I am very wary of the phrase "middle class". Being classist can be seen as divisive. Growing up I lived in a new development of single family homes on the outskirts of a town some of the parents were airline personnel, factory workers, agricultural managers, realtors, office staff, medical personnel, etc. All probably professional families but income levels varied considerably. As children we all played together and visited each other's homes and felt very much the same. The only way we could tell whose family had more money were on things like the cars or vacations, but even then they were not really things we kids cared about comparing or valuing each other by. We knew where the rich people lived in older neighborhoods and we knew where the poor people lived, neither areas where we would want to spend our time. We would have called ourselves middle class because we were in the middle having absolutely no idea about income levels. We dressed the same, ate the same types of foods, had the same types of furniture, and we even punished the same for our misbehavior. None of us ever felt we had enough money to spend whether it for candy or anything else at the local convenience store. As a group of neighborhood kids we pooled together our coins and whatever we could buy was shared equally between us before riding our bikes home after a few hours of having fun doing whatever we could find to do. Some may have had after school paid activities, I can't quite remember, but we never made a big deal about it which is probably why I can't remember. I think it was a good way to grow up.

Middle class nowadays seems to be all about income. In Palo Alto that is the wrong way of looking at it. My home is surrounded by people who have lived here for varying numbers of years. We have some homes that have been owned by the same family since the homes were first built back in the 50s and 60s, and others which have changed owners many times as well as some like us who have lived here a while. The incomes of the families shouldn't matter as we are all neighbors and consider ourselves Palo Altans. What we eat at home, where we eat when we go out, or even the cars we drive, are nothing about what makes us middle class, or not. To me, what makes us middle class is that we share values of home ownership, or at least wanting to rent long term in the area, of taking a pride in how the street looks, and the values of quality of life issues.

Take away the classist middle class label in the headline of the article and think more about income level if that is what you are writing about. How we choose to spend our discretionary income, or whether to spend it at all, is our own business and nothing to do with how we should be judged as good neighbors.

Unless of course, the underlying motive is something else.

Middle class in Palo Alto? Surely you jest. When housing is deliberately limited to cause a shortage, a greatly inflated cost of living is the result. That means only the wealthy elite can afford to live here. Having rabble in town would be enough to give one the vapors.

The middle class are still here. They park their motorhomes along El Camino every night. There must be 30 or 40 of them still left.

Classist? Even the po' people here, the mere multimillionaires, are classist. This isn't your dad's Palo Alto.

Back in the day, people moved here because "Palo Alto" meant Education, Trees, Climate, Recycling, Bicycles, social and political Liberalism. This turned out to be a very "successful" strategy.

Now, people move here because it is "Palo Alto". Palo Alto is a victim of its own success. I wish people in other places would build Palo Alto right where they are. They don't all have to move here.

I always think that the word 'class' has some snobbery connotation. I prefer the "middle income" as a designation.
I remember reading a book called "Caste and Class in America". It defines upperclass as educated, refined, and good mannered.I guess caste refers to race more or less.

Whatever. The cost of living here is atrocious. We moved here in '64 and could not afford an EIchler at $39,000. We found a home in Los Altos for $23,000 and it last sold for 2 million something. It is population and jobs that cause the increase. Our kids cannot move here unless they inherit the house. Same for our friends families.
Another reason for wanting to be here is the climate so perfect for gardening and out door activities.And we have preserved a lot of open space for recreation.

What a terrific article. Having lived in Palo Alto for many years and also owning a business here for 30 years, I know the changes that we've experienced to be dramatic.

Palo Alto, and the surrounding areas, have absolutely lost their service worker community, live in and/or own grossly inflated-value homes and despite being very decent people with wonderful values in most cases have been fostering this competitive consumer life-style to the point where the community as we knew it is crumbling.

I've said for thirty years that "class" would no longer be defined or even equated with wealth but with education. Those two things can go together, of course, but the deciding factor is an earned [as in I did well in school, I'm smart and that's how I got into Harvard way] education as opposed to a bought one.

Look at Donald Trump.

Wow, can't seem go avoid Trump bashing wherever I read. So unfortunate, get over it.

Many students these days who surprise us by being accepted into Ivy Leagues are really accepted because of finances or connections. It's naive to think that it's all meritocracy.

