Last week, the San Jose City Council voted to start negotiations with Google to sell the company 23 acres of city owned land near the Diridon Caltrain Station. The purchase is part of Google’s plan to build a massive transit oriented village that would include six to eight million square feet of office and retail space and bring up to 20,000 Google employees to the city. Community activists are concerned about pressures the development may exert on wages and housing prices and the overall impact it may have on San Jose’s culture. In this hour, we’ll learn about Google’s possible San Jose campus and we want to hear from you — if your town is home to a large company — what are the benefits and drawbacks?
Guests:
Kim Walesh, director of economic development and deputy city manager, city of San Jose
Jeffrey Buchanan, director of public policy, Working Partnerships USA
Richard Florida, director of cities, Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto; author, ‘The New Urban Crisis.’