a company to provide housing for its employees. In the absence of constraints real estate developers will naturally build to satisfy this demand. However local governments have control over how and if housing is built and have systematically prevented building to meet this demand for decades. The blame is theirs since they are the only entities can and do constrain new housing. This is the part of the system that needs to change.
- danans 7y ago
  > This is simply a response to a broken political system where regional housing supply is wildly inadequate relative to demand Which is why, IMO, the praise for Google on this matter is unwarranted. And it's not the political system that is broken, it's the regressive views of the elected officials and the people who have tended to vote in local elections. > In the absence of constraints real estate developers will naturally build to satisfy this demand. We don't need a policy that is absent restraints. We need housing policy with sane restraints, i.e. incremental upzoning planned at the regional level to allow more housing density and building employment centers accessible via transit instead of only cars and private bus systems. Even public agencies like BART have had to fight at the state level to be allowed to develop housing on their own property. This isn't really an issue of restraints vs no restraints but rather what the restraints optimize for, and currently they optimize for increasing property values and not providing sufficient housing supply.

by danans 7y ago

derekdahmer 7y ago

Blaming or praising Google is irrelevant. This is simply a response to a broken political system where regional housing supply is wildly inadequate relative to demand. It isn’t the job of a company to provide housing for its employees. In the absence of constraints real estate developers will naturally build to satisfy this demand. However local governments have control over how and if housing is built and have systematically prevented building to meet this demand for decades. The blame is theirs since they are the only entities can and do constrain new housing. This is the part of the system that needs to change.

danans 7y ago
> This is simply a response to a broken political system where regional housing supply is wildly inadequate relative to demand Which is why, IMO, the praise for Google on this matter is unwarranted. And it's not the political system that is broken, it's the regressive views of the elected officials and the people who have tended to vote in local elections. > In the absence of constraints real estate developers will naturally build to satisfy this demand. We don't need a policy that is absent restraints. We need housing policy with sane restraints, i.e. incremental upzoning planned at the regional level to allow more housing density and building employment centers accessible via transit instead of only cars and private bus systems. Even public agencies like BART have had to fight at the state level to be allowed to develop housing on their own property. This isn't really an issue of restraints vs no restraints but rather what the restraints optimize for, and currently they optimize for increasing property values and not providing sufficient housing supply.