[kindatrue]

>they could easily afford to buy the empty Vallco site and build housing for their employees, who could then walk to the Spaceship

You do know that the voters of Cupertino elected to their city council the person who posted on NextDoor that allowing Apple employees to live at Vallco would result in more high school prostitution right?

https://twitter.com/HousingValley/status/1154781703262498816

[Google234]

No joke but I know of an Apple employee with a HS girlfriend (underaged). If you go to Berkeley CS you’d know.

[specialist]

Moral panic driven land use policy. Nice.

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

[jrockway]

This is just a minor defect in democracy; representatives are chosen by people that already live there, so there is no strong electoral incentive to advocate for new residents. Sure, they will get more property tax revenue which pays for ... everything ... but, if you already have enough, you don't really want more. I don't think anyone in Cupertino is suffering from lack of government services, so there isn't a strong reason to vote in change.

I think people are also irrationally afraid that building new housing will drive down the price of their existing housing, but do we really see that happen? (Why do real estate prices always go up? Because people will be stubborn and not sell their home for less than they paid, unless there is a Detroit-like crisis, which Cupertino is definitely not in danger of. At that point, things like the federal prime rate are really what put a damper on housing prices, not Apple employees moving into apartments built on a vacant lot.)

To some extent, everyone is aware of these factors, which is why California said "enough is enough" and moved some control to the state level.

[AlbertCory]

I thought you meant Steve Scharf for a second there.

[astrange]

Steve Scharf instead just said they should build a wall around Cupertino and make San Jose pay for it.

[AlbertCory]

He's actually someone I've known for a long time, so I was hugely amused to see him become a national figure (as it were).