

Diary: Google Invades - hoverkraft
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n03/rebecca-solnit/diary

======
ak217
This kind of journalism really bugs me.

There are too many ways in which the author strains logic and reason. I think
the companies of Silicon Valley are very interested in improving public
transportation, but held back by an ineffective transit governance system. I
think the comparison to the gold rush is ridiculous, as is the statement that
"technology is just another boom" (what?). I think being a technology hub has
done more to improve the lives of everyone in the Bay Area than any other
human-controlled factor, but authors like this one are too concerned with
irrelevant impressions and skin-deep, false comparisons to consider that.

~~~
moultano
If the Caltrain connected to any other public transit system in a reasonable
way, I don't think the Google busses would exist. Riding trains is much more
pleasant than riding busses, but not if it adds an extra hour to your commute
each way.

Furthermore, if you want cheaper housing, build more of it. I don't think
there's an easier way around it.

~~~
rayiner
It's a tiny piece of the puzzle. To have a really usable public transit
network ala Chicago or New York, you have to coordinate zoning with transit.

1) The terminal transit station should be built so as to exit right into the
central business district. The Caltrain station is too far from SOMA and lacks
decent public transit. Meanwhile, Chicago's three transit stations exit right
at the perimeter of the Loop (within walking distance of nearly any office
building, and with a transit ring around the perimeter of the CBD). New York's
two transit stations exit right into Midtown.

2) You have to allow high-density construction near the transit stations, so
people can live within walking distance of commuter transit. Look at the Menlo
Park Caltrain station. There's nothing around it. There are far smaller
Westchester towns that have a substantial downtown core around their Metro
North stations.

With housing prices being what they are in Silicon Valley, there should be 30+
story buildings ringing the Caltrain stations in Menlo Park, Palo Alto,
Mountain View, etc.

~~~
specialist
> To have a really usable public transit ... you have to coordinate zoning
> with transit.

+1

My position is a bit stronger: It all starts with zoning.

There was a geek news item recently that note the difference in USA and
Canadian sprawl, which the authors believed started with how parcels of farm
land were measured out. In the USA, parcels were squarish, requiring roads
everywhere, requiring everyone to have automobiles. Whereas Canada made theirs
long and narrow, to optimize farm-to-market transportation. Subtly different
initial conditions causing very different land use.

In the jurisdiction I live, better transit has been actively thwarted for
decades by the suburbans. For example, years ago, we got an Oregon-style
Growth Management Act, which tries to slow sprawl, preserving farm lands and
habitat. The suburbans frame it as anti-growth. But in fact GMO is pro urban
and opposition is anti-urban.

I am fascinated by the increasing urbanization of the under 30 demographic:
It's happening _despite_ the pro-sprawl incentives and policies. An example of
society way out in front of policy.

Locally, I think this is perfectly captured by the head quarters of Microsoft
and Amazon. In the 90s, Microsoft created a campus atmosphere in former second
growth woods (Bellevue/Redmond). Having nearly everything newly minted
university graduates would need right there on campus. It was very desirable.

Now in the 2010s, Amazon is transforming an urban area, South Lake Union. The
area now has housing, hip food, great access to parks, culture, etc. In fact,
in order to attract the young talent they need, I can't imagine Amazon
locating anywhere other than an urban environment.

~~~
rayiner
Great comment. Also: where can I subscribe to your newsletter?

