Timing is a beautiful thing. Here at The Left Hook, when we see things falls into place – particularly about the issues we feel will deeply affect the quality of life for residents in the Bay Area – we lay a quick garland at the altar of Providence, and then get to work.
A recent Mercury News article talked about Seattle’s love/hate relationship with its newest tenant, Amazon, and in doing so, laid out a cautionary tale for how the City of San Jose will engage Google as they resettle the Diridon Station area with a mega-campus of 20,000 workers. Lots more in the coming months on this project, but for now, put a pin on the fact that the Mayor’s Office has been opposed to negotiating with Google on a broader package of benefits (sometimes known as a Community Benefits Agreement) for the community (beyond what they may be statutorily required to pay) before selling the land.
A recent San Jose Inside post talked about San Jose City Council debate over how to finance “urban villages” – the city’s latest effort to manage the housing crisis here in the South Bay by focusing future development in dense clusters of mixed-used, transit-linked neighborhoods.
So what is the connection between the two, besides the fact that both concepts, (if and) when implemented, stand to add more users to our already impacted transportation systems, further burden our already scarce (and ridiculously overpriced) housing inventory, amongst other things?
That is for us to know and you to find out…
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