The great Silicon Valley land grab
As California’s tech empires grow, the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening
By Richard Waters
The city of East Palo Alto, a wedge of modest houses and light industrial sites in the heart of Silicon Valley, has been passed by in the great tech boom. A historically black area, it has seen a big Hispanic influx in the past two decades, with more than three out of four residents now coming from one of those two groups. It is still living down its reputation, gained a quarter of a century ago, as the murder capital of the US: one out of every 571 of its residents was the victim of a homicide in a single year.
Things have improved since then. But over the same period, it has become the poor neighbour to some of the world’s richest companies. In one of the ultimate signs of the divide between the haves and have-nots of the western US, the municipal government of East Palo Alto didn’t own the rights to draw more from the state’s water reserves, which it would need in order to grow. In June this year, it took a gift of cash, from the private foundation set up by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, to buy the rights from a richer neighbouring town.
Zuckerberg’s personal interest in the area is understandable. Immediately to the north, his…