My wife and I were just talking about this the other day. The "campus"
tendency of old-line tech firms seems to be the result of wanting a smooth
transition between college and work for new employees. But the newest batch of
college kids is more urban and don't necessarily want their office to resemble
a college campus or the suburbs where they grew up.

~~~
specialist
Thanks. Sorry, no newsletter, blog, rss feed yet. Went dark while I recharged
my batteries. Been working on some open government stuff. Will hopefully go
public soon.

------
johnny99
Forced myself to read to the end so that I would be justified in saying what I
had the impulse to howl from the third sentence: Rebecca Solnit, FUCK YOU.

It's actually quite well-written, but christ, what a pretentious, clueless,
holier-than-thou, pseudo-pious pile of crap. Blamey dirges like this are why
people hate liberals. It makes me hate them, and I am one. It's hard to know
where to start, so I'll just dig in:

Why do you demean and dehumanize tech workers, while glorifying Latinos,
homeless people, coal miners, and anyone who's lived in San Francisco since...
2006? 1996? 1976? How long do you have to live in SF to be fully human and
deserving of empathy?

What do you have against German tourists and "Asian male nerds?" You are a
bigot.

Why should people "drive themselves?" That's not noble-prole, it's stupid and
wasteful. Fewer people should drive, period. Private or public, mass transit
is mass transit. It's a Good Thing.

Why is capitalism "Janus-headed?" I think you don't understand capitalism. It
has one face, with dollar-sign eyes. Which is ok. It's capitalism, not poetry.
It's about capital.

Are rents being driven up, does growth create problems? Yes of course. Let's
deal with those problems. Whining about them is just annoying, and paints you
as a bitter person.

There's a solution, though. I say this as an erstwhile journalist, now
software developer: Rebecca, you should learn Python. Then maybe you can get
on the bus too.

~~~
jimray
I get what you're saying. I think your response captures one part -- the id,
if you will -- of a pretty common refrain I've heard about this article
amongst my other nerdy, SF dwelling friends.

And in that respect, you're right and certainly entitled to that opinion and
entitled to express it however you'd like.

While her piece has a lot of problems, not the least of them being a tortured
metaphor about gold miners, there is still certainly a kernel of truth to what
she's saying. The city is growing at a boom-town pace and infrastructure is
not keeping up with that growth, which affects everyone, longtime residents
who make less money than young tech workers with higher salaries especially.

Where I'll emphatically disagree with you is your "solution" -- it isn't to
turn every resident of San Francisco into an engineer. Much of the attraction
of cities is the diversity of people who live in them, which mean ideally they
are places that can support poets and programmers. San Francisco, even with
its recent influx of tech workers, is not nearly the industry town that the
valley proper of San Jose, Mountain View, Cupertino, and Palo Alto are. This
is a good thing. This is why people choose to live here and commute there.
This is why we have those buses.

This was a frustrating article to read because dealing with the massive,
largely tech-fueld growth really is an issue worth exploring. But for all the
problems this city has, Google buses ain't even close to the top of the list.
Here are some that I think about on my walks home through the city:

* Why are there parking lots adjacent to public housing? Furthermore, why are blocks of public housing (walk up Turk from Market to Divis some time, just not at night) amongst the least dense in the city?

* How do we allow things like AirBnB to exist but not create loopholes in the housing code, which has the effect of further constricting the already tight supply of housing?

* What can the city do to encourage development in the Tenderloin to replace the far-too-many SRO's?

* The high-rises going up in SOMA are great and will hopefully provide housing for the influx of young, mostly single, tech workers. What's the city going to do about encouraging more single-family residences, say, between Van Ness/Masonic and Geary/Market?

* How does Western Addition avoid becoming the next Hayes Valley?

~~~
jillsy
Even New York City has parking lots adjacent to public housing. I don't know
why either.

~~~
johnny99
Perhaps having public housing adjacent makes them less desirable to
developers?

------
stephencanon
Want cheaper housing? Make it possible to build more. The fact that quaint New
England towns have taller apartment buildings than most of the city of SF
pretty much tells the entire story.

