Conversation

“Palo Alto — and you can find this data in the census — is increasingly an aging, silver retirement community. It's either — you bought in the seventies, eighties or nineties, or you struck it rich on the startup lottery. I know our town can be a hell of a lot more than that.”

Quote Tweet

Palo Alto Weekly

@paloaltoweekly

· Nov 28, 2020

As he enters his final weeks in office, #PaloAlto Mayor Adrian Fine discusses his frustrations with local leadership, hobbled quests to build more housing and hopes for future council members to move the city forward. paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/11/2

274

Jesse Powell

@jespow

Dec 1, 2020

What’s wrong with it being just what it is? Presumably, it is acceptable for some place to be an aging, silver retirement community. Why not Palo Alto? Being “more” would be something different, which sounds like it’s at odds with the retirement community vibe residents enjoy.

Kim-Mai Cutler

@kimmaicutler

Dec 2, 2020

there are costs to everyone else:

techcrunch.com

East Of Palo Alto’s Eden: Race And The Formation Of Silicon Valley

What if Silicon Valley had emerged from a racially integrated community? Would the technology industry be different? Would we? And what can the technology industry do now to avoid repeating the...

Kim-Mai Cutler

@kimmaicutler

Dec 2, 2020

there are costs to the entire economy, on the order of trillions of dollars a year

bloomberg.com

The Urban Housing Crunch Costs the U.S. Economy About $1.6 Trillion a Year

For the first time, economists have put a price tag on restrictive urban land use policies.

Jesse Powell

@jespow

Replying to

@kimmaicutler

Why is Palo Alto responsible for the entire economy? Nobody has to go there if they don't want to. How can one city be creating trillions of dollars of debt for the rest of the world? Should we wall it off?

9:52 PM · Dec 2, 2020Twitter Web App

Replying to

Palo Alto is the birthplace of Silicon Valley. People don't have to go there, but this behavior in aggregate from our highest opportunity areas costs GDP >$1 trillion a year. Knowledge economies are agglomeration economies; they grow faster w/ more serendipitous interactions.

Jesse Powell

@jespow

Dec 2, 2020

Not everyone values GDP or serendipitous interactions though. If the people of PA don't value those things, why should it be forced on them? Lots of people retire to low movement areas to get away from what comes with that stuff.

Show replies