Anonymous wrote:Schools, for one. Belle Haven and North Fair Oaks are unincorporated and do not have the same access to services that the neighboring cities do. East Palo Alto is incorporated but is not by any means a wealthy community so can't necessarily fund the same things the adjacent cities can. All three were primarily industrial areas until relatively recently, and people who can afford other options often don't want to live near heavy industry. Even today, you can see the history as working class, industrial communities in the housing stock and development patterns, so the areas don't have as much draw as more suburban communities on the Peninsula or the "streetcar suburbs" closer in. (That said, I'd argue that EPA has gentrified considerably in the last 15 years--it just started from a different point than someplace like Redwood City.)
Tech campuses in Silicon Valley really only began to have an impact on local real estate in the last 10-20 years. The dot com companies did not draw the same work forces at the salaries of today, and did not concentrate jobs on the Peninsula in the way that the tech sector does today. That change is very recent.
Great post. I lived in that area 15 years ago and travel back. The changes to the Peninsula are pretty dramatic. As you note, the area close to the bay has historically been industrial, with working class housing stock. It's not just EPA/Belle Haven, almost everything from South San Francisco to Mountain View along the bay was primarily industrial and small, working class houses.
The area, especially in the southern Peninsula near Palo Alto/Menlo Park/Mountain View is much changed with all of the job centers that have popped up. It used to be primarily residential. Now there are so many more people commuting into the area and so much more demand for housing that every nearby community has seen prices spike. The area is also much less pleasant, IMO, just because it's packed with traffic even in the middle of the day