Redwood City

I have only been here since 1980 and perhaps Nice dates further back and perhaps those earlier decades were the Mayberrylike community he recalls. However, in the early 1980’s the “Deadwood City” moniker was quite appropriate. There was one restaurant, Amelia’s, and a couple of bars in our downtown. There certainly wasn’t a parking or traffic problem in the evenings as there was  little reason to be downtown. I, and others, came to Redwood City because at that time home prices were 20 to 30 percent less expensive than surrounding communities. Our city was the dumping ground for projects that other communities didn’t want, such as jails, rehab facilities, halfway houses and more. We finally got the Safeway shopping center by economically enticing a developer to come to our community and it has been quite successful.

This journey in becoming the most exciting city on the Peninsula has been 25 years in the making. There certainly have been bumps along the way and there are issues to be resolved but I expect Nice is not complaining about the current value of his home. Unfortunately, some people equate change with loss instead of opportunity. There was a great op-ed piece in a major paper a few months ago where the writer said: “I wonder what the people in Appalachia and the rust belt are thinking when they read about the people in Silicon Valley whining about having too many high paying jobs and rising house prices.”

Steven Howard 

Redwood City