Silicon Valley is bent on disrupting the world. Its products affect how millions upon millions of people live and work. But when it comes to the physical space that many technologists call home, there are increasing demands to leave things alone.

The heart of Silicon Valley is a 75-mile strip of land anchored by San Francisco at one end and San Jose at the other. In between is a suburbia strewn with corporate campuses and the estates of those who run them. Congested and forbiddingly expensive, it is a region choking on its own success.

“Silicon Valley has been flashing a ‘vacancy’ sign for decades — come here and build a company,” said Larry A. Rosenthal, a specialist in land use and urban policy at the University of California, Berkeley. “Now some people are saying, ‘We’ve hit our limit.’ They may be reaching their threshold tolerance for pain.”

On Tuesday, voters across Silicon Valley will vote on a slew of initiatives intended to rein in that growth. In one community, they can keep houses off the surrounding hills for 20 years; in another, they will have the option to reduce an already low annual cap on housing construction; in a third, there is a measure to restrict sprawl... read more http://www.bookspen.com/11346-2/