

San Francisco's guerrilla protest at Google buses swells into revolt - wybo
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/25/google-bus-protest-swells-to-revolt-san-francisco

======
rtpg
I'm extremely biased because I think any effort to "normalize" a 40-mile
commute is poison to any environment, but I still don't get why, if everyone
working at places like Google want to live in SF, why can't Google and co.
just have offices in the city?

I get that they wouldn't be able to build their own little disneyworlds that
way, but instead of having Google build an entire ecosystem, they could just
have offices and people could just _go downtown to eat_ , or not need laundry
services because they don't lose 2 hours a day in a bus.

If offices were built closer to the city, they could be smaller but I'm fairly
convinced most people would consider it an upgrade to quality of life in
general.

When I did some work in Tokyo, going outside at lunch and just breathing some
fresh air during the 10 minutes spent transiting really helped to refresh the
mind.

I've never worked in Google-like environment, but the whole closed-off ,
prison-like state of the campus seems very off-putting. It's basically the
business equivalent of gated communities with their own services, to the
detriment of services shared with everyone. I can get why people can get mad.

~~~
macspoofing
>If offices were built closer to the city, they could be smaller but I'm
fairly convinced most people would consider it an upgrade to quality of life
in general.

What is this 'solution' solving exactly? These protests are targeting tech
workers and tech companies because tech workers want to live in San Fran and
thereby drive up the price of housing. How would that change if Google had
offices in San Fran?!

~~~
rtpg
Because then things like restaurants downtown would have more foot traffic
during lunch time to help make sure local businesses don't shut down. Also, it
could help make downtown "bigger", so even if the end result is the same
(higher rent), there'd be more apartments available (instead of the suburbs
that take a lot of space for not many families).

~~~
macspoofing
I'm pretty sure the San Fran downtown is already in-demand, and as I said
before, you can't have everything.

------
BjoernKW
"Anthony Levandowski is building an unconscionable world of surveillance,
control and automation," they wrote on flyers left near his house. "He is also
your neighbour."

What were those people thinking? They're subtly but very clearly trying to
intimidate that guy. This is like saying "We don't want the likes of you
around here."

If those protesters really wanted to do something against surveillance and
control they should hold those accountable who are responsible for the NSA
disaster and things like Guantanamo. Instead, they chose to pick on an
individual who isn't any more responsible for those issues than a factory
worker producing weapons is for the war crimes committed with these weapons.

If they want to start a revolution they should be heading to Washington, D.C.
instead of starting a petty revolt by bullying some guy who's neither
responsible for the issues at hand nor for their own failures in life.

If gentrification helps driving people out of town who display such obnoxious
behaviour then we can't have enough of it.

~~~
raverbashing
"If gentrification helps driving people out of town who display such obnoxious
behaviour then we can't have enough of it."

Yes, let's remove every current resident of SF by charging outrageous rent
rates and only have rich Google engineers there. Because, that's why. There's
no other place they can live, of course, right?

But don't complain then when they don't have anywhere to go for laundry, or
the only coffee place is an overpriced Starbucks, or groceries are double what
you pay somewhere else.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its supposed to be a free country. Sad when your rent goes up, but a free
market allows that. I'm a little offended each time the self-styled old-guard
want to 'protect the neighborhood' by which they mean 'keep my cheap rent'.
How about you live where you can afford, like everybody else?

~~~
raverbashing
" want to 'protect the neighborhood' by which they mean 'keep my cheap rent'.
How about you live where you can afford, like everybody else?"

So, there are no rent-controlled places in the USA? How about NYC?

Sure, let's raise your rent disproportionately and drive you to a bigger
commute, how about that. What if everything near - let's say a 1h30 commute -
is expensive?

Of course there are two sides to raising rents, but usually what happens is
that it drives away the people that made the place in high demand in the first
place.

There's no lack of space in the USA, or even in SF, but apparently people
decide to go for the already dense areas.

Google could build their Google Dorm in a cheaper area and have buses come and
go from there, how about it?

Not everybody is a high-payed SW engineer, so sure, their rent can be raised
and people that can't afford it move away, causing more traffic (either the
Google people moving there - MV is far from SF) and the people that moves out
and now have to commute), more social issues, etc

~~~
nirnira
You're a free economic actor and you get to decide for what price you want to
offer your goods and services. So are the people who own the particular good
in question - property. And so are the people who are also free to desire this
good. So far so good. So you have no right, though you might question the
wisdom, to demand that the rights of any of these free actors be curtailed
just because, for instance, a seller might wish to ask for a price higher than
you can afford, or that many other buyers in the market might be willing to
pay it.