There are many housepoor Palo Altans, as I am involved in PTA and am close with my children so I hear the stories. There are people buying at thrift shops because they live paycheck to paycheck. Pride is the reason they stay here. There are "good schools" in other less expensive areas. Parents are doing a disservice to their children. Raising a child here costs money. Tutors, extracurriculars, overnight camps, trips. Is it really worth staying here if you have no money to save for college, no money for emergencies, no money for your child to have any fun or pay a tutor to help them when they are struggling? NO, Palo Alto isn't ALL THAT. Get over your pride and parent right.

It breaks my heart to read all the comments above, and ones I read every day. I knew and remember the good times in 'my town'. Unfortunately, they are gone forever. Actually they disappeared at least two decades ago. Almost every day I read about the housing problems, the traffic problems, the parking problems. I will probably stick around until I die, because there are still enough reasons to stay here, most of which are the same reasons we moved here in 1961 in the first place. Palo Alto was a very unique town back then. It still is in some ways, but has lost so much of it's glamor...openness, neighborliness, and other aspects of a real caring community. I've written stories about that. If anyone is interested I'd be happy to attach them in emails...ggandglj@yahoo.com.

"Now, people move here because it is "Palo Alto"."

And there's the solution. Change the name of the town. Every few years. Maybe keep it's current "Tall Stick" but in a different language.

Well, folks, it's time for Palo Alto to hit the national news again, for all of you old enough to remember. And, you bet that we will with that article, even though I think that it does gives a fairly broad Palo Alto perspective. Do you have ANY idea of how privileged we are? There's a reason that the nation is in such tatters and you can't blame it all on cadet bone spurs, The middle of the nation dislikes us and I really can't say I blame them, especially when reading the overall message in that article. It's called inequitable distribution of income both here and elsewhere in the nation. We are so, so insulated. Many good points in the article are raised; the one I would emphasize more is that many "oldsters" (who live beyond Oregon Expressway, especially) are house rich and cash poor. Do you readers have any idea of what that means? Yes, their kids will reap $$bennies fom the sale of the house, but the parents won't. We're proud and lucky to live here. Savvy, savvy SAVINGS (thank you, husband) have helped as well as frugal expenditures (except for intl travel). I pray that Palo Alto will survive, at least in some small resemblance of its former self. And, to all of you drivers (and you know who you are), stop driving like speeding crazies down Palo Alto's streets and thoroughfares. Like you are the most important person on the road??

"I've said for thirty years that "class" would no longer be defined or even equated with wealth but with education. Those two things can go together, of course, but the deciding factor is an earned [as in I did well in school, I'm smart and that's how I got into Harvard way] education as opposed to a bought one."
----

Earned Education... yep, that's it! PA residents and college dropouts Steve J. and Mark Z. didn't quite make your education cut-off. So very close, since they were smart enuf to get into Reed and Harvard (respectively), but just couldn't quite graduate. And yes, evidently they both "bought" graduate degrees when they gave Stanford and Harvard (again, respectively) commencement addresses and got the obligatory honorary degrees that way.

Posted by Shallow Alto, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood

>> Well, folks, it's time for Palo Alto to hit the national news again, for all of you old enough to remember.
>> And, you bet that we will with that article, even though I think that it does gives a fairly broad Palo Alto perspective.
>> Do you have ANY idea of how privileged we are?

Presumably, Palo Alto must be "special" or people from all over the planet wouldn't be trying to move here. The "envy" thing happens every time there is a boom here, and then, when there is bust, a bunch of disappointed people move away, things become more normal, and you get the "sour grapes" thing. Apparently boom/bust cycles are in the water here. I'm not sure why I should feel guilty about all that. Other places have boom/bust cycles, too, although most of them don't have the nice climate.

>> There's a reason that the nation is in such tatters and you can't blame it all on cadet bone spurs, The middle of the nation dislikes us and I really can't say I blame them, especially when reading the overall message in that article.

I'm not sure what the "overall message" in that article is. That we are in a boom? There has been a bust every 10 years (average) for the last 50 years. "Time Series Analysis" suggests another one fairly soon. But hey, what do I know? I'm just another cranky senior.

There is no perfect solution. The reality is that the class divide is happening at a larger scale than just "Palo Alto"
Look at the home prices of what is selling in Los Altos or Mountain View or Menlo Park. Stop the finger pointing and saying it's simply Palo Alto.

The other issue is that middle class as a group is shrinking in the United States. The extremely wealthy are holding more and more wealth in the USA, and taxes and congress are ensuring the wealth go to wealthy and very little is left over for the middle class and poor.

