Envy Apartment

Palo Alto Jane Huang, 29 Huang moved to Palo Alto with her parents at the age of four. She attended local high schools and Stanford University. Yet despite her hard work, the Palo Alto housing market is too challenging for her to foresee a future in her hometown. “I went to Stanford, I work as a software developer, I make a six-figure income, and I still have to live with three roommates,” Huang said. “What more can I do?” Huang isn’t worried about not being able to pay her rent, but she is worried about doing anything that might upset her landlord. “Landlords have a lot more power here than they used to,” she said. “They know how impossible it would be for their renters to find anything else locally.” While her concerns for herself are real and serious — “With the current housing market , I’m afraid I’ll have to live with roommates for the rest of my life” — she’s equally concerned about what the housing market means for the many Palo Altans who weren’t fortunate enough t...

There was a time, and it wasn’t long ago, when Mission Valley was farmland. Black and white photos from the 1960s show rows of turnip plants and herds of grazing dairy cows owned by farmers. “I remember the stories of how they would take the cows under the freeway after they built Interstate 8, or 80 back in those days,” said Rob Hutsel, a fourth- generation San Diegan . “The deal with the landowner was he still had to get his cows to the river. And so they left a tunnel under it so they could take their cows down to the river to get their water... I always wonder whatever happened to the tunnel.” The completion of the I-8 freeway around 1960 was the beginning of the end of an era in valley. The Mission Valley mall was built, and the valley became a suburban shopping destination . Now, another shape shift is on the horizon. Hutsel is president of the San Diego River Park Foundation and a member of the city’s Mission Valley Planning Group . He sees opportunity in Mission Valley . “...