Well, you can ask for their rights to be restricted, but then they'll ask for
yours to be as well - maybe they don't think it's fair that you sell a great
software service, with no real competitors, so you can sell it for a $100 a
month, and people will buy it - even though they wish they could pay you $5,
or nothing.

There's a whole literature of the toxic effects of imposing price restrictions
in any of these instances. If you want to educate yourself, just pick up any
basic economics textbook and follow the breadcrumbs.

In the meantime, if you're really so angry about this, why not turn your focus
to the real roots of the issue? Why not work for better virtualisation
technologies to help erode the tyranny of distance? Why not push for more
optimal land-use policy to help ease supply restrictions in the property
market? (though please try not to complain when your neighbours turn their
bungalow into a high-yielding apartment block)

There are many good, valuable ways to approach the putative "issues" generated
by an uneven topography of housing demand. Arguing for price restrictions is
easily the worst.

~~~
raverbashing
Thanks for your post, it's informative

What I find it funny is how people complain a lot about Net Neutrality but
then on the housing issue it's "free market for all and let's bulldoze SF and
build high rise buildings everywhere".

They are similar issues. There's no "perfect competition" (though it can be
argued that there's no perfect competition anywhere, they're examples of
restrictive competitions)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Confused: free market and net neutrality are coherent ideas. Both are a free
market for the participants (not the government/lobbyists hoping to profit by
price-fixing or supply-fixing).

Or should we conflate those with govt-supported monopoly (local cable
companies) wanting to skim money for no work, with private citizens wanting to
trade their personal property WITHOUT govt interference?

------
joeblau
There is one thing that I've really come to love and respect about the city of
San Francisco. They fight for what they want. I've seen protests for
everything ranging from wars, to working conditions, to America's Cup worker
wages. Most other places would just get rolled over by whomever has the money.
Underneath this issue, there are some serious socioeconomic issues at hand
that need to be addressed.

One thing I've done to try and give back is during the holiday season, create
some care packages and hand them out to the homeless. Put together basic stuff
like dental floss, razors, deodorant, hard candy, socks, pop-corn, etc in a
zip-lock bag. As I walked around the city and saw homeless people, I would
give them a bag. It was about $400 bucks and about 4 hours of time between two
people to make 20 bags. All you have to do is hand them out as you're doing
your daily things around the city. You would be surprised at how eloquent,
smart, and appreciative some of the people on the street actually are. If you
live in San Francisco, you _know_ you're going to run into someone homeless on
any given day.

That being said, I realize that I'm not the regular San Francisco transplant
and most Engineers can't logically rationalize giving something away for free
to someone who has done "nothing" for them.

~~~
paul_f
I love how you told everyone what a wonderful and caring person you are. And
then slammed engineers. Well played.

Next time I'd advise telling your story and avoid the temptation to smear an
entire profession.

~~~
joeblau
I'm also an Engineer and I'm not smearing the profession. Most of us don't
want to work on something that doesn't make logical sense.

------
copx
That is what you get _if you 're going to San Francisco_. The city has been a
left/liberal activist stronghold since long before Google even existed. And
yeah, things like gentrification and private luxury buses do tend to provoke
that crowd.

Maybe Google should consider relocating to a military town in Texas. It seems
there is a great convergence between Google's massive (and permanently
growing) data collection and the total surveillance efforts of the government.

~~~
Claudus
I'm sure Texas would be more than happy to have Google offices in any of the
major cities, and there's plenty of space.

------
macspoofing
This is a quintessential embarrassment of riches. San Fran is powered by a
real 21st century economy, which many other cities and countries are trying to
recreate, and you still find something to complain about? What's the solution
here? Not have tech companies that employ thousands of people (for upper-
middle class wages) in the area?! Not have thousands of young educated people
from all over the country and the world, want to move to, work and live in the
city? Not have those employees wanting to live in the city, but instead go
down the route of the 1950-1980s generations and settle suburbia, and leave
the downtown-core decrepit and crime-ridden?

