Life in the Valley Economy 2010 - Working Partnerships USA

• Will we put working families and low-income
communities at the center of the emerging green
economy and clean technology sector
Threat: In the 1990s Silicon Valley was marked by
excessive inequality engendering a “digital divide”.
Clean technology and other green industries are
now poised to be the new drivers of the region’s
economy. But if the new green technologies are
accessible only to the well-off, while everyone else
pays increasingly high costs for gas and energy – or
if the desirable new green jobs are open only to
those with advanced degrees, while the majority
of production jobs remain offshore – the coming
decade may replace the digital divide with a “green
divide”.
Opportunity: In Silicon Valley, innovative pilot
projects are underway that drive job creation and
include standards for job quality and social equity,
including Wave One promoting energy retrofits
of small businesses in Palo Alto and the citywide
Green Pays pilot for residential retrofits. These
retrofit initiatives have enormous potential to create
a “win-win-win” program: property owners or
tenants gain lower energy bills, workers gain green
jobs, and the community and the planet gain from
cutting carbon emissions. The development of
California High Speed Rail offers the opportunity
to create tens of thousands of jobs, with efforts
underway to ensure these jobs stay in California.
Finally, new policies and collaboratives are
underway to link green economic development
directly to training programs such as the green
pre-apprenticeship pilot discussed above, building
green pathways out of poverty into jobs with longterm
career potential.
• Will we invest in building an economy that
creates sustainable long-term employment
Threat: In the long term, our economy will grow
sustainably only if people invest in its productive
elements rather than in speculative commodities or
financial instruments. Furthermore, in the frenzy to
attract investment many jurisdictions adopt a ‘race
to the bottom’ mentality that drags down wages and
job quality. Ultimately, economic growth cannot be
induced by growing the ranks of the working poor;
sustainable growth requires a population employed
at quality jobs that enable them to support their
families without public assistance, support local
businesses, save and invest.
Opportunity: All of the challenges listed above
represent physical and community infrastructure
that are essential to creating good jobs and building
industries. By seizing the opportunity to invest and
build in these areas, combined with strong support
for private industry, Silicon Valley can regrow its
job base across a broad set of industries – from
high-tech and cleantech to green construction
and manufacturing to tourism to health services.
Taken together, the LIVE 2010 indicators show that
Silicon Valley – and quite possibly the nation – are at
a crossroad. Sticking with the status quo of current
public policy married with existing market forces
will keep us on the path of the past decade, with little
net employment growth and a dwindling number of
middle-class jobs.
But the status quo is not inevitable. Silicon Valley
specializes in responding to rapid change; time and
again we have lead the nation in new ways of thinking
and doing. The challenge now is to invest, innovate
and incubate in ways that restore sustainable growth
and create broadly shared prosperity, leading to a real
recovery. Now is the time for research and development
not just for technology, but for effective and replicable
community-based solutions to the growing challenges
posed by a rapidly changing economy.
What’s Inside
Life in the Valley Economy 2010 examines the state
of Silicon Valley’s economy through the lens of middleclass
and working-class households trying to make
ends meet and secure their family’s future. This latest
edition of the LIVE report updates the data and analysis
provided in LIVE 2008 and discusses trends that have
emerged over the past year. It also profiles a fresh set
of “Solutions” – local initiatives being developed by
Silicon Valley communities to tackle challenges like
those analyzed in this report – and provides progress
updates on the Solutions profiled in last year’s report.
Silicon Valley, famed for big ideas, is itself an idea—
not a region limited by clearly defined geographical
boundaries. For data analysis purposes, however, it
is necessary to choose a set of boundaries. In order
Page 14
Working Partnerships USA