The busses are basically the opposite of government intervention in a free
market; instead of the government stepping in to correct for a market failure,
private companies are stepping in to correct a public sector failure (to
provide usable transit for their employees).

~~~
tomkarlo
This is a classic urban problem: the people who are already in SF and own
places don't want more housing built, because the shortage drives up the value
of their own homes (and anything that blocked their view would reduce it.) The
best solution (which SF is kind of pursuing) is to add more high-density
housing in post-industrial areas being converted to residential, where
developers have big incentives to construct larger buildings.

SF always does a ton of hand-wringing about how white collar workers are
driving moderate-income renters out of the city, but it also doesn't make it
easy to construct the new housing stock that those white-collar residents
would prefer anyway.

------
DannyBee
I stopped reading at " It means that unlike gigantic employers in other times
and places, the corporations of Silicon Valley aren’t much interested in
improving public transport, and in fact the many corporations providing
private transport are undermining the financial basis for the commuter train."

This is such complete bullshit i don't even know where to start. Every single
company in the area has either offered to help, is helping, or had their help
refused when it comes to public transport.

It's not even a Google vs Apple vs whoever, they are _all_ trying to help here
_in any way they can_.

Of course, since the author cites absolutely no statements or support for any
of their claims, i'm just going to file this in the "not even wrong" category

~~~
scarmig
People are getting mighty touchy from this piece.

How is it bullshit? For one, cites on any of Google, Apple, Ebay, Facebook,
etc. either offering to help or helping and getting rebuffed? A quick Google
doesn't bring anything up, though I suspect I'm missing out on a key word.

But even granting that, the saying "the proof's in the pudding" is pretty
relevant here. If it were a priority for them in the same way it was for
corporations in the past, it would be done. But because of our current
economic structure, corporations no longer feel strong incentives to build out
public transit.

~~~
DannyBee
Look at public meeting minutes for various towns and you'll see it.

Past that, most of the companies do it smart, and let the towns take the
credit, and keep the rest quiet.

It is a priority for them, but unlike in the past, if you tell san francisco
you want to spend 50 million providing public bus service, their answer isn't
"sign us the hell up", it's "sorry, no".

~~~
SageRaven
For the first time in my 40-something years on this planet, I utilized
passenger rail in the US. I recently took a vacation on a leg of the
California Zephyr Amtrak route (which goes from Chicago to San Francisco).
During a wait one of the stations, I picked up copies of the industry rags.
Though I never would have guessed, it seems that there are strong political
and financial forces that are very much _against_ a prolific public transit
system in the US, with California being quite a battleground of the pro and
anti crowds.

Whether or not the tech giants in Silicon Valley are in fact trying to improve
the public transit situation, they have a steep hill to climb in order to make
any progress.

Though I am constantly surprised by public transit initiatives in smaller
inland cities. Salt Lake City has made substantial public transit improvements
in the past decade. Tuscon, already having a decent bus system, has a modest
3.9-mile light rail project slated to be completed late this year.

So I have some hope for public transit in the US as a whole.

------
farinasa
This is absolutely ridiculous. I don't live in SF, nor California for that
matter, but this comes across as "I was living in SF before it was cool. Money
is evil and so is anyone with it. Especially if they are young."

Every paragraph includes an insult, but one of my favorites was comparing tech
companies to coal mining companies. Wow. Couldn't be further from the mark.
The tech industry frees people to work remotely and is even willing to ship
them in expenses paid in luxury. The coal mining companies enslaved people,
paying pennies in fatally poor conditions.

Runner up was:

"...but still has a host of writers, artists, activists, environmentalists,
eccentrics and others who don’t work sixty-hour weeks for corporations"

This insinuates that tech is less honorable than these jobs. Again, missing
the mark, assuming that tech can't somehow help these people. Or perhaps
people in the industry aren't creative or some other dismissive nonsense.

This is borderline bigotry.

------
WestCoastJustin
I was wondering what these " _gleaming white, with dark-tinted windows, like
limousines, and some days I think of them as the spaceships on which our alien
overlords have landed to rule over us._ " actually looked like:

[0] [http://sfcitizen.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2012/06/ip2ku-c...](http://sfcitizen.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2012/06/ip2ku-copy.jpg)

[1] [http://sfcitizen.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2011/12/IMG_003...](http://sfcitizen.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2011/12/IMG_0039-copy.jpg)

[2] [http://missionlocal.org/wp-
content/themes/calpress/library/e...](http://missionlocal.org/wp-
content/themes/calpress/library/extensions/timthumb.php?src=http://missionlocal.org/wp-
content/uploads/2011/09/IMG_2133.jpg&w=620)

~~~
patmcguire
The bus in the first one almost looks stuck by how sharp the grade change is.
Is this common in SF?

