November 21, 2023 – The Joint Venture board of directors elected Brent C. Harris to its body. Harris is VP of Augmented Reality at Meta. Harris is focused on how to build the next mobile computing platform for people and businesses across the globe and was named an “expert in international regulation” by Wired. “I am enthusiastic about taking on this role at Joint Venture to contribute towards tackling crucial economic and societal challenges in Silicon Valley and to help grow the organization," said Harris. 
November 27, 2023 - In an opinion piece in the Mercury News, David Witkowski, Joint Venture's, Executive Director of Civic Technologies, says the California Public Utilities Commission seems to be hesitating and giving undue consideration to people opposed to technical progress. "...it is being held back by a minority of naysayers who are opposed to technical progress. It’s time for the commission to move our state’s communications network forward to the 21st century."
November 20, 2023 - Joint Venture’s Institute has completed a report in partnership with the University of Washington School of Social Work, Center for Women’s Welfare which models guaranteed basic income (GBI) scenarios. Supported by a 2022-23 grant from the County of Santa Clara with additional support from Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Modeling Guaranteed Basic Income & Household Income Adequacy in Santa Clara County examines how GBI programs can help move families out of poverty and into economic security.
November 27, 2023 - With one of the highest priced housing markets in the country, Silicon Valley’s median home sale price shot up to an all-time high of $1.53 million in 2022. The hottest Silicon Valley housing markets this summer were Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and Fremont. Is demand changing the demographics within those sub-regional areas? Joint Venture’s research arm, partnered with Unacast to tap into aggregated mobile device location data. The analysis offers zip-code-level insights on characteristics ranging from age to poverty rate to migration patterns. 
November 27, 2023 - Joint Venture’s Institute for Regional Studies, recently joined with the Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits and Thrive Alliance to produce A Landscape of Change and Impact, a report on issues confronting nonprofits in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. The groups produced the report to support the nonprofit community and its partners by offering an overview of organizational health, workplace practices, racial justice and equity, and strategic alliances.
November 27, 2023 - Carl Sagan once said, “Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something." Barry Vesser, COO of the Climate Center, has taken this sentiment to heart. Barry leads The Climate Center’s program and policy development and implementation teams. Barry moved around a great deal as a young man and served in the Peace Corps in the Philippines where he was inspired by the sense of community and kindness that was expressed by people of modest means. 
November 20, 2023 - Mark your calendar now for the 2024 State of the Valley Conference to be held Friday, March 1 at San Jose State University. Count on the most recent data on the state of the Bay Area and illuminating analysis by experts who will break down the numbers.
New data from Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies
San Jose baby represents three millionth resident
May 5, 2015 – Silicon Valley’s population has reached three million for the first time, Joint Venture’s Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies announced today.
Researchers at the Institute, using population data from the state and daily growth calculators for the region, predicted that Silicon Valley would top the three million mark by early May.
“This milestone goes hand-in-hand with our hot economy,” said Russell Hancock, president and CEO of Joint Venture, which houses the Institute. “Still, it’s a startling figure that puts our explosive growth in perspective.”
Rachel Massaro, Joint Venture vice president and senior research associate for the Institute, said Silicon Valley has been growing at the rate of one person every 16 minutes, or nearly 90 people a day.
“This is one of the fastest growing regions in the state, and it’s driven largely by the lure of our innovation engine, by foreign immigration and local births,” Massaro said. “This contributes to Silicon Valley’s worsening transportation and housing crunch.”
In conjunction with the release of the study, Joint Venture designated a baby boy born today at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Clara to represent the 3 millionth resident of Silicon Valley. The baby, Max, was born to Bing Yuan and Dan Danner of San Jose at 9:39 a.m., PDT. He weighed eight pounds, eleven ounces and measured just over 21 inches in length.
The Institute identifies Silicon Valley as Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, plus the the cities of Fremont, Union City and Newark in Alameda County and Scotts Valley in Santa Cruz County.
The data is part of a 32-page brief released today by the Institute, “Population Growth in Silicon Valley.” The report examines Silicon Valley’s population dynamics, including overall population growth, growth by city and county, birth and death rates, and the changing population composition in terms of age and gender. It also examines recent California Department of Finance (DOF) population and K-12 enrollment projections through 2023.
Additionally, the report examines population trends as they relate to the recent economic recession. Silicon Valley’s population dynamics are closely tied to the economy overall, including employment, income, cost of living and other factors; in particular, in and out migration, as well as birth and death rates, vary with changes in economic growth and development, which affect both behavioral and environmental change and influence population dynamics.
A large portion of Silicon Valley residents live within just six of its 39 cities – San Jose, Fremont, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Daly City and San Mateo – the study reports. Several cities are growing more than three times faster than the state as a whole.
Silicon Valley’s growth rate accelerated between 2011 and 2013, when it peaked at its highest since 1998, before slowing slightly since then. This growth is occurring despite declining birth rates since 2008, and is driven by foreign immigration as well as natural growth.
The 2015 Silicon Valley Index produced by the Institute reported the region has increased by some 30,000 people annually since 2011 and that it added 42,000 people in 2013.
Three million was the entire population of California a century ago and is double the number of people who were living in Silicon Valley in the mid-1960s.
It is roughly equivalent to one percent of the current U.S. population, twice the population of Manhattan and three times that of Delaware.
If it were a city, Silicon Valley would be the nation’s third largest behind New York (8.4 million) and Los Angeles (3.9 million). As a state it would rank 31st, between Mississippi and Iowa. As a country, think Armenia.
Three million people live in one million households and they use more than 400 million gallons of water and produce 13.2 million pounds of trash daily. A third of them will commute to work in their own cars.
The population study may be downloaded from the Institute website.
About Joint Venture Silicon Valley
Joint Venture Silicon Valley was established in 1993. A nonprofit organization, the group convenes the region’s leaders across every major sector – government, business, academia, labor, and community organizations. The organization provides data and analysis on our region’s challenges, and leads initiatives to address those challenges. Joint Venture is funded by cities and counties, local companies, colleges and universities, labor and workforce institutions and foundations. For more information, visit www.jointventure.org.