Given the circumstances, just get out there and try and fix things. Get involved. Vote. Make political changes. Don't like how Palo Alto city council runs? Fix it. Run for office. Change the regulations. Make it better. Palo Alto is damn lucky as a city and filled with educated people with much talent. Get involved and contribute instead of complaining.

And for heaven's sake... if there are >20 bidders on a home... calm down and figure out whether you can be part of the top 5 bids and if you can not.. don't bid. The real estate companies are contributing to the problem by listing the homes too low and causing a feeding frenzy and causing unnecessary bidding of homes when people won't be able to afford the real price.

@ Resident -
I don't think real estate companies are listing houses "too low." A house newly on the market is usually priced at about the same # as the 2 or 3 other most similar houses in the neighborhood that have sold very recently. What skews the numbers here is the stock-option-rich people or young couple with very wealthy parents, who throw un-earned (in the sense of saving to build a down payment) money at a house they want & bidding 10-20% more than the listing price just because they want it & they can afford it. In many of those "top 5" bids, the winner is the one that is at least 100K more than the number 2 bid.
Some people don't care that the new spec house amidst 50 yr old bungalows, Eichlers, etc, is priced at 3-4 times the value of immediately neighboring houses & will buy a Two-day Tudor because they want new, big & a bathroom for every bedroom. If a couple with 2 high-paying jobs buys a house, they want it "done" because they don't have time or patience to deal with household disruption that accompanies major remodeling.

What about the ghost homes?

Is the city taking care of it?

I have heard some rumors that it's 30% of the homes in Palo Alto.


That phenomenon increases the house rent tremendously.

"It breaks my heart to read all the comments above, and ones I read every day. I knew and remember the good times in 'my town'. Unfortunately, they are gone forever."

What you see as the good times are seen as a sad decline by others. The Palo Alto of the 1960s had replaced an earlier Palo Alto with plenty of cow pastures and orchards. I remember my elders bemoaning their loss and telling me that it was too bad I never got to see Palo Alto when it was still really nice. Dunno, 1960s and 1970s Palo Alto seemed great to me. I still miss some of the dive bars, though. Aw well...

The truth is that the good times are as much about our own attitudes and responses as anything else. We can never go back to paradise lost, but the current Palo Alto can become a newer and better place. For those determined to lament any and all change, they will find the outcomes less than happy. Change can be good as well as bad, though. Don't worry, everything will work out fine in the end. It always has.

Wow! This article and other recent ones I've read in all the newspapers I get, local and regional, are enough to depress me, if I let them. They appear almost daily... housing issues, affordability issues, long commute issues, traffic congestion issues, parking issues.

We moved here in 1961 so I've had a much broader period to experience and observe changes in 'my town' than most people. Okay, Jay Thorwaldson, is an exception, and he's right up there with me, and beats me on most accounts. He not only lived it, but he reported it in newspapers. That's a big distinction. And let's thank him for his good work as reporter, columnist, and editor.

Oh yes, there were issues back then, but not to the extent we have them now. Home prices varied depending on which part of town you lived in, north or south, but we all understood that difference, based on wealth and incomes, and we accepted it, but housing itself was never an issue. You bought or rented wherever you could afford to, and there was enough supply so prices weren't exorbitant. And traffic and parking weren't big issues either, as I recall.

Well, of course, there was that fuss up about Oregon Expressway, and parking meters were finally removed from shopping areas in downtown PA, driven by Stanford Shopping Center's offer of free parking.

And yes, there was a fuss about tall buildings blocking views of the mountains to the west and casting shadows on residences, causing moss and mildew/mold growth in yards and inside homes. Thus evolved the 50' height limit.

But, even though they were big and important issues at that time, most of our residents weren't impacted by them and just went on living the good life in our local neighborhoods, and enjoying the benefits of the best town and area on earth. Unfortunately, that's what has really, and sadly, changed so much. Most of us old timers only know our old neighbors. I've tried to meet and have a good neighborly relationship with my new neighbors, some renters, some new home owners, but most of them want to be left alone. They only want to be friends with family members of their race and ethnic backgrounds. Most are recent immigrants and don't want to assimilate into our community.

