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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.
Now can we start tearing down research labs to build more NFL stadia...at the taxpayers' expense, of course.
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."