Went to a San Mateo County business community event yesterday. Cool speech by former State Controller Steve Westly regarding the future of San Mateo County should be green technology. My company is trying to house the green tech in its mega commercial development.
Unfortunately, looking around the room, I realized that there is a disconnect between the speaker and the audience. When Westly put up a picture of Tesla and asked how many people know what it was, I was one of a handful in a room of over 200 people who can relate to the excitement for this all-electric sports car that can go from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds. (Westly's new venture capital company invests in Tesla.)
Come on people!!
I have always been biased against San Mateo County b/c this is the community that voted against BART in the 70s. The original proposal for BART was to loop around the bay, but people who lived in the ritzy cities of San Mateo County feared that the poor from other communities would interrupt their seclusion. Thus, the BART proposal was vetoed, and now we have this incomplete system that still encourages driving.
History aside, I trust that people in San Mateo County may be motivated by one thing - future for their children. It's a problem when most of the kids who grow up in San Mateo County cannot find a job locally or afford to live near their parents.
The future is now. It's up to everyone to tackle the civic problems of the present, and I am truly lucky that my work is my passion. I want to make the world better now, so we aren't sitting 20 years from now with the same mistake that SF made - making it the only city in California losing the population of children. No matter how wonderful the weather, if the cost of living, availability of jobs and the quality of life aren't here, then CA will not be so golden.
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