As we looked at examples of gentrification in San Francisco, it reminded me of what is happening in our community. A lot of times we only focus on the larger, more populated cities - which causes us to ignore and bypass issues that happen next door to us. Mountain View is evolving. A few years ago, apartments were fairly more reasonable and available for a wider range of individuals. That has all changed with the introduction of big technology companies.
Mountain View has becoming an increasingly wealthy city - it is in the center of the Silicon Valley technology boom. We are home to companies like Google, thus making a lot of their workers want to live in the surrounding area. While this brings with it a lot of benefits, it also brings with it a crisis: displacement. The demand for houses in this area is surpassing the supply, creating a shortage.
The median rent in Mountain View has almost doubled since 2010, rising from $2,000 to about $4,151 a month. Additionally, the median home value is about $1.8 billion. These constantly increasing values are pushing the low-income residents of Mountain View out of their homes and welcoming the rich, technology workers.
This leads to a decrease in the diversity of Mountain View. A large percentage of low-income residents or the working class are compromised of ethnic minorities. Many of them are having to move to more affordable areas or RVs.
And I know I have seen the RVs, lined up by Rengstorff Park. Mountain View police has logged 300 RVs that server as people's primary residents. However, Mountain View has opted to ban the RVs from parking in public areas.
I value the diversity of our school and our area. If this continues, the community will no longer be the same. So what happens now?
Sources: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-google-mountain-view-rv-living-20190522-story.html
I wonder how our economy is being impacted as there are less people in the area to work the less skilled jobs. As we keep furthering into the shift of gentrification, how extreme are our cultural differences going to get? The school system will especially get impacted. I know in East Palo Alto, the kids of the people moving in are more likely to chose private and charter schools over public schools, which lower the population of the schools and thus the funding. This does not appear to be happening at Los Altos High and Mountain View as much, but it is very prevelent in East Palo Alto, schools have been closing.
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting post to read and reflect on how our community has truly changed to be more welcoming to the wealthy, and to an extent, block out the low income minorities. I definitely think that the Santa Clara county turned into a bubble for the housing market, where homes were climbing up to 3 million dollars in some areas. However, it seems that the housing market is beginning to cool down, as median sale prices for Santa Clara County dropped 1.6 percent compared to June of 2018 in 2019. I hope that the housing market can cool off so more lower income families can afford to live here and bring more diversity to our community.
ReplyDeletehttps://sf.curbed.com/2019/7/29/8935133/home-prices-santa-clara-sonoma-median-decline-housing-bubble