Last week it was announced that a Major Technology Firm was going to build a major campus 6 miles from our house. They estimate single digit thousand employees within two years and double digit thousand employees after that. This location sits squarely astride the route I have to drive every day to work.
On the whole (at least for me) this is fairly unwelcome news. Our infrastructure is such that that many cars on the roadways will make that area of travel virtually impossible to do on a normal business schedule unless you leave quite early and arrive home the same or if you take the state toll roads (not a particularly desirable option). The grocery store we regularly go to is about to become incredibly busy, as is the local bank we use.
Worst of all, of course, is the imminent threat of housing price increases. I can already sense it coming - along with the obligatory rise in local property taxes. I am expecting sky high stupid levels in a record amount of time, given how things have worked out in the past.
I do not know what this fully means (although having a discussion with a co-worker, I posited that this sort of thing will essentially seal the doom of our industry in this city due to a sky-rocketing cost of living and cost of real estate which will discourage other companies from starting or relocating here), but on the whole things do not look great.
Sometimes even our best plans are overturned by circumstances beyond our control.
Wow. I feel for you. I definitely would not like that. Technology or no.
ReplyDelete:-(
I pray that God will show you what He has in mind for you, if you should indeed be moving or not.
*hugs* and God bless you all.
If the government is giving this big tech company a tax-free ride as an incentive, then yur dern tootin' that everyone's taxes will increase. That's a no-brainer, but what puzzles me is that they seem clueless about the traffic. One of the biggest shopping centers in our area has only one way in and one way out. If one has any other business in the area, the traffic hold-up is insane. I've had to sit through three red lights waiting for my turn to cross the intersection. It's hard to believe they'd do this on purpose, but it's equally hard to believe that planners aren't smart enough to figure this out beforehand.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I am not a fan either. I am fully certain that God is in control of this circumstance, just as He has been in all the others. What I am trying to be is a bit more attuned to what He might be doing.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, they made a great show about how they local civic government did not give them a tax break - but as we are a non-tax state and California is a tax state, it just makes financial sense.
ReplyDeleteThe traffic thing seems incomprehensible - except that this local has not been planning for the growth it has experienced over the last 20 years so it is not unexpected. The city leaders see "property taxes" and like idiots, say yes. Ironically, they claim they are concerned about the ongoing increase in the price of living, yet their "solution" is to raise property taxes to pay for entitlements for those that cannot afford it.
My cost of living is about to go up in general, housing in particular. If we are lucky and it works out, maybe we are able to get the youngest through high school - but we will not last long after that, at best.