Californians are, perhaps unfairly, notorious for being shallow. This is reflected in, for instance, the story of the California homeowner who wanted his expensive solar panels installed on the side of his roof that faced the street so that they could be seen, rather than having them installed on the more efficient side that faced the sun, but was hidden from the street.

Politically, this manifests as fervent support for causes that seem good on the surface but have dire unintended consequences.

To be fair to Californians, the California constitution is a mess, and incentivizes a kind of aggressive crazy politics.

If you really want to know details (you don't want to know details), here are some articles by locals.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221006202807/https://www.press...

https://web.archive.org/web/20180113084809/https://www.ocreg...

Even more https://duckduckgo.com/?q=california+politics+is+a+mess&ia=e...

> Also, being Sillicon Valley one of the most productive places on earth, why companies don't involve themselves in politics about housing and city planning?

Occasionally they do but the main power bloc in rich urban/suburban California is homeowners whose property taxes have been essentially frozen at low rates as their home values have skyrocketed. Anything the companies would do politically to help solve the issue immediately runs up against older voters who are well-organized and have nothing but time on their hands and huge amounts of equity in their homes.

This companies can burn cash like crazy. If they hire some smart consultants they can build a situation where the narrative would be current homeowners VS everyone else.

I don't have much experience but even I can do. I don't think the US is short of this people nor this companies short of cash to burn.

And they would do something good for once.

Edit: I remember watching documentaries about SV engineers living in vans ffs. I could get my life almost settled with a couple of years of such salaries.

Burning cash is not enough, and in many cases is counterproductive -- the takeaway is "Big Tech is trying to buy their way into our communities."

To be fair, that also explains almost the whole of Britain.

San Francisco is known for being one of the most progressive areas in the country, and there's a common belief that progressive government policies led to the situation they are now facing.

Before anyone responds looking to argue, I'm not saying whether it's true or false, just stating that that's the perception.

Progressives cluster in dense areas (and/or perhaps density causes progressiveness), and density also causes greater NIMBYism. It doesn't necessarily follow that progressivism causes NIMBYism.

The mistake is that on municipal and land use issues it's a two axis political system.

It's not left/right, it's also urbanist/conservationist.

You will find those on both the left and right that for various ideological reasons end up at the same point of wanting to obstruct new housing creation.

I see. Is there overlap between "progressives" and "housing nimbys" in the US?

Yes, both directly (NIMBYism is generally worse in liberal areas) and indirectly (density makes everything harder and more complicated).

There's overlap of both progressives and NIMBYS and conservatives and NIMBYS.

Just as there are progressive YIMBYS and "conservative" (usually labelled "market urbanist") YIMBYS.

The left/right axis is inadequate to describe the dynamics of municipal politics. You need a second urbanist/conservationist axis to describe support or opposition for housing development.

left-nimby's, as they're called, obstruct housing with price controls and other uneconomical demands on housing producers and buyers. Often they reject projects out-of-hand if they show any possibility of making a profit.

Silicon Valley's problems derive from the incredible income inequalities which derives in part by 1) land use decisions (which include artificially low taxes (ie. prop-13)).

Problems are caused by the rich and established of SV desiring exclusive enclaves of single family homes and not wanting any normal income earning renters to live near them.

People that move elsewhere and maintain this attitude will simply induce the same problems again.