The industry was long criticized for failing to address that, but in recent years tech giants have taken big steps. In 2019, Apple committed $2.5 billion toward affordable housing in the San Francisco Bay Area; Google devoted $1 billion; Microsoft said it would provide $750 million in housing grants and investments in the Puget Sound region; and Facebook, now Meta, said it would spend $1 billion to help address the housing crisis in California by creating up to 20,000 new affordable housing units.
@Mr. Levy,It's hard to have a conversation about this against your clear biases (and some information that isn't accurate in context). Are you claiming that Palo Alto and Mountain View do not have appreciably more jobs here than they did 20 years ago?The companies brought a lot more people into the area causing a great deal of degradation to the lives of people living here, without adding anything positive to offset it. San Francisco has gone from 15% African American residents to 5% in the last 10 years, amid tons of housing being built (which doesn't create affordability in a demand job center anymore than it did in Hong Kong).In no way would I want to pay companies to move away. That would not work, because the companies wouldn't invest in the places they go anymore than they invest in here. They just expect the public to pay for everything. That is our nation since the '80s. This place has been expensive for many decades, yet companies still want to be here.We don't need more jobs here, we need fewer jobs here. Stanford is a major employer that will also always produce innovators who want to stay here. We are better off being a place they can start, and then move away from.No, the answer has to come from the state and even federal level. The world has become more crowded, but we still have the same number of cities, and fewer desirable ones (because of overdevelopment of some and dying of others). The large-scale public disinvestment of the last 30 years (laissez faire economics) has meant there are fewer places the companies want to go.They need the public amenities to attract their workers, do business, and generally have all the kinds of people they want in the labor and people pool nearby. The answer is instead of focusing on incentives for companies directly, to invest in revitalizing cities in places around our state (and nation) that want to be revitalized, and where it makes sense relative to the natural environment (and global warming).The world is changing, we should not be laissez faire about the negative impact of everyone piling into one place, including the safety and national security concerns. What would it take to revitalize four or five cities? Well, it depends on the city, but it starts with a certain amount of infrastructure. Nice places with a good natural environment and good infrastructure and city services, plus arts and entertainment, attract people who want to live there. (It would me.) Usually a good university helps -- is probably indispensible. I would love to see Stanford put its money behind its own education department and let them create an undergraduate education that would attract the kind of learners they only claim they want for the 21st century. That would bring in smart young people who get out of school and want to stay (because the natural environment and infrastructure are so nice). There are colleges and universities that could use the investments. Cities losing people that would like to turn that around. Large "empty" swaths of this state and nation that would make a great place to revitalize or grow a new job center. You can't do it by bribing companies, you do it by creating the conditions that make people want to go there (which will naturally include affordable GOOD housing), and then the companies will follow, especially if they are taxed here to pay for the actual cost of their overcrowding to the region.
Why U.S. tech giant Apple and others are putting billions into affordable housing
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