Gibberish article, I’m afraid. As one of said engineers I don’t see how my employer is undercutting me by paying only twice the median, plus bennies.
The expense of Silicon Valley is largely down to growth policy, which is to say, they can’t build housing concomitant with demand. Similarly here in NYC.
Making very good money in an very expensive place is not a struggle, it’s a privilege of very few.
>The expense of Silicon Valley is largely down to growth policy, which is to say, they can’t build housing concomitant with demand.
I can't tell you how much this infuriates me. I actually heard a Mountain View city council member say, "Maybe we should tell Google that they can't hire any more people." Meanwhile, the city is full of termite-ridden rotting apartment buildings just waiting for the next earthquake to pulverize them.
The R3 zoning district (all that orange on the map) allows fairly high density - FAR 1.05 maximum and upto >40 DU's per acre. [Mountainview, Ca, Code of Ordinances, Chapter 36 Article XII available at www.municode.com]
However, the primary land subdivision pattern of many small lots (and consequently many owners) makes assembling parcels suitable for redevelopment at higher densities not just expensive, but difficult.
Furthermore, existing high rents mean that the value of the land based on existing cashflows may make redevelopment infeasible once the cost of new construction and land acquisition is amortized and the higher returns associated with the risk of development must be paid.
Obsolescent housing (and other structures) remain because they are profitable and can be valued on an existing income basis and thus traded with known risk.
Higher density projects may be possible, but the market may not be able to absorb the units if the rents are significantly higher - and of course, higher rents are also likely to be untenable for voters as well.
I don't think that's the issue. Look through the R4 zones on the sunnyvale zoning map. http://sunnyvale.ca.gov/Departments/CommunityDevelopment/Map... Almost every one of those is a beautiful new (tall) building that efficiently uses the space, and the plots aren't huge.
As one of said engineers I don’t see how my employer is undercutting me by paying only twice the median, plus bennies.
Your employer would probably pay you more if you had true freedom to take your labour to another company. Your employer seems to have agreed to a cartel to limit your ability to sell your labour.
If your employer is paying below market rate, he's screwing you, no matter how the market-rate for your skills compares to the median. Being a privilege to work somewhere doesn't make the screwing less wrong.
If they are suppressing the median for your job in that location then they are.
If its a very expensive place then your not making "good" money everything is relative -) and ok we re probably all better of than some black single mom in some decaying Rustbelt city it doesn't make it right for your employer to beak the law.
The expense of Silicon Valley is largely down to growth policy, which is to say, they can’t build housing concomitant with demand. Similarly here in NYC.
Making very good money in an very expensive place is not a struggle, it’s a privilege of very few.