Afternoon Must-Read: Timothy B. Lee: NIMBYism Is Holding Back Silicon Valley and the American Economy

…The Mountain View City Council has been unenthusiastic about Google’s plans to build a new headquarters… worried about the traffic, and about further development changing the character of their city… that Google employees could become a majority of the city’s voter base…. Other technology companies in the region have also faced resistance from not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) advocates. The result: not only is the Valley failing to deal effectively with growing congestion and soaring housing costs, these myopic local policies could end up hampering the country’s most important driver of economic growth. So what looks like a local issue has broader implications…