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I don't get the obsession with density. Palo Alto is a small suburban town. People move there to get away from urban life and density. There is plenty of infill

by NoPiece 13y ago

I don't get the obsession with density. Palo Alto is a small suburban town. People move there to get away from urban life and density. There is plenty of infill to be done in San Jose and San Francisco before you need to worry about Palo Alto.

mahyarm 13y ago
I think the large amount of traffic during rush hour around those highway exits say otherwise. Several megacorps with tens of thousands of employees each have campuses in the region. It's an artificial area kept artificially suburban in a long stretch of continuous suburbia.
- NoPiece 13y ago
  That's not true - the largest "megacorp" in Palo Alto is HP and they only have around 2000 employees. The only employer with more than 10k is Stanford, and the only employer with more than 5,000 is the Stanford hospital. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto,_California#Top_employers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto,_California#Top_emplo...
  - mahyarm 13y ago
    I said the area, where they all share a similar development policy. You have to include Mountain View, Menlo Park and Sunnyvale. They are all contain Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Symantec, etc. Not to mention many several hundred employee companies such as Palantir and a bunch you haven't heard of.
    - NoPiece 13y ago
      You don't have to include them because they are separate cities with separate governments and separate growth plans. And they don't have similar development policies. Palo Alto is different from Mountain View which is different from Atherton. Mountain View has WalMart and Costco and Google. Palo Alto limits retail to 20k sqft, so there are no big box store or even supermarkets. Atherton just has a bunch of big houses. The differences are great - it lets people pick what the like and live there.
anigbrowl 13y ago
Actually I think people move there to be close to Stanford University, 280, Caltrain, and a bunch of VC and high-tech firms. If you want to get away from it all then some place like Half Moon Bay seems a much better choice.

by NoPiece 13y ago

mahyarm 13y ago

I think the large amount of traffic during rush hour around those highway exits say otherwise. Several megacorps with tens of thousands of employees each have campuses in the region. It's an artificial area kept artificially suburban in a long stretch of continuous suburbia.

NoPiece 13y ago
That's not true - the largest "megacorp" in Palo Alto is HP and they only have around 2000 employees. The only employer with more than 10k is Stanford, and the only employer with more than 5,000 is the Stanford hospital. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto,_California#Top_employers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto,_California#Top_emplo...
- mahyarm 13y ago
  I said the area, where they all share a similar development policy. You have to include Mountain View, Menlo Park and Sunnyvale. They are all contain Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Symantec, etc. Not to mention many several hundred employee companies such as Palantir and a bunch you haven't heard of.
  - NoPiece 13y ago
    You don't have to include them because they are separate cities with separate governments and separate growth plans. And they don't have similar development policies. Palo Alto is different from Mountain View which is different from Atherton. Mountain View has WalMart and Costco and Google. Palo Alto limits retail to 20k sqft, so there are no big box store or even supermarkets. Atherton just has a bunch of big houses. The differences are great - it lets people pick what the like and live there.

anigbrowl 13y ago

Actually I think people move there to be close to Stanford University, 280, Caltrain, and a bunch of VC and high-tech firms. If you want to get away from it all then some place like Half Moon Bay seems a much better choice.