[delucain]

From what the article says, the city fears losing control over its local government because Google employees would outnumber the rest of the voting citizenship. They seem to want to handle this addition of houses and infrastructure slowly, but if Google employees have a majority in the vote for local issues, they could move ahead as fast as Google wants, since it's in their best interest to keep their employer growing.

[CalRobert]

Good. Most of the peninsula is currently held in the grip of NIMBYs who hate trains, hate dense housing, and love freeways and environmentally damaging sprawl. Part of the reason SF costs so damn much is because it's so hard to have an urban lifestyle anywhere but those 49 square miles (and Berkeley and Oakland, which I quite like)

[polarix]

There is a reason to hate "trains" when it's fucking Caltrain with at-grade crossings and retarded federal rules about fucking horns all night long. Half the fucking Peninsula is unusable for sleeping as it is.

[khuey]

If Palo Alto/etc would get off their asses and support an economically feasible grade separation plan this could be fixed in under a decade.

[pm24601]

Oh you mean the horns that this mother ignored? http://www.ktvu.com/story/28181718/caltrain-service-shut-dow...

The horns are used to try to get people to not get killed.

[polarix]

Perhaps people who are driving could consider not driving around the railroad gate (which was working when the idiot in that article decided to commit suicide).

There are remarkably few good ways out for humans in our society, so this kind of spectacle is often what they end up resorting to.

[pm24601]

There is no indication that this mother intended to commit suicide.

[CalRobert]

I actually was thinking of CAHSR, but then again the streets are at-grade and nobody seems to mind those. I do sympathize about the horns, though.

[bduerst]

I agree. The duality of the "Let's preserve surburbia" while still wanting low rental/mortgages is a little staggering.

If you don't up the supply, the demand is just going to keep getting more intense.

[DannyBee]

Yes, Google employees have never held different views than their employer </s>

Basically, they are afraid the majority of the people they represent may actually make their voice heard in government.

What's next, complaining that if we build too much senior living, the old people might vote for what they want?

[Iftheshoefits]

You're assuming that a lot of Google's employees live in Mountain View, and that "a lot" is potentially a political vote majority. I'm not convinced it's a valid fear, if what that councilman said is a generally held sentiment. I've only lived in the bay area a few years, but it seems to me people commute quite a lot, and it's not unheard of for San Jose residents to work in S.F. or any point between, in the east bay, etc.

Even so, the other fear, which I distill to a sentiment of fear that Mountain View will become a city that is more business and less residence/public space, is one that has more merit.

[ZanyProgrammer]

Commuting to the Googleplex from Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, and large parts of San Jose isn't that far.

[pm24601]

10% of Mountain View residents are Googlers.

[nsnick]

This is a good thing. Maybe if there is a google voting block, they can build high density housing, and extend BART into San Mateo County and make BART ring the bay.

[JoeAltmaier]

This is true of any small town near a giant corporate campus. Look at Fayetteville AK and WalMart - the old town is a few broken-down houses and shops, next to rows of 1500-person condo units that march across the corn fields like dominoes.

What to do about it? Sell out, move I guess. Google wants your land after all.