With the emergence of startups and other larger companies in Redwood City, our area is changing drastically. There are more than 700 companies now in Redwood City, many being part of the technology industry, like Oracle and Box that are changing the Bay Area in the eyes of many.

But with the influx of these companies, residents are starting to worry about how it will affect them. The current median price for Redwood City homes lies at 1.4 million dollars while in 2012 it was about $700k according to Zillow. This jump in housing prices has resulted in many being forced to move to areas where the housing market is not as expensive.

Many Bay Area inhabitants attribute this spike in housing prices to companies moving into the area. Especially because these companies are causing wages to rise in the area which then inflates the housing market.

“Tech companies pay their employees so much, bringing rent prices up for everyone.” San Mateo resident and English teacher Hillary Martinez said.

With lowered corporate taxes here, many companies are drawn to the Bay Area.

“There’s a problem with the way that the state and local areas incentivize businesses to come in, like how San Francisco gave a huge tax break to Twitter,” San Francisco resident and Spanish teacher Edith Salvatore said.

But these companies also benefit many Bay Area residents. In 2015, Google employed about 60 thousand full-time workers. The year after that they added another ten thousand employees to their workforce. The majority of Google employees live in San Francisco or Santa Clara, two cities in close proximity to Google headquarters.

“It used to be that no one wanted to live in San Jose; crime rates were going up, and no one wanted to live there, but now because of all of these companies people actually want to be there,” said San Mateo resident and math teacher Steven Wong.

In general, many residents who live here are dissatisfied by the sharp rise in housing prices and are especially dissatisfied by the companies they believe are causing it.