You haven't looked at housing prices in Mountain View recently. If your goal in life is simply to own your own home (which seems reasonable to me), then even lower-level engineers are struggling.
That wouldn't really be affected by how much Google pays its engineers, though. There's a fixed supply of single-family housing in Mountain View, and >>> available supply seeks to live there. Under those conditions, housing prices adjust upwards until they reach the amount that the Nth bidder (where N = houses for sale <<< Google employees in Mountain View) is willing to pay. Increase salaries and you just increase the amount that everyone is willing to pay, and then you still get outbid by your coworkers.
Assuming that owning a single-family home is non-negotiable, the only ways out of this are a.) get all your coworkers fired or b.) move out of the Bay Area. Mountain View (and the rest of the Bay Area) is basically fully built-out: there simply is no more land for 1/4 acre lots.
(If you're willing to compromise on "single family home", there's another alternative: build up. This is the most realistic solution, but requires that people give up on the idea of a detached house with a yard and settle for condos instead.)
There are many people in Mountain View who don't work for Google though. Most people, even.
But overall, yes, I agree that the primary problem there is restrictions on development of denser housing. Earning more money would help though (it always does).
there's plenty of land just outside the bay area. from those 5 lane jam packed freeways: 680 and 580, you can see nothing but green or yellow for miles on end, for much of the stretch.
There is a big difference between struggling to live, and struggling to afford a detached house in Mountain View. I don't think it is reasonable for every Google employee to be able to afford a house there - there just isn't enough supply, and that isn't Google's fault.
If only there were somewhere else in the entire United States where software engineers could enjoy a great standard of living and easily be able to afford a nice large house in the burbs....
