<story><title>Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge</title><url>http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/silicon-chasm_768037.html?page=1</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>blisterpeanuts</author><text>Interesting article.  I wonder how much of the income disparity would be relieved if there was more room to build affordable housing, as in the &amp;quot;limitless&amp;quot; cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas where you can buy a nice 3 bedroom 2 bath for $150K.&lt;p&gt;In Phoenix, there are also rich people and poor people, but not the stark contrast of Silicon Valley.  Fewer billionaires, I think and also the neighborhoods are so vast and more or less homogeneous in tract size that you don&amp;#x27;t really notice wealth disparity.  The average family pretty much lives in a house with a yard and 2-car garage, regardless of income.  You can get in your car and drive to tony gated communities in Scottsdale and peek over the walls, but who would?  You have your job, your two cars, your Harley, and your flatscreen, and life is good.&lt;p&gt;Maybe California can find a way to build out onto the ocean as was done in Singapore, and relieve the housing pressure a little.  God, I&amp;#x27;d love to be making the kinds of software engineer salaries that they offer out there, but the housing -- yikes!</text></comment>
<story><title>Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge</title><url>http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/silicon-chasm_768037.html?page=1</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>auggierose</author><text>&amp;gt; Yes! Let them eat beans!&lt;p&gt;Preferably in their apartments.&lt;p&gt;No, seriously now. I&amp;#x27;ve got a friend who 5 years ago decided that he needs &amp;quot;to straighten his life out&amp;quot;, and now he has a huge house in SV and is lead engineer at Apple. That&amp;#x27;s really fine, and obviously not everyone can have such a life. And people will really have to look inside themselves, and ask themselves what it REALLY is they want. If they want status and big houses, then they better be extraordinary smart &amp;amp; disciplined and&amp;#x2F;or rich. Me, I just want an office where I can do my thing, not being responsible to anyone else but myself.&lt;p&gt;A solution to this dystopian future would be the basic income as proposed in Switzerland. This is the only way in my opinion to make sure that a master&amp;#x2F;slave relationship will not exist, and people are really paid what the job is worth, unpressured by the need to survive.</text></comment>