Pears, peaches, prunes. It was called the valley of hearts delight. The weather was good, and it was beautiful. You could have gone upi] in the hills of cupertino and looked down. There are some famous paintings made up there during that period. You could5a look down in the valley and its just a sea of blossoms. Cupertino and itsfa neighbors sunnyvale anwa Mountain View would soon grow to crowd out the blossoms and replace theme1 with very different industries. Extraordinary things happen here but you dont really notice them. Its all very lowkey. And soul of Silicon Valley. Jf by the 1950s this is the epicenter of the digital revolution. In the mid 1950s Lockheed Martin moved to sunnyvale to open a missiles system division. Mary wattin is the author of Silicon Valley in pictures. She says hightech brought early traffic jams. rj photo is very interesting to me because its rush hour in the 1960s and this is lockheeds campus. You can see all the farmland around it. And thenxd this is just a line of cars leaving work to go home. Thefaq department of defense was the First Venture capitalist of the area. They were the ones that initially paid for all of the research and development to createt this new technology. And then they were also the end customer. An÷ that allowed for the industry to grow at such aq rapid pace. Within a decade sunnyvale,x cupertino and Mountain Viewni became a crossroads for inn ation says historian mike malone. Where bernardo meets fremont meets 85 an anonymous empty intersection full ofxd ce plant andco not much else. In a given afternoon in the late 1960s you would have seen Steve Wozniak riding homet from e1hery chase supz club practice. You would have seen ted hoff turning off because he lived right at that corner. And youco would have seen bob ni noyes racing home in los altos. At that intersection you would have had the inventor of theq integrated circuit, the inventore1 of the microprocessor, the inventor of the personal computer all in one spot. In spite of that int w3 an interview with the Silicon ValleyHistorical Association steve jobs recalled an early productni to tap into Telephone Networks illegally. The First Digital blue box in the world. It was the magic of the fact that two teenagers could build this box for 100 worth of parts and control hundreds of billions mo dollars offa infrastructure in the entire Telephone Network in the whole world. We had the sense of magic that wydwacould sort ofjf influence th1 world. Cupertino today is known around the world as the home of apple. Mountain view is known as wheree1 google is headquartered. Thergrowth ofq both corporations and communities haszv generated new zvrelationships and friction. Quick question. I think people are curious as to know what the City Residents can largest taxpayer ine1 cupertino. So wed like to continue to stay here and paye1nifaj thats number one. Okay. Because if wei] cante1 then we have to go somewhere like Mountain View and we ,q our current peoplee1 with us and wed give up and over yearse1 sell the land here and the largest tax base would got away. The success of the hightecht sector has put pressure on the valleys housing and transportation systems. Inq 1970 people were complaining that all the orchards were getting cut down and this place wasnt the paradise it usedi]q to be. I] 20 years later people were saying this traffics r unbearable. And then housing prices. People wereco complaining when housing prices around here broke 100,000 for a suburban ranche1 house. Stillq the growth of Silicon Valley hasnt always been conqrstent. East palo alto is down thex hc street from facebooks headquarters but feels its residents work there. East palo alto was always an anomaly because it never really developed the samei] kind of infrastructure that we saw in the rest of the towns of the south bay. It neverok participated in the boom. East palo altoe1 may be one of the last few affordable places in the valley. Thats changing. It has to ch9n9nt first of all, theres too many people trying to get into this town. All you have to do is go out on 680 in thlp morning and lookjf at the traffic trying to get inton. silicon w3valley. Already the median home price in East Palo Alto is nearl . a qok 550,000, up 16 in the last year. Inco unnyvale and Mountain View its double, at 1. 2 million. In cupertino the median home price 1. 6 million. The valley has attracted diverse communities. East palo alto is 65 latino sunnyvale 40 asian and 18 latino. And cocupertino, 63 asian. And ive even predicted that the face of Silicon Valley in 2020, 2025, is going to be an indian woman. I really believe that. I think thats the next great wave of ceos is indian women. Joining me now to discuss the 11m facing their cities are cupertinot mayor rod sinks, jim griffith, mayor ofe1 sunna0p e Lisa Gauthier, mayor of East Palo Alto, and John Mcalister mayor of Mountain View. E1 mayors, thanks for being. With us. You all have differentw3 cities with similar problems, one of which is hous zy which manifests in different way jim, tell us about your city. Theres not enough housing. There isnt. There definitely isnt. Rental and right now what were seeing is some places wherei] the rents are going up 25 in a single year. This has the effect of driving the middle and lower class out of thee12ckty because they simply cant afford it anymore. So whate1 does that mean for the quality of life there . I] people have to commute. Absolutely. I was sitting on somebodys porch and they were telling me about one