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| 2023 Silicon Valley Poll October 4 |
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How do people feel about the Bay Area? What are the region’s priorities? What might the future hold?
These and other questions were recently posed to Bay Area residents in the 2023 Silicon Valley Poll.
Join us October 4 when Joint Venture releases the results of the latest poll, its third in partnership with The Mercury News and Bay Area News Group, as a panel of experts takes the stage to unpack the numbers. There will be three in-depth subject areas: our beleaguered downtowns, the future of public transportation, and the challenge of homelessness. The panel features:
- Ian Griffiths, Co-Founder and Policy Director, Seamless Bay Area
- Dontae Lartigue, CEO and co-Founder, Razing the Bar
- Jennifer Loving, CEO, Destination: Home
- Bert Robinson, (Moderator), Senior Editor, Bay Area News Group
- Egon Terplan, a leading expert in economic development, downtown revitalization, regional planning, land use, and transportation policy
Registration ($25) is simple with a credit card. Space is limited so act quickly. |
| Learn more about the Poll and register |
| The Year in Food Recovery: |
| 800 metric tons of greenhouse gases diverted from atmosphere |
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According to the Santa Clara County Food Recovery Program, managed by Joint Venture’s Food Recovery Initiative, marked progress has taken place in the last year as more and more businesses begin recovering their surplus food.
Because of food regulations in SB 1383, certain businesses must contract with a food recovery organization (FRO) to distribute edible food to those in need. Groceries, wholesalers, distributors, and food service providers needed to comply by January 2022.
After the first full year of activity, more than 11.6 million pounds were reported as recovered from regulated businesses located in Santa Clara County by all FROs who filed reports.
The increase in food recovery comes at a time when FROs are grappling with capacity limitations, as pandemic-related funding sources begin to run dry, making it even more difficult for FROs to recover and distribute this important nutritional resource to those in need in Santa Clara County.
"Thanks are due to the many businesses in our community going above and beyond compliance and to the nonprofits who are quickly and safely distributing food, ensuring that all surplus food is safely donated to those in need in our community. The environmental impact of millions of pounds of food filling plates instead of landfills is immense," says Robin Franz Martin, Executive Director of the program. “Based on estimates from ReFED’s impact calculator, the collective recovery efforts of these nonprofits and businesses prevented nearly 15,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases (MTCO2e) from entering the atmosphere–creating the same net benefit of taking over 3,000 passenger cars off the road for a year.” |
| Learn more |
| Institute: |
| August sees a jump in the unemployment rate |
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The unemployment rate in Silicon Valley increased to 3.7% in August from 3.4% in July, mirroring the 0.3 percentage point increase in unemployment throughout the Bay Area (3.7% to 4.0%). This follows a decline in the rate from June to July, according to analysis by Joint Venture’s Institute for Regional Studies. So far in 2023, the unemployment rate has increased five times when measuring month-to-month estimates and has decreased only twice (between March and April and between June and July). For comparison, the unemployment rate decreased five times (month-to-month) between January and August 2022. Overall employment among residents in the region dipped by more than 11,000 between mid-July and mid-August. Total employment among Silicon Valley residents is nearly 20,500 below the 2023 high reported in March.
“The unemployment rate in Silicon Valley has increased to its highest level since October of 2021 (3.8%),” said Ryan Young, Research Manager for BW Research, and an affiliated researcher at the Institute. “This is driven by higher-than-average job losses in Professional and Business Services, and the fact that in the greater Silicon Valley region, eight of eleven large industry sectors shed employment from mid-July to mid-August.” |
| Read the report |
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Community engagement drives transformation. When businesses, nonprofits, and citizens hold authorities accountable, progress is possible. And sometimes, when the community is very fortunate, people like Adina Levin view civic engagement as fun.
Adina is Advocacy Director and Co-Founder of Seamless Bay Area (SBA), a nonprofit whose mission is to transform fragmented and often-inconvenient Bay Area public transit into an equitable and united system. She gained a hearty appetite for coalition building while volunteering for a local chapter of the ACLU in Austin called Cyber Liberties. Her team of about a half dozen volunteers took on telecom providers who wanted to make public Wifi illegal and ended up defeating the telecom lobbyists’ cadre of hundreds. The passion seeded in that moment has served the community ever since. |
| Read Adina's profile |
| Save the Date |
| 2023 SVEDA Conference in Santa Cruz |
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| SVEDA, the Silicon Valley Economic Development Alliance, will hold its annual conference in Santa Cruz November 2-3 at the Dream Inn. SVEDA is a regional partnership of economic development professionals who bring together public and private resources to ensure the success of businesses in Silicon Valley. |
| Learn more |
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September 15, 2023 - (Silicon Valley) - Bay Area adds jobs in August, but clear signs of economic slowdown emerge: “A tech-heavy economy like ours will always have an ebb and flow,” said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley. More
September 15, 2023 - (Mercury News) - US Census: 300,000 Bay Area residents returned to the office in 2022 - “It’s a new ballgame,” said Russell Hancock, president and CEO of Joint Venture Silicon Valley. More
September 13, 2023 - (Mercury News) - Bay Area inflation rate cools off as price gains approach normal pace: “Inflation easing really matters in a place like the Bay Area,” said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley. More
August 22, 2023 - (CBS) - Proposal would convert hotel tower to housing for San Jose State University students: Russell Hancock, CEO of Joint Venture, says property owners... More
This is just a tiny sampling of Joint Venture's frequent coverage in the national and local news media. Read all our news coverage. |
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