"Downing and her husband, an attorney and programmer, respectively, say they simply could not afford to pay almost $150,000 per year for housing alone while starting a family in Palo Alto."
It's interesting the difference a couple of miles make. $150,000 per year is $12,500 a month. The most expensive house for rent in East Palo Alto (3 miles away) is $6,000 (half that) and there are many choices under $4,000 per month. They could live in Gilroy and ride the train for free[1] for around $3,000 a month. They could do even better if they decided to rent an apartment or a townhouse instead of a detached single family home.
Whining about not being able to afford to live in a neighborhood where multi-millionaires want to live is not very productive. Unlike San Francisco there are a lot of housing options up and down the peninsula, and since they work (or used to) in Palo Alto it is extremely close to the train station (so an easy "no drive") commute, which saves them even more because the City pays for their rail ticket and they don't have to buy gas.
It's interesting the difference a couple of miles make. $150,000 per year is $12,500 a month. The most expensive house for rent in East Palo Alto (3 miles away) is $6,000 (half that) and there are many choices under $4,000 per month. They could live in Gilroy and ride the train for free[1] for around $3,000 a month. They could do even better if they decided to rent an apartment or a townhouse instead of a detached single family home.
Whining about not being able to afford to live in a neighborhood where multi-millionaires want to live is not very productive. Unlike San Francisco there are a lot of housing options up and down the peninsula, and since they work (or used to) in Palo Alto it is extremely close to the train station (so an easy "no drive") commute, which saves them even more because the City pays for their rail ticket and they don't have to buy gas.
[1] https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/40...