of their friends that lived in sunnyvale and worked at a fast food restaurant. He was forced to move to tracy and as at result hes now living cyjddy in tracy commuting to sunnyvale because there are no jobs in tracy and no housing ini] sunnyvale. When you change the dynamic so that somebody instead of commuting 3 miles is commuting 60 miles that has a dramatic effect on transportation, for i] instance. And what about in cupertino . I assume its the same thing. Yeah absolutely. We have a lot off 1m coming in looking for housing. Our vaunted School System is a big draw. And people pay a premium to live in Cupertino School districts. But the housing is certainly challe org. And were also experiencing these large jumpsqcjez rent. Andlp so the solution tot high prices is moreq housing. To what extent john, e1in say, Mountain View are you building more housing . Can you possibly build enough housing . sn we just completed our general plan and part of the general plan we identified five growth areas. A lot of it was along transit el camino ori] caltrans. So when were putting these developments coming in were encouraging the developers or anybody to put inw3ni highdensity housing to go along withnr transportation. Weve seen a lot of generality riff kaigs as theyre talkingni move out. We have a 65 w3 rental and 35 ownership. Everybodys competing for space. We have google when they come in if a new complex comes in they will renxr out of 200 maybe theyll rent 50 units out of that and theyll give it to their employees to help for the housing shortage. Which therefore makes it less supply for people fory2uju tk else. And they also get a housing allowance. So it makes it toughok to compete with them. Lisa you have a different problem or different situatione in east paloddy alto. For many years it was the last affordable enclave really on the peninsula. Thatst nico really changing. Give us a sense of how fast its changing and what it means. Youre qk 9n the way that the Housing Market is going now, things are people are being priced out of the community. And its really unfortunate that that isnb4shappening. You have the Tech Industry and people that are coming in, and i can remember when my mother bought her house years ago, i think she paid 18,000 for that home. Right now homes are going for 500,000, 600,000. Which is good for a homeowner because anytime your Property Value is increasing its good for you. But its really affecting the renters who are being priced out of the community. Middle income lowincome people, when you have the Tech Industry thats pushing and and we dont want to displace people. And i would imagine a lot of longtime homeowners have cashed out and left. Kwg that has been a big thing that has happened. People have looked at the fact that you can get some additional money and move to a different . area. Some people that have moved from East Palo Alto and gone to tracy and stockton and found theyre there and they cant come back, they wish they could come back but they cant. Theyre priced out. Theyre priced out. In San Francisco theres been a lot of pressure on renters and many people getti. I evicted because the owner wants to listt it onxd air bnb or do something to it to basically free it up. 7n because we have rent control in this city. What about in your cities . Toxd what extent are rentersni being actually pushed out t qq their units . We have somebody wbol11 put in ai]e1 brand new classaq apartment complex and theyll set the bar,co its like 4,000 for a twobedroom unit. Wellu get this other apartment complex thats been around for 30 years. They dont have to do anything to improve their property but they can keep jacking up the rents because the higher markets pushing it up. And so were just its tough out there for those people. What about in sunnyvale . Its pretty much the3w same. The other problem were seeing is a lot of new construction of housing is being aimed at those particular demographics, particularly corporate housing. Theres 650 new units being3w built within 750 feetnr of where i live. And all of u to what extent are these companies, o[google, apple, saying, well, if you improve our expansion plans well build some housing or well goe1 into a partnership with a housing developer . I think googl d did that in Mountain View. Part of their deal for the new development for north e1 bayshore, they said if you approve certain psuj j theyll do that. But we cant build enough housing to take care of the demand of whats going on. And one of the solutions is were trying to get those Big Companies to work on transportationjf ssues so that by going throughout the region sing becomes more attainable. Its not affordable. Affordable is a misnomer now. Its either subsidized ore1 attainable. And for rent stabilization in East Palo Alto we do have a rent Stabilization Program so it helps a lot of the residents. But the problem with rent stabilization and affordability is that under the rent stabilization plan once somebody moves outx jt that unit its noe1 longer they noehoonger keep it underjf that. It therefore goes to market rate. Sometimes this problem is described as a jobshousing imbalance. Right . But its really just a housing shortage. But its also this explosion of jobs. I mean, is it possible we could debt to the point where get to the point where wew3 just cant accommodate more jobs . I dont think that will happen. I must say for facebook i know they justt purchased like a certain number of some land in menlo park with the idea of building