~~~
Falling3
Look at the front of the bus; you can see some towing cables attached to it.

~~~
rdouble
That's just the MUNI track.

~~~
ahlatimer
No, it's actually stuck. [http://sfcitizen.com/blog/2012/06/10/noe-
valleys-23rd-street...](http://sfcitizen.com/blog/2012/06/10/noe-valleys-23rd-
street-proves-too-much-for-this-google-bus-its-rear-end-gets-stuck-at-the-
chattanooga-intersection/)

~~~
rdouble
ahhh. cool! (?)

------
decklin
> but the passengers were tech people, so withdrawn from direct, abrupt,
> interventionary communications...

Not sure this writer has actually had to deal with many "tech people".

~~~
Jare
My anecdotal experience suggests that the author's point is rather accurate.

This was Spain, not SF, but I witnessed a bus filled with 50+ tech people
(videogames & CGI) remain completely silent while the driver did the route
speeding like mad, eventually hit a car, then refused to stop and assist. I
was the only one to ask the driver to stop, the only one to offer assistance
to the car dude when he followed the bus to our destination, and the only one
to report the bus driver to the company. Everyone else just looked, commented
among themselves, and walked away as soon as possible.

------
hoverkraft
Interesting point about public transportation -- by creating a private bus
system, tech companies are actively suppressing demand for better public
transport between SF and the valley.

~~~
3pt14159
So why do we need the public to run mass transit in the first place?

~~~
lmm
Because it's a natural monopoly.

~~~
scarmig
How are buses a natural monopoly? I could see trains with right of way issues,
but buses on publicly accessible roads?

------
abhayb
I think the piece illustrates a very good point that the general public would
enjoy reading about. Which is that booms can push out diversity and that a
tragedy of the commons is occurring in SF with people driving out the
character they came to SF to experience.

The problem is that:

a) It's taking about _us_. People who are not software developers would brush
past the descriptions of developers as mere scene setting. But it's rather
insulting to those being described. b) If it is true, it makes us the
villains. And we don't like being the villains. We believe our motives and
actions are reasonably noble (or at least not harmful). It hurts to be told
that their not. c) It's colored with a lot of emotion from the author. I get
the sense that this is precipitated by an underlying feeling of: "Does my time
in SF mean NOTHING!?" Which is a reasonable emotion, but comes across to the
subjects (us) as a sense of superiority.

I believe that it conveys it's point much better to a "lay" audience than it
does to us because we (rightly) get lost in the details.

I'm very luck that I like what I like and that what I like is the "hot"
industry right now. I do want to remember that everything isn't roses and
sunshine. That this boom does have losers. But I'm still moving to SF because
that's where the place I want to work is and because I like the city. And
screw you Rebecca Solnit for making me feel like I don't belong. You were new
to SF once and you don't have that right. But I might just take the train
instead of a shuttle.

------
gee_totes
For further reading on the geography and political economy of California, I
strongly suggest Mike Davis' City of Quartz, which is a series of essays about
LA:

[http://www.amazon.com/City-Quartz-Excavating-Angeles-
Edition...](http://www.amazon.com/City-Quartz-Excavating-Angeles-
Edition/dp/1844675688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360355406&sr=8-1&keywords=city+of+quartz)

Warning for HN readers: the book is written in the same critical and class
conscious vein as this article, so you may not like it.

------
baddox
Someone doesn't like young people who work in tech.

~~~
jlev
I'm a young person who works in tech in Oakland, and I don't like the young
people who work in tech in SF and ride the comfortable google bus every day to
their jobs in the valley.

Ride public transit. Get out of your tech bubble and experience a sliver of
the lives of other people who live in your adopted city. Not everyone owns an
iPhone 5 and is downloading the latest app.

