SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the need-more-land-where-the-water-is dept.
California's Central Valley is best known for supplying nearly 25% of the country's food, including 40% of the fruit and nuts consumed each year. Yet today, backcountry places such as Patterson, population 22,000, are experiencing an increase in homelessness that can be traced, in part, to an unlikely sounding source: Silicon Valley.
The million-dollar home prices about 85 miles west, in San Francisco and San Jose, have pushed aspiring homeowners to look inland. Patterson's population has doubled since the 2000 census. Average monthly rents have climbed from about $900 in 2014 to nearly $1,600 in recent months, according to the apartment database Rent Jungle, compounding the hardships of the foreclosure crisis, the shuttering of several local agricultural businesses and surging substance abuse rates.
"The rents in Patterson are crazy," said Romelia Wiley, program manager of the local not-for-profit organization Community Housing & Shelter Services. "Why? I-5."
The freeway offers commuters access to high-paying job centers near the coast, and the number of people commuting to the Bay Area from the portion of the Central Valley that includes Patterson more than doubled between 1990 and 2013, to about 65,000 people, or at least 15% of the local workforce, according to an analysis by the University of the Pacific.
Why don't they build up instead of out?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @09:36AM (4 children)
Free Wi-Fi for the homeless! All that internet advertising will surely motivate them to just stop being poor and spend money.
Blanket every underpass with signal! Get the google balloons flying! Anything and everything to connect every consumer to the avarice network! Greed will solve homelessness as soon as the homeless see all the trendy crap they don't have!
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Tuesday April 18 2017, @11:09AM
Free Wi-Fi for the homeless! All that internet advertising will surely motivate them to just stop being poor and spend money.
There's a much better solution to the problem [youtube.com] available.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 18 2017, @01:28PM (1 child)
Get the google balloons flying!
I think you are on to something. Build a small place and take of into a balloon. No ground rent needed..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @04:14PM
Been done before [imdb.com].
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Thursday April 20 2017, @02:20AM
Hey! avarice is MY router's hostname. Don't send them here!
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!