No Coding in Palo Alto? City Takes On Silicon Valley Growth (siliconbeat.com)

An anonymous reader writes:The birthplace of Hewlett Packard and Xerox Parc and founding place of Facebook is now considering whether to enforce a zoning regulation banning firms whose "primary business is research and development, including software coding," according to the New York Times. As the Times wrote, "To repeat: The mayor is considering enforcing a ban on coding at ground zero of Silicon Valley." Palo Alto Mayor Patrick Burt told the Times: Big tech companies are choking off the downtown. It's not healthy. Palo Alto is a software capital. It has also become a company town, with Palantir Technologies renting 20 downtown buildings, as Marisa Kendall wrote. Other notable tech firms there include Tesla, SAP, Flipboard, VMWare and many others. It has become a center for automation and cars and is home to Ford's research and development center.

Comments

Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

No company that's not involved with tech is going to pay Palo Alto rent and have to employ people at Palo Alto wages so they can afford to live. It only works with tech.

Re:Lol

[sabri]

Do they really think their downtown will improve by kicking all the jobs out of it?

It's time to make Silicon Valley a Silicon Desert.

Look at the City of San Francisco. They want all the tech companies to come in, giving lots of tax breaks and other incentives so they can pride themselves on having all this innovation. But then they complain about all the tech workers coming in and living in the city. Then they complain about buses picking up workers. Did you ever hear a greenie complain about people using a bus? Well, go to SF.

Palo Alto is doing the same thing now. They want all the tech money, but not the tech companies. And watch them whining when large companies decide to move out.

Just imagine Cisco, Google, Facebook and Apple deciding to move out of the area completely, with all their workers. Imagine how many mortgages will be under water, how many folks will lose their jobs, how many tax revenue these cities will have to do without.

Palo Alto should shut the F up really quick.

Re:Lol

[AuMatar]

The government isn't the one complaining. they're happy to have the company busses and are renting the bus stops to them. THe people complaining are low income/long term residents being priced out in rent- the bus complaints are just another factor of the rent complaints.

Re:Lol

[wierd_w]

What's the difference between a city and an industrial park?

One has residents, and infrastructure for residents. The other does not.

I did not read TFA, (it's traditional), but it sounds like this mayor wants to do the following:

1) light commercial zones must not be exploited for yet more satellite office buildings, and needs to stay as strip malls, gas stations, dollar general stores, et al.

2) satellite office construction projects will have to seek different zoning from light commercial, to avoid having the problems proposal 1) seeks to address.

The headline sounds sensational-- "oh noes! Coders not welcome in Palo alto!"

I read him differently. "People actually live in Palo alto. They need to be able to buy gas and groceries without having to drive all the way to San jose. Light commercial zoning currently covers both the circle k, and pallantir's new office building. There is only so much real estate in Palo alto. Only so much of that can be light commercial. Only so much of the limited light commercial property can be office buildings, if people are going to live in Palo alto, they need light commercial that actually sells products, like a circle k does. We want to make it so new office proposals do not eliminate all other forms of light commercial, no matter how much money they have to wave around."

Solution: build some buildings

[ShanghaiBill]

In the past, many cities dealt with excessive demand for existing space by creating more space. The most obvious way to do this is to build taller buildings. We need to find a way to sideline the NIMBYs and BANANAs so that core cities can grow again, instead of sprawling into the suburbs.

Re:Why would you want tech companies in the downto

[jfdavis668]

Downtown in most cities is where businesses are. Wall street is downtown. The US Capital is downtown. Detroit used to have factories downtown. Downtown isn't the shopping district, except where all the businesses left and they made it a shopping district to save it from abandonment.

Does Zoning Abrogate First Amendment?

[31415926535897]

This is what I've never quite understood: why does it seem that zoning laws are allowed to ignore constitutional freedoms? Banning research and development, "including software coding" would seem to ignore the right to free speech, free assembly and the right to privacy (if it's my property and I'm not doing anything dangerous toward my neighbors, why does the city care what I'm doing inside?)

Look, I understand that we don't want coal factories building next to residences. That all makes sense to me, and I could see an argument that this doesn't restrict constitutional freedom. But where does a city get off telling a person they can't run a business (e.g. sole proprietorship) out of their home?

So while I'm afraid that Palo Alto could follow through on this threat, it boggles the mind how it could in the USA. I also think it would be royally dumb for them to kick out all of these businesses too, but that's a different discussion.

Re:Wow, Commiefornia!

[Crashmarik]

That is tremendously unconstitutional.

While I appreciate the point, it's no more unconstitutional than any other zoning ordnance or land use regulation.

That said, it's a perfect demonstration of why you want government to have as little power as possible.

Re:Wow, Commiefornia!

[Crashmarik]

Works for Houston

http://thefederalist.com/2016/...

As to your point, I just love the idea of the politically connected driving me from my home or destroying my business.