Work on something that will actually "change the world", not just disrupt a
market and make you rich.

~~~
baddox
That's just a complicated way of saying that you think some people's social
choices are inherently worse than some idealized social path that you are
advocating. Not everyone is the same as you, or even wants to be the same as
you. Not everyone gets social satisfaction from "getting out" and
"experiencing the lives of other people" in the way you're talking about, and
that doesn't mean there is something wrong with them. Some people derive
satisfaction from finding cool phone apps, some don't. Not everyone wants to
"change the world," or disrupt a market, or get rich. Et cetera.

------
te_chris
Man, people in the tech bubble really don't like being reminded that
everything their industry does and the effect it has had on an established
community isn't all perfect. This doesn't surprise me in my (anecdotal)
experience in the industry I've run into a lot of "those are problems caused
by other industries, not us", but the author raises some good points about the
effects of booms (and particularly this one) on the people who were
established prior but not part of it. Some can't be avoided but some can be
mitigated - and some people have been less defensive here and offered some
solutions to things like public transport and housing.

------
raldi
The article mentions ways the gold rush was bad.

The article mentions ways the tech boom is like the gold rush.

But the first set of ways does not intersect the second set.

I also found it ironic that the old "Yankee Go Home" sentiment was being
expressed by an expat.

~~~
scarmig
How exactly is Solnit an expat? She grew up in Novato and lives in SF and has
since well before the '89 earthquake, at least. I suppose she is if you
interpret expat as "moved into SF from outside the city limits of SF," but
that's an odd usage.

~~~
raldi
I stand corrected; I guess it's just the traditional old-fashioned form of
xenophobia then. In that case, the irony is that she waxes nostalgic about
SF's history as a place that welcomed everyone in the same breath as she's
making fun of and rejecting the latest newcomers for being different.

------
rdouble
_The whole of the US sometimes seems to be a checkerboard of these low-
pressure zones with lots of time and space but no money, and the boomtowns
with lots of money, a frenzied pace and chronic housing scarcity. Neither
version is very liveable._

After taking a few extended cross country road trips over the past couple of
years, this sentence from the article rang the most true.

~~~
csharpminor
I was about to just make the same comment. I think the "tech boom" has done a
lot for SF, but it's a great example of how wealth and investment is highly
concentrated in just a few areas of the country.

Ideally, startups would look at those costs, do the analysis, and make the
decision to locate elsewhere in order to minimize risk. But SF (and NYC) have
a kind of legendary status as being where successful tech companies begin. I
think that status makes it difficult to consider the value of location based
on a cost-benefit analysis.

Paradoxically, the sector that has the knowledge and employee base to be
geographically independent are also the ones that pay the most for their
location. At a gut-check level I feel there is quite a bit of "Irrational
Exuberance" going on in the VC/Tech sector right now.

~~~
thedufer
> the sector that has the knowledge and employee base to be geographically
> independent are also the ones that pay the most for their location

I agree that more tech companies should be okay with remote workers. But its
not the trivial thing you make it out to be - it takes work, especially in
larger teams. And unless you're going to put that work in and make it a part
of your team's identity, you have to be where the talent is. I don't think
this concentration of tech companies is nearly as surprising as you make it
out to be.

~~~
csharpminor
Right, it's a self-reinforcing trend. Companies move to locations where talent
exists, talented individuals seek those locations out.

But my point was that this makes it really difficult for startups (or any tech
company) to make a calculated decision about whether or not location is worth
the extra expense. I don't think it's surprising that tech companies are
located together, but I think the community would do well to investigate
whether the costs provide adequate returns in a majority of cases.
(TWGS;IHRTS)[Take with a grain of salt; I haven't researched this shit]

------
frdgr
This article raises interesting observations. I find it fascinating to see how
technology might be perceived as a distant animal. The tech industry, like
most schools of thought, regularly faces the danger of becoming an Ivory
tower, disconnected from the real-world. After all, technology bubbles hurt us
all in the past. Similarly, technology is hard to understand, it is magical in
a way, an alien tool. If you work in tech, don't be offended. Solnit is not
claiming an absolute truth. She's raising awareness of potential collateral
damage by tech companies.