Even in this specific case, what's wrong with a corporation providing a mass
transit option to their workers so they don't have to drive in and needlessly
congest the roads and pollute the environment.

~~~
rtpg
>leave the downtown-core decrepit and crime-ridden

The companies aren't in downtown, they're out 40 miles away instead, so not
paying local taxes or helping the local economy. Instead you just have the
workers who basically just sleep in SF, paying property taxes but not even
opting to using the public transportation to make it better.

> San Fran is powered by a real 21st century economy, which many other cities
> and countries are trying to recreate, and you still find something to
> complain about?

Based off of complaints from the tech community, it also seems to be a city
with a lot of homelessness, really shitty public transportation, and
dysfunctional regulations that end up causing rent to be even higher.

If you told anybody of a city where most of the world's innovation happen,
you'd at least imagine a city with a functional system of mass transportation,
but we can't seem to even get that right. San Fran should be the best city in
the world.

The problem isn't that workers are living in the city, it's that they're not
working there. People spend a lot of money where they end up working.

~~~
macspoofing
>The companies aren't in downtown

The employees live in the city.

>Based off of complaints from the tech community, it also seems to be a city
with a lot of homelessness

None of that is caused by having Google in the area. This is a cultural and a
government regulatory problem (municipal, and state and federal to lesser
extent).

>The problem isn't that workers are living in the city, it's that they're not
working there.

If you're an employee you spend money where you live, not where you work. It
would be nice for San Fran if all engineers worked in San Fran as well, but
you can't have everything. Plus it wouldn't be so nice for Mountain View,
Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, etc. In fact, those municipalities have more
to complain about since they can argue they are nothing more than commuter
cities.

San Fran should count their blessings.

~~~
mickt
>If you're an employee you spend money where you live, not where you work

During the work day most of these people are 40 miles outside SF on self-
sufficient campuses, often with free food. That means that during the week
they're not in downtown SF supporting local cafes, coffee shops etc. But the
same argument can be used for any commuter community, in this case it's
reverse of many cities where people commute into a city.

------
tehwalrus
The underlying problem, as with all property bubbles including the UK's, is
planning restrictions.

In the past, people would move to areas of high employment from areas of low
employment, and new housing was built for the economic migrants - this is how
cities expanded. Now, restrictions on building new accommodation entrench
expensive neighbourhoods, and mean economic migrants _can 't_ move nearer to
the employment. This leads to both a property bubble market and lower
employment overall in the nation.

This was all proposed/explained in this article a few months ago:

"Stay Put, Young Man",
[http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november_december_...](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november_december_2013/features/stay_put_young_man047332.php?page=all)

(discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6563854](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6563854)
)

------
wybo
Is this really happening? If it is, it brings up an interesting issue.

Private public transport can out compete public transport. But then school
buses already do this as well (compared to Europe). Though I did commute using
SF buses, and I fully understand why one would not prefer ones kids to travel
on them, and even why one would prefer company buses.

As for rents, true, but can that not mostly be blamed on restrictive building
regulations? Not so much with regards to standards as well with regards to
limits to flats and highrise buildings. As there is an undisputed market
demand for more housing in the bay-area.

Imho protesters are a tad misguided in who they are targeting.

~~~
brudgers
Let's get terms straight. Google is providing private _mass transport._ It's
no more public transport than a charter liquor and gambling bus to Atlantic
City. If it was public transport non-Googlers would ride for similar tariffs -
ok that's probably inaccurate since poor riders would have their transport
subsidized rather than Google's subsidy to those more affluent.

Google's buses are solving more traffic problems in MountainView than San
Francisco and relieving the congestion that most impacts commuters from San
Francisco to their campus. If the service had to meet the requirements for
public transportation i.e. meeting public needs, Google would shut it down.

~~~
macspoofing
>If it was public transport non-Googlers would ride for similar tariffs

...and be subsidized by tax-payers (because public transit systems in big
cities don't break-even on fares - and forget about capital projects, those
always need government funds). So this is still a net-win for the city.
Googlers subsidize a system they don't use to get to work.

~~~
brudgers
A company in Mountain View is using San Francisco's public infrastructure for
private purposes and not paying for the costs associated with that
infrastructure. Furthermore a plausible case has been made that Google's use
of San Francisco's public infrastructure is having a negative impact on some
of San Francisco's citizens. The impacted citizens are paying for the public
infrastructure in their city.

