# May 30, 2012 / 12:25AM
Facebook, George Lucas, and NIMBYism: The idiotic rules preventing Silicon Valley from building the houses and offices we need to power American innovation. - Slate Magazine →
Farther south in Menlo Park, Facebook raised billions of dollars in an IPO, instantly putting millions of dollars in the hands of early employees and investors. But as Trulia’s economist Jed Kolko notes, the surge of cash will create losers, by bidding up the cost of local housing. “If Facebook were in Texas or North Carolina,” he observes, “developers would have been building new homes in anticipation of this day,” but in Silicon Valley—as in San Francisco and Marin County farther north—it’s essentially impossible for new construction to meet rising demand for living space. So some of the people living in the area who didn’tjust reap a financial windfall are poised to be priced out of their homes as high rents get even higher.
