This is just so wrong. From a fundamental point of principle Apple's job is to make phones. The government then taxes Apple and decides how to spend that money. This is a direct attack on democracy - Apple has successfully lobbied to remove the taxes that would provide basic provisions like affordable housing and is now stepping in to choose which parts of the state it wants and which bits it doesn't. Yet more power transferred to Apple, and 0 accountability.
Massive deregulation would solve the housing problem quickly.<p>When you have demand and you legislate to prevent supply from meeting that demand, prices inflate and potential buyers get priced out of the market.<p>Let them build!
If only there was a trivially simple policy that is nearly guaranteed to work, that has worked everywhere it was tried, like removing zoning restrictions ... If only the most obvious things were possible ...
<i>Nearly 30,000 people left San Francisco between April and June of this year1 and homeownership in the Bay Area is at a seven-year low.2</i><p>This is how things should work, as people leave and/or are not willing to live in California, employers will start opening offices in other parts of the US.<p>If cities in California find that they can’t hire enough qualified teachers, policemen, firefighters, etc., they will have to pay more.
Apple, Facebook and Google should be investing in new office space in other regions. They created these problems by hiring more people than the Bay Area could support. Lots of great talent will move to other places if the jobs are there.
I wonder if the real incentive here (for Google and Apple) isn't "civic duty", but more of an attempt to retain Silicon Valley's reputation as being some sort of "Mecca" for tech workers?
I find it so ironic how much convergence US enterprises got with Chinese business models now.<p>In China, all and every large company is a real estate company. Baidu has real estate, Tencent has real estate, Ping An has real estate. Pretty much any large conglomerate is.<p>It is almost scary to see how much businesses in China are, in reality, just front covers for their real estate investments operation.<p>It remind me a bit the situation in mid-200X America, when every big company was a bank in disguise
Housing is generally expensive everywhere in California. I know the Bay Area is even more expensive still, but pricing is a major concern beyond the local economy.<p>If their first-time home buyer assistance eliminates all down payments it would be helpful. This is what got me into my house as an owner, but then the total value of my house where I live is the equivalent to half a garage in San Jose.