homes. Now its going to take some time. They wont have it next year. But the fact that at least theyre thinking about and they know how theyre affecting the region they know they need to excuse me create housing. Yeah. But there are limits. I mean,co Mountain View andt sunnyvale are builtout cities. We dont have any vacant land available. So now all of the development that happens is denseification. Andq theres only so much the infrastructure can support in termsnr of that whether its transit or utilities or even ni toq um 9 son what weret seeing now isco shifting, the singlefamily neighborhoods stay the same but we see certainly ymqi 1 densifying and other portions of industrial being converted to high density housing in order to try to achievei] a better balance. You know, it was interesting, that clip from steve jobs at the city council trying to convince the Cupertino City Council to approve his plans for the expansion. To what extent do you feel that in some ways these companies are i dont want to say extorting you but theyre sort of like give us what we want or else. I think the companies are bringing substantial value to our communities. I xdmean ifni we look at apples contribution to our budget overall it may be on the order of 30 or so. And that comes through jfwhat . It comes through sales tax. It comes through property tax. Xd it comes through negotiated agreements such as we did at t 3 time that 1e1 apple campus 2 was approved. But the challenges that come with that growth, particularly in transit,jf particularly in funding, you talked about the pressures housing,sa ande1 they create pressures on our schools. In cupertino were a revenue limit district in the elementary school. Which meansok fawhat . Which means werexd funded at the floor of all schools in the state. And the High School District is not much above that which we share w so theset pressures to build more ande1e1 more housing become issues for our residents who would like to have our schools better supported. And thats a basic challenge. What do you expect from these companies in termsxd offa housing Corporate Citizenship . I mean what do you want from themfa that theyre not giving . Or are they giving arexd they being good corporate citizens already . Jf ohn . Well in Mountain View we have google we have linkedin we havefa intuit microsoft, allok in there. And what theyre giving back to the community when you were talkingniok earlier about ransom we have so many people so many businesses want to come to Mountain View that we dont feel like its a ransom. Its just you haveco to come to us and prove what you can do for the Community Benefits for us. And that could be helping the schools, helping the transit, helpingi]co the freeways helping q housing wifi,ni infrastructure, all these different things. So were not feeling that as a deterrent for those people to come along. What theyre doing is their Community Benefits, they are helping usq in some regards and well see how it goes. Lisa, its different for East Palo Alto. Its different for East Palo Alto because although were in Silicon Valley we dont benefit from the companies. Growth is happening outside of palo t alto. Part of that, we cant develop becauseaw2q lack of water. Thats something we faceko in our community right now. As i look and ilp see all the different cities i seercik mni going up and development actually happening but were not experiencing that right now. But you are seeing the Property Values go up. We are benefiting from the propertyxd values. Yes indeed. And are you seeing we talked about the diversityok of Silicon Valley in all of your nr cities. Palo alto historically was aok primarily africanamerican city,u now its 65 latino. To what extent are you seeing eahat beginning to change . Thats part of the beauty of being in East Palo Alto. Weve always been e1multicultural. Weve grown to this multicultural community. And thats the beauty of it just to see all the different cultures coming in and just to be able to work together. It is changing. Every day you see somebody different in the community. But we celebrate that. Yeah. Jim, what about you . Sunnyvale. What are you getting out ofn o n15q companies . Were a little bit different because sunnyvale is as large as thelp other three cities combined. We have a very Diverse Market e1 place. We have google, apple, yahoo motorola, microsoft, you name it. Lockheed. Lockheed. E1 and were not as i donte1e1 want tow3 say captive but you have more options. We have a lot more options. So ournr focusxt rto be more demand. You know, if a business wants to come in and they want to bring in 2,000 workers, our answer to them is great, we love it please do itfa but we dont want 2,000 mor sow need to come up with ai] way to d iq 30 , 35 , whatever it is, of your employees to alternate means of transportation so that we can accommodate you. But is the trarmgs there, the infrastructure there . No, it definitely is not. We are largely driven by Valley Transportation Agency in terms of Public Transportation and unfortunately the way vta tends to work is they respond after the fact to demand. They dont proactively go out and develop Transportation Demandok or Transportation Solutions in advance. So what do these Companies Say when you say you need to figure out a wayt to divert your employees . Apple said great we will sign up for a 34 Transportation Demand plan. You know,e1 in the private sector our companies have been booming the last few years. Public sectornin hasnt kept up. Particul