------
jstalin
Public transit, even in the densest of American cities, is a money loser and
often pollutes more than if the riders were taking cars. It's badly in need of
innovation and revolution.

Fixed-route transit is a mess. That's why I can't _wait_ until we have self-
driving cars. Most public transit would die on the vine as cars, which
typically are utilized perhaps 10% of the day, can increase toward 100%
utilization. No more need for inefficient and inconvenient fixed routes and no
more need for giant empty buses riding around during non-peak hours.

~~~
lukeschlather
Self-driving cars don't necessarily help. Really, it's more a routing problem.
Buses with human drivers would probably be fine if you could come up with a
working system to route them on demand. Self-driving might save money in the
long run, but cars are probably not as efficient as buses in a big city.

------
newman314
I've been looking at homes recently and it just depresses the hell out of me.

I'm not in my twenties anymore, don't work for the googles etc. although I
have a relatively good tech job.

A semi decent house on the peninsula is coming in around 1 mil. And that's
often for much less than 2000sq feet.

And this is for a house that has doubled in value since 1999. Afaik, salary
increases are nowhere near that and certainly not mine.

~~~
newman314
Looking around San Carlos, there are entire stretches of houses going for $1.5
to 2mil.

This are for houses that in my mind, are the idealization of the American
Dream. 3-4 bedroom, nice yard, 2 car garage. Not the McMansions of lore.

Taking that same amount of money and going to say Texas, would likely yield a
ridiculously large house.

But more importantly, I keep wondering, are there really that many people
around me that make so much money to be able to afford this without blinking
an eye or is it more just keeping up with the Joneses....

------
dmm
If housing is so expensive why the hell aren't they building more?

Lumber(or brick) doesn't cost more in California.

It's not a lack of capital. Interest rates are extremely low thanks to the
fed.

It can't be a lack of labor. I personally know several carpenters and
electricians who would happy to work in California for 6 months building
apartments. I don't think my experience is that unusual.

What is going on?

~~~
jcdavis
Incredible building regulations. Trying to build anything in SF is a giant
clusterfuck. Propose anything over 4 stories outside of Fidi/SOMA? People will
complain that its "blocking light" or "out of character", or that it blocks
their legally unprotected views. Propose too much parking? Pro transit people
get mad. Propose too little parking? People with cars will get mad about the
increased competition for street spots. It goes on and on...

------
suyash
Not much about bus but other problems in city like rent and housing that we
already know about.

------
Taylorious
What a truly terrible article, how on earth did it get published? This is the
type of small minded, stereotyping, garbage that should never make it past
some hack's crappy blog.

I looked up the author on Wikipedia and I find it rather ironic that there are
quotes of her priding herself on her critical thinking abilities. Reading the
article, I saw very little evidence of critical thinking or thinking of any
kind for that matter.

As a side note, I see that she has a Masters of Journalism. Why on earth would
you need a masters degree in Journalism? Find a story, research it/fact check,
write about it. Do you really need to go to a university for 6~ years for
that?

~~~
jlev
The London Review of Books is not "some hack's crappy blog". Check your
critical thinking skills again; you might actually need a Master of Journalism
to get published there.

~~~
Taylorious
I did not say that The London Review of Books was a crappy blog. I said that
the article belonged on a crappy blog. Implying that it was like a poor
quality rant from a personal blog and not worthy of being published in The
London Review of Books.

~~~
rdouble
It's not really that bad, as far as these types of articles go. The opinion
column staff at the NYT churns out a worse article nearly every day.

------
zenogais
A pretty resentful and bitter piece by someone who seems to feel personally
wronged by an industry he is clearly not a part of, but feels above on a moral
and personal level.

------
nefasti
TLDR

------
MechaJDI
I'm not really buying it...

