Housing, water management, and a few other things come to mind.
Housing in the valley (and elsewhere in CA) is a problem and it has nothing to do with land shortage and everything to do with local politics preventing the use of that land. Housing prices are insane. This is not helped in any way by property taxes which are also very high. So you have an economy that is basically bottle necked on housing. A lot of venture capital goes straight to paying the rent instead of more innovative uses.
In the same way, it's kind of surprising that e.g. desalination plants are not already fully solving water shortages in LA and elsewhere in the state. Instead they seem to continue to insist on providing water from depleted sources for essentially close to free to their citizens while simultaneously struggling to keep the agriculture sector going. Agriculture is a big economic sector in CA and it's being held back by water availability. Water shortages are a huge problem throughout California and most of its population pretty much lives within miles of the Pacific. Yet, people install toilets in their home that flush gallons of drinking water from depleted sources into the sewer..
Roads are notoriously bad (maintenance issues, decades of neglect). Public transport in the Valley is a joke and subways are only a recent novelty in LA. Both cities are notorious for the level of difficulty of actually getting into them or around them by car.
There's a unifying theme here where a policy actively prevents meaningful progress on what are fundamentally not very challenging technical problems (providing housing, getting from A to B, having enough water, etc.). This is odd because tech is basically a core business of that state.
High speed rail around the valley could cut commute times to reasonable levels, get cars off the congested streets, and would allow people to commute in from way beyond the currently practical range. It solves a lot of real problems. But getting it done requires policy changes that are entirely reasonable but yet seemingly impossible. The total investment needed is substantial but comparatively small compared to the money made by unicorns across the valley. Why would you take a plane to LA when you can get there by rail in the time it takes to get to the airport, through security, etc. There's no good reason for not being able to get from downtown SFO to downtown LA in under 2 hours by rail. A few billion investment doesn't sound like it should be particularly hard in the VC epicenter of this planet. Money is not the issue. Policy is.
Housing in the valley (and elsewhere in CA) is a problem and it has nothing to do with land shortage and everything to do with local politics preventing the use of that land. Housing prices are insane. This is not helped in any way by property taxes which are also very high. So you have an economy that is basically bottle necked on housing. A lot of venture capital goes straight to paying the rent instead of more innovative uses.
In the same way, it's kind of surprising that e.g. desalination plants are not already fully solving water shortages in LA and elsewhere in the state. Instead they seem to continue to insist on providing water from depleted sources for essentially close to free to their citizens while simultaneously struggling to keep the agriculture sector going. Agriculture is a big economic sector in CA and it's being held back by water availability. Water shortages are a huge problem throughout California and most of its population pretty much lives within miles of the Pacific. Yet, people install toilets in their home that flush gallons of drinking water from depleted sources into the sewer..
Roads are notoriously bad (maintenance issues, decades of neglect). Public transport in the Valley is a joke and subways are only a recent novelty in LA. Both cities are notorious for the level of difficulty of actually getting into them or around them by car.
There's a unifying theme here where a policy actively prevents meaningful progress on what are fundamentally not very challenging technical problems (providing housing, getting from A to B, having enough water, etc.). This is odd because tech is basically a core business of that state.
High speed rail around the valley could cut commute times to reasonable levels, get cars off the congested streets, and would allow people to commute in from way beyond the currently practical range. It solves a lot of real problems. But getting it done requires policy changes that are entirely reasonable but yet seemingly impossible. The total investment needed is substantial but comparatively small compared to the money made by unicorns across the valley. Why would you take a plane to LA when you can get there by rail in the time it takes to get to the airport, through security, etc. There's no good reason for not being able to get from downtown SFO to downtown LA in under 2 hours by rail. A few billion investment doesn't sound like it should be particularly hard in the VC epicenter of this planet. Money is not the issue. Policy is.