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Three Things The Bay Area Needs To Fix

Over the course of 2013, if you work in technology (and startups) and live in the Bay Area, you probably noticed a few things. The traffic is getting considerably worse. Public transportation (when it’s working) is more crowded. New buildings and rents are going up. The profits at large, Valley-based technology companies are rising. In fact, if you look around the world, it’s high tech and the Bay Area that are providing the only real source of growth in international markets — hence the flood of all new types of capital engulfing the Bay Area.

Along with it, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, is what appears to be a never-ending stream of socio-commentary about how the Bay Area is out of touch, how this is a bubble, how Silicon Valley is the new Wall Street, and so on and so on. I’m not here to argue the merits of these positions, but the angst behind them is very real. On a national level, scores of jobs are not coming back, and many people are unemployed, underwater, in debt, and broken down. On a hyper-local level, the Bay Area is also undergoing massive change, but of a different variety: gentrification, new construction, congestion, rising rents, poor housing turnover, and the list goes on.

There are real problems on a national level, and unfortunately, I don’t know how to solve them — I’ll try to write more on this later in the year. I need to really think about it. But, in terms of the Bay Area, I have identified three (3) huge risks that I believe must be addressed so that the ecosystem can continue to thrive as it has for over 50 years. I’ll be brief here in my prescriptions, since analysis can often just lead to paralysis, but I will also be clear — I believe all three of these issues *must* be addressed and the likely driver for them will be the fortunate titans of the technology industry:

  1. Increased Affordable Housing: The region has plenty of land, but zoning restrictions and other laws make it harder to build new habitations. A large portion of these need to be allocated for affordable housing. I will rest my case by the fact that both Google and Facebook have purchased private property near their campuses with a goal of converting that land into housing units for employees. People are going to continue to rush here because there are so few opportunities elsewhere. I have heard stories of Starbucks baristas who commute over three hours a day to work in the city in order to keep their healthcare.
  2. Unified Public Transit: The ass-backwardness of Caltrain not smoothly interoperating with BART and SF Muni stifles urban agglomeration and puts extra strain on the region and will come back to bite it in the rear, big time. Once affordable housing is increased, how will all these people get around? Not by the current system, that much is true. It’s time the powers in the state come together and expand and unify the systems, increase capacity, and modernize with a heavy hand. Yes, it will inconvenience some people, but the status quo will just eat away at all the gains the region has made.
  3. Increased Arterial Roadways: Improved public transit will relieve some pressure on the system, but the choke points getting in and out of the main city are too narrow to keep up with the demand. They need to be widened. People in Marin should be able to get to the Valley without stopping at lights in the city. People in the East Bay should be able to get to SFO without being choked into two lanes as they meander through the Civic Center.

Three things. If policymakers and the wealthy focused on this, many things would follow. I know there are many, many other problems — and they are real: Prop 13, decline in social services, losing our coastal parks, etc. I don’t mean to diminish them. But, let’s focus on a few from which many things will get better. Three things only. Now, who is going to do this? That’s the billion-dollar question. It will take a just a very small group of people, some tech luminaries who have done well and want to give back, paired with some savvy policy hands who can make sure these visions become a reality. I sincerely hope it happens.