I've thought for a while that the most likely long-term solution to the "Millenials want to live in the city but work for all these South Bay tech companies" reverse-commute problem is that Mountain View will densify until its residents live in the city.

I'm a bit concerned about building up SV since it has a largely unresolved legacy of buried toxic waste...an irony standing in direct contradiction to the extreme desirability and real estate prices of today.

I mean, it's not that we aren't facing that problem already, but adding population may make it harder to resolve.

That certainly would be nice- but another possibility is pull-the-ladder-up-behind-you NIMBY-ism.

If the new units are primarily owner-occupied, NIMBY-ism is a risk. If the new units' residents are renters on 1-year leases, they would probably vote for ever increasing supply.

Yes, this. I've often thought that in terms of long-term strategy, pro-housing groups should focus on getting rental housing built, and leave owner-occupied condos alone.

I confess I've wondered how many of the San Francisco residents loudly blaming the influx of tech workers/startups for the spiraling housing costs there, and (2) moved to the SF Bay Area during the first dotcom rush.

... and it's in many ways been an unmitigated disaster.

I'm pro-housing but this is a poor comparison. The difference is that apart from a few large employers most people in Loudoun, VA commute to the larger employment centers of Fairfax and DC.

Why do you say it was a disaster? I used to live there, and I've been back a few times since, and the place has always seemed to be thriving to me.

Yes, people there drive too much, but that's true across 99% of the United States.

Edited to add some Wikipedia quotes:

Since 2008 the county has been ranked first in the United States in median household income among jurisdictions with a population of 65,000 or more ... Having undergone heavy suburbanization since 1990, Loudoun has a full-fledged service economy. It is home to world headquarters for several Internet-related and high tech companies, including Verizon Business, Telos Corporation, Orbital Sciences Corporation, and Paxfire. Like Fairfax County's Dulles Corridor, Loudoun County has economically benefited from the existence of Washington Dulles International Airport, the majority of which is located in the county along its border with Fairfax ... [MCI] announced that it would move its headquarters to Ashburn in 2003.

It was done with little effort towards proper planning and infrastructure. The entire region from Dulles and east now seamlessly melds into the horrific gridlock of Northern Virginia. Simply voting to allow housing can be as short sighted as what planners had evidently previously planned for in Mountain View.

At any rate, I stand by my assertion that it's a really poor comparison between MV and Loudoun.

Amended to reflect the wikipedia post: MCI (now Verizon assume) and Aol are really the only large headquartered technology companies that I've seen in Ashburn. There are smaller firms, but there hasn't been a windfall of companies willing to move further away from DC to setup headquarters here. Loudoun remains largely housing sprawl.

Also amended with this helpful link of the county's largest employers: http://www.biz.loudoun.gov/index.aspx?NID=103

> [...] Aol are really the only large headquartered technology companies that I've seen in Ashburn

The AOL buildings are mostly rented out at this point; I believe a Raytheon office resides in the majority of them. So looking for headquarters doesn't seem particularly meaningful. What about large offices of global companies? AWS US-East runs out of Ashburn, for example (not sure why Amazon doesn't appear on the list at the link you gave).

Probably because data centers don't necessarily mean a lot of jobs. The 2014 financial report doesn't mention Amazon in their top 10 either: http://www.loudoun.gov/DocumentCenter/View/110442

Looking for headquarters is meaningful if we're trying to make a comparison between Mountain View and Loudoun County. Google is headquartered in Mountain View. Loudoun has no real equivalent for HQs or even large offices for global companies. The startup scene is pretty dry too.

Apart from voting a board that wants to increase housing there's almost no comparison. If you want to use Dulles and Loudoun as an example you should use it to illustrate that you can't slap in a bunch of housing units without thinking about infrastructure.