In essence the citizens of San Francisco are subsidizing the tax payers of
Mountain View because of their unwillingness to create affordable housing and
provide public transit that serves the needs of its workforce. Google's buses
are the means by which that subsidy occurs.

There is nothing preventing Google from routes that pickup and deliver
exclusively upon private property. Nor is there anything preventing Google
from opening access to its bus service to the public.

There is not even anything to prevent them from operating their bus service at
a profit...except the impossibility of doing so.

~~~
macspoofing
Are you for real?

>A company in Mountain View is using San Francisco's public infrastructure for
private purposes and not paying for the costs associated with that
infrastructure.

You mean roads? Public roads, built to serve San Francisco citizens? Those
roads?

And that theft that the despicable Mountain View company is committing
involves providing a service for San Fran employees who would otherwise drive
into work and congest the roads and pollute the air, or worse, not live in San
Fran? It seems like the implication is that it's better that these engineering
yuppies not live in San Fran. That's the subtext here.

>In essence the citizens of San Francisco are subsidizing the tax payers of
Mountain View because of their unwillingness to create affordable housing and
provide public transit that serves the needs of its workforce.

I really don't understand your mental gymnastics. How, under any reasonable
interpretation, is it a negative for an upper-middle class young engineer-
types, to choose to live in San Fran - pay San Fran property taxes, support
local business by living and spending money in the area, as opposed to not.
Your interpretation is insanity. Furthermore, you've got it all backwards as
I've said. Those commuting San Fran engineers are paying municipal taxes. They
are contributing to that city. They aren't contributing to Mountain View. They
are a drag on that city. Every San Fran engineer is a drag on Mountain View,
if anything. But that's why cities exist. To provide services like that
because you're all part of the same fuckin country and the same fuckin state
and the same fuckin region, and you're treating it like some sort of fuckin
theft is happening from those foreigners 40 minutes away. Insanity.

San Franciscans really doesn't know how good they've got it.

//

I know there's an ideological reason why you're focusing on big evil Google.
But it's actually San Francisco citizens that want to live in San Fran, and
work at Google. Google doesn't care where they live. They would probably
prefer their employees to live in Mountain View. It's San Francisco citizens
that are choosing this.

------
1010011010
Why people think California is awesome (other than the weather) is a mystery.

~~~
choult
Having just gotten back to the UK after my first trip to SF I can see why
people like it - it's got a great buzz, and the culture is varied and
attractive.

My biggest concern - though it might just be because I was downtown, or that
I've not spent much time in US cities - was the large number of homeless.
Maybe the Googles and SalesForces in the area could help those guys out?

~~~
davidgerard
I just got back to the UK after my first trip to SF and was disconcerted at
the lack of culture shock. Evidently I moved into a J. G. Ballard short story
some time ago.

------
icebraining
Guardian, what about a link to the study? Or to the protestors' pages? It's
called hypertext for a reason.

The study is here: [http://www.danielledai.com/academic/dai-weinzimmer-
shuttles....](http://www.danielledai.com/academic/dai-weinzimmer-shuttles.pdf)

------
JoeAltmaier
It smacks of 'protest chic'. Cool to wave signs somebody else made and get in
the new for being all liberal.

If those guys were going to a factory job, they'd be ok neighbors. But because
they're going to a better job, it's cool to make trouble for them.

------
stigi
"Well organised protesters have blocked buses[...]"

Bet they've been using Google Drive to organise.

------
nirnira
Christ, it's painful to read about these people with such stupid, lazy
attitudes and opinions - yet somehow still able to muster the energy to go out
and throw a huge tantrum and make a huge mess for other people. Instead of
thinking constructively about how to make themselves genuinely more valuable
to other humans, they just bitch and moan about what they believe themselves
entitled to - conditions which were never contractually promised to them.
Yeesh. Admirable in a way, I suppose, but still.

Still, this is a really interesting clash of interests - between the
infrastructural needs of potentially _the_ great city of the 21st century, and
its cultural roots. You need a mix of both - you can't just turn SF into a
grid of mega-skyscrapers, although that'd open the gates for great companies,
and real progress - you need something of the old sense of city and style -
but you can't just pretend the city can still function and thrive as a museum
of genteel Victorians and arts and craft co-ops, while the future brews down
in San Jose... You need capacity _and_ character to build the launchpad of the
future.