I love Diana Diamond's column in that other newspaper, mainly because she agrees with me on so many issues. Actually, I think she steals from my post comments on PA Online, before she writes her column. lol! C'mon, lighten up, I'm joking! Read her latest one. I'm solid with her view about County Supervisor Joe Simitian's plan for housing of teachers, and she touched another chord by her reference to our traffic congestion and new bike boulevards. Yes, please, every staff planner and CC member needs to get out and experience, on their bikes, what was just proposed and they approved for the Ross Road bike boulevard. Good luck on that wonderful roundabout at the corner of Ross Rd and East Meadow Drive. I'll meet you there. Who will go first, thru the roundabout, you or me? It's a life saving decision, so I'll let you make it.

All older people in all times in history bemoan the terrible changes, and things just aren't right ... because they just don't fit the old categories I imprinted in my youth. Silicon Valley has become the new Athens of our planet. Software I've written here is flying in Iranian drones attacking Israel as it is in the Israeli helicopter shooting down that drone as it is in Google maps and the WayMo autonomous car driving down the street. No one knows me here, but in China, I'm stopped for autographs because they read my books, and I'm just barely on the pecking order here.

They'll be writing about this place and period like the write about ancient Greece. All this economic activity raises prices. People want to come here and be a part of it ... and they are right. In the times of ancient Greece, Athens was the place to be, not some barley field out in the plains.

I do feel sorry for the high prices people have to pay for rent. If you really want to do something about it, it will have to be radical -- Build large, dense apartment/incubator buildings. Very dense, small rooms, but lavish shared kitchens, shared spaces, shared machine shops and incubator office space below. No parking. Get with Google, uber or Lyft and connect these places with autonomous cars. Except on major roads, eliminate cars altogether near shools etc. Parking outside of town, autonomous within. That kind of thing.

Finally, for the article itself ... It is not income alone, you have to consider net wealth. I sold a company and paid off my house. Oops, my "rent" now goes down to prop-13 $4K/year. I run startups. Investors don't want to see big salaries by the founders, so my salary is modest by Palo Alto standards (I'm quite negative in income due college expenses etc), but I own a lot of stock and real estate trusts, several board seats, ownership in 16 startups etc, so my "not enough" salary doesn't matter. Of course, it wasn't always this way. my parents were government workers, modest salaries. I just had some technical skill and cognitive-emotive ability to take well thought out risks, along with generally good health (part luck, part daily exercise etc). Even when I was a grad student on $16K/year, I saved $2-3K per year. I met my multi-millionaire wife later (she never inherited anything and never earned more than $40K/year... she was just a saver and investor).

If you have talent and can live for years below your means ... I mean no coffee out, crap hotels when traveling, mostly camping instead of fancy trips (we did that for years, now it's easier)-- then this is the place to make your mark. I was talking with a high school girls robotics team. "What do use?" PSP Deep neural networks trained on a TX1 NVidia chip. I have 2 billionaire friends. I part of a movement of people who are finally achieving real artificial intelligence, something I dreamed about 45 years ago. That's why you live here. I live in a close community ... but I do regret that this isn't often the case here, I do regret for others how expensive it is to start here. I'd love for artists, teachers etc to have more space, cheaper places to live. I've helped dozens earn enough to live here. I think people ought to think about doing something radical like my plan above: cheaper, denser, communal housing.

If you are house rich, retired, but town poor. Sell & move. Really. Live the life, there are plenty of communities to live in with plenty of nice/smart/interesting people elsewhere that maybe are not so driven, or not so forced to be driven. We live in new Athens. Shine while it is still light.

Wow. Had to go review Mac Davis' lyrics for It's Hard to Be Humble.

@musical

Funny, and well directed!

"I wish people in other places would build Palo Alto right where they are. They don't all have to move here."

And those that came here anyways a long time ago are now turning around and saying the same thing to more recent arrivals. The more recent arrivals probably wish all the complainers would move away to a Palo Alto somewhere else. We all know that Palo Alto's population will continue to increase over time, and that telling people to get lost doesn't work. Most of our current problems are due to unchecked NIMBYism over the past 40 years. Now the chickens have come home to roost. We can either fix things in an inclusive manner or wallow in misery and whine here on Town Square. Telling others to do anything we are not willing to do ourselves is futile, and we might wind up being the ones excluded.

I hope you and the other discounted people are able to make your peace with the new Palo Alto. It really is a great place, much better than most.

I meant discontented.

Posted by Donster, a resident of University South

>>>> "I wish people in other places would build Palo Alto right where they are. They don't all have to move here."

