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Winter 2014 Home + Garden Design JANUARY 24, 2014 VOLUME 21, NO. 52
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Surprised by local housing costs? You shouldn’t be JOBS-HOUSING IMBALANCE HAS PERSISTED FOR DECADES By Daniel DeBolt
Madera luxury apartments across from Mountain View’s downtown ilicon Valley has long been train station, where asking rents a place of human ingenuity, for a two-bedroom apartment are where ever larger worlds of as high as $8,000 a month. data are packed onto shrinking “When I tell people my father computer chips — but it’s also bought a home in Palo Alto on a where cities have struggled for single school teacher salary, they decades to solve a fairly simple look at me like, ‘You can’t be that housing problem. old,’” Simitian said. “It wasn’t “Tell me again why we create that long ago.” six times as much jobs as housThe influx of residents who can ing and then everybody says, afford the new rents, and displace ‘I’m shocked, there’s a housing numerous longtime residents, shortage and the housing we have is apparently causing resentis expensive,” said Santa Clara ment. And not just in places County Supervisor like San Francisco, Joe Simitian of the where protests of development patemployee ‘People laugh Google’s tern he witnessed shuttles there have county-wide durat me when I created buzz about ing the 1990s dot. the problem. com boom. “This is say we have too “This is my fairly basic stuff.” 13th year, and I’ve many jobs.’ All the success never heard as and job growth of much resentment LENNY SIEGEL Silicon Valley — of others’ prosperespecially in Palo ity,” Simitian said Alto and Mounof his regular meettain View — has caused a major ings with constituents at the unintended consequence: much Mountain View farmer’s market. higher prices for a limited supply of housing and an increased Too many jobs? number of commuters on the There are solutions to the probarea’s roads. lem, though most are unpopuThe jobs-rich, housing-poor lar, as anyone who attends City pattern of the 1990s boom is now Council meetings can attest. a regular feature of Silicon Valley Even the highest quality housing life, with new and overwhelming developments are regularly prodemand for limited housing from tested by neighbors, while large the likes of Google and Facebook new office buildings for the likes instead of Sun Microsystems, of Samsung, Google, and Intuit Silicon Graphics and Hewlett have been consistently approved Packard. In Google’s hometown by the same City Council with of Mountain View, for example, little controversy over the last average rents for a two-bedroom, two years. two-bathroom apartment have “Given our national culture, skyrocketed over the last two it’s pretty hard to argue against years from $2,250 to $2,981 a jobs. Most places don’t have jobs. month, according to data firm People laugh at me when I say we Realfacts. Countywide, it’s gone have too many jobs. But that’s from $2,061 to $2,479. There is See JOBS-HOUSING, page 10 now 100-percent occupancy of the
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Karla Bautista plays with daughter Destiny at the Young Parents Program run by Mountain View Los Altos High School District.
Raising a family, making the grade PROGRAM HELPS TEEN MOMS LEARN PARENTING, FINSIH HIGH SCHOOL By Nick Veronin
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t a recent meeting of the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District, three young high schoolers were named Student of the Month at their respective schools. Their academic
achievements were impressive. One of the honorees is an editor at her school’s student-run paper and a member of numerous clubs. Another is a skilled classical guitarist with a grade point average approaching 5.0 and the ability to juggle five balls at once.
And then there’s Liliana Rios Alvarez. Alvarez hasn’t shattered the 4.0 GPA mark with Advanced Placement classes, nor is she a leader of any school clubs. However, she has mastered a See YOUNG PARENTS, page 11
Google set to expand ferry to East Bay ALAMEDA TO PORT OF REDWOOD CITY IS NEXT TRIAL ROUTE By Daniel DeBolt
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oogle has been testing a ferry boat service as it looks for ways to bring a growing number of its employees to Mountain View without worsening traffic and air pollution. The company is in the midst of a 30-day test run of a ferry from San Francisco to Red-
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wood City, where a shuttle picks up employees for the last stretch of the commute. A Google employee familiar with the program told the Voice that it has been well received, and that a similar 30-day test of a ferry from Alameda would begin near the end of the year for Google employees living in Oakland and the East Bay.
If all goes well, Google may be buying its own ferry soon to continue the service. “It is more reliable, so you know, generally, it will get you home in an hour and a half,” said one Mountain View Google employee, who had taken the ferry instead of a shuttle from See GOOGLE FERRY, page 10
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