Some of the problem in California is that the population of want-to-buyers is all focused on a small number of extremely geographically constrained areas.
Their answer is always "more density" but more density isn't going to solve it - the demand is not fixed and density will not alleviate it, so there is natural pushback on ruining the area and not actually solving the problem.
The real answer here is that the valley needs to extend further south, as in the 1990s plans for companies to start building campuses in Silver Creek or further, which would require the government to incentivize such moves.
Had the dotcom lasted another two years or so, IBM, Cisco, and many others would have done the capital investment in campuses further out, and the viable housing area would have increased dramatically, but it didn't work out that way.