>> We all know that Palo Alto's population will continue to increase over time,

Perhaps it will decrease over time. Who knows? I'm more worried about Palo Alto's daytime -automobile- population, however. I'm looking for ways to make that population -decrease-.

>> Most of our current problems are due to unchecked NIMBYism over the past 40 years. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

"Prove it." I would say to the contrary that most of our current problems are due to allowing unchecked growth of jobs without finding a more efficient method for getting people to those jobs. "NIMBY" is one of the favorite derogatory terms used by developers who criticize anybody who wants to limit the flood of autos. But knee-jerk NIMBYism is a rational response from people whose interests have been damaged by developers over the years. Sorry, I don't trust developers to do the right thing. We've been burned too many times.

>> I hope you and the other discounted people are able to make your peace with the new Palo Alto. It really is a great place, much better than most.

Even Saturdays and Sundays have tons of traffic now. Sure, it's still pretty good on extra long holiday weekends when few are commuting in. The goal is to find ways to transport people more efficiently so that every day is like an extra long holiday weekend.

It drives me crazy when I see 35% of income on rent as rent burdened. This is incorrect. It is 35% of NET income after taxes. I see this mistake made all over the bay area. The NET part is critical.

@anon - "...I would say to the contrary that most of our current problems are due to allowing unchecked growth of jobs without finding a more efficient method for getting people to those jobs."

But it wasn't 'allowing'. It was policy. The towns, the homeowners, liked the business tax money and where all the people lived was someone else's problem. Many of the cities around here played that game. Not building housing drove up house prices as well. As one poster put it, the chickens have come home to roost. Especially since PA and the area is now part of the world market.

Developers, of course, are a perennial problem much exacerbated by the US Pay-To-Play political system. Running up to the last local election every day my mailbox had a stack of campaign ad placards signed by real estate interests. Real estate developers and resellers consider political donations to be more or less speculative investments, of course.

Most of the growth would have happened anyway but could have been better planned. No one anywhere at any time has been entitled to buy a house and then freeze the world around them to the horizon. Change is accelerating and today's public school students will live in a world unrecognizable today and it will change out from under them in their lifetimes.

In PA, most students have to face the problem that after high school or after a commute to a JC or university, they have to leave the area and may actually never see it again. For some percentage of people that change is very hard.

Somewhat OT: Little kids have that phenomenal ability to learn new languages that they start to lose in late grade school. It's reasonable that evolution would do that. But it seems that most people start to lose their ability to assimilate the world actually around them in their late thirties. It's reasonable that evolution would do that too. But that's increasingly dysfunctional with so much change within a generation now and such longer lifespans than thousands of years ago. Our local Masters of the Universe, we read, are spending R&D money to get much longer healthspans for themselves.

The following was originally at the end of the above post, but accidentally truncated -

Our local Masters of the Universe, we read, are spending R&D money to get much longer healthspans for themselves. Hopefully, they are spending also to find out how to get longer mindspans which is more important and would be a major contribution or the future.

Building on the idea above, change the town's name to Trumpville, and you'll solve the desirability problem.

But seriously, how can we find out the true number of "ghost homes" owned in PA and other local towns?

But seriously, if your household makes $300,000 gross income per year, there is no question you are wealthy, upper class, whatever the definition, regardless of your mortgage status or educational attainment.

I can understand living paycheck to paycheck at that rate, because there's always something to buy or bill to pay, but you have choices. The middle/lower income have far few choices, and loss of a paycheck can mean homelessness. It doesn't mean that if your income is well over 6 figures.

No one talks about money or class, but you can see it in the vacations people take, clothes and cars they buy, school choice and more.

There are few true middle class in PA.

How about the number of ghost bedrooms in your home? That counts the den or sewing room or storage area which was built for a bed or two or three but is currently uninhabited. Undoubtably several thousand in town. How about the number of ghost garages, where behind that big garage door at the end your driveway there is no car inside? And gross income is immaterial without knowledge of the cost. You can gross $300,000 by selling stock that cost you $400,000. If you run a business, you are often lucky if profit is 10 percent of your gross.

"... and somewhere in the darkness the gambler, he broke even."

Is that a valid comparison? No one in their right mind, or having choices, would sell $300K in stock that cost them $400k.

Few would begrudge a person or family with with a room not used as a bedroom. Also a false comparison.

Empty houses bought by investors in a crazy tight housing market? That's something local legislation can and should stop. Where's the bill for that?