Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New Tech Money, Same Old Problems

Posted by Soulskill on from the those-who-don't-study-history-are-doomed-to-something-something dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Following the publication in May of George Packer's alarming article in the New Yorker revealing the state of the communities surrounding California's tech boom, the LA Times reports that despite the wake-up call, things are getting even worse in the Bay Area as tech companies seek to completely insulate their employees from ever having to interact with the real world. Quoting: 'Every weekday starting at dawn and continuing late into the evening, a shiny fleet of unmarked buses rolls through the streets of San Francisco, picking up thousands of young technology workers at dozens of stops and depositing them an hour's drive south. It's an exclusive perk offered by Apple, Facebook, Google and other major Silicon Valley companies: luxury coaches equipped with air conditioning, plush seats and wireless Internet access that ease the stress of navigating congested Bay Area roadways. The private mass transit system has become the most visible symbol of the digital gold rush sweeping this city, and of the sharpening division between those who are riding the high-tech industry's good fortunes and those who are not.'"

40 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. Next thing you know... by roc97007 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...they'll all be in a huge space station... Hey, waaait a minute!

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    1. Re:Next thing you know... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Really. So companies provide employees with a free benefit, thereby reducing pollution, and relieving traffic congestion, and this means that things are "getting worse"? This is the stupidest article I have read so far today.

    2. Re: Next thing you know... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Rich people walling themselves off from poverty all around them? What could go wrong?

      Have you ever been to San Francisco? There are rich people, and richer people. Googlers, Applers, etc, are choosing to live in SF to enjoy the lifestyle of the city. They are not "walling themselves off" just because they take a bus to work.

      Some people will whine about anything. If we find a cure for cancer, someone (probably the author of this article) will complain that grave diggers are out of work.

    3. Re:Next thing you know... by hawguy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Really. So companies provide employees with a free benefit, thereby reducing pollution, and relieving traffic congestion, and this means that things are "getting worse"? This is the stupidest article I have read so far today.

      I think the problem is that it's turning SF into a "bedroom community" for employers far to the south rather than having the workers live *and* work in the city (thus they are spending less time and money in the city. When I worked in SF during the first dot-com boom, my coworkers and I all went out to lunch at local restaurants and met after work at local bars. The worker that leaves the city at 7am on a bus, and them comes home at 7pm to be dropped off in his neighborhood is probably not spending as much time going out and supporting local businesses. Further, the added influx of SF residents are driving up rents, so even those that *do* work in SF find it difficult and expensive to find a place to live. Oh, and the city receives no payroll tax for those employees, so not only does the city earn less tax revenue due to reduced spending by these workers, but they receive no payroll tax either.

      Rather than subsidizing bus travel to make it more attractive to live in SF and work 40 miles south, it would be nice to see the Peninsula cities and tech companies work on making it more attractive for their employees to live closer to work. It's no fun to live next to an office park that becomes a big unwalkable, bike unfriendly concrete wasteland after working hours.

    4. Re:Next thing you know... by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think the problem is that it's turning SF into a "bedroom community" for employers far to the south rather than having the workers live *and* work in the city (thus they are spending less time and money in the city. When I worked in SF during the first dot-com boom, my coworkers and I all went out to lunch at local restaurants and met after work at local bars. The worker that leaves the city at 7am on a bus, and them comes home at 7pm to be dropped off in his neighborhood is probably not spending as much time going out and supporting local businesses. Further, the added influx of SF residents are driving up rents, so even those that *do* work in SF find it difficult and expensive to find a place to live. Oh, and the city receives no payroll tax for those employees, so not only does the city earn less tax revenue due to reduced spending by these workers, but they receive no payroll tax either.

      Rather than subsidizing bus travel to make it more attractive to live in SF and work 40 miles south, it would be nice to see the Peninsula cities and tech companies work on making it more attractive for their employees to live closer to work. It's no fun to live next to an office park that becomes a big unwalkable, bike unfriendly concrete wasteland after working hours.

      So let me get this straight. These people are commuting out of the city they live in to go to work on company supplied buses and this is causing the city to loose money? It would be no different if they drove themselves to work. These people may be even less likely to live in the city if they had to drive themselves everyday. In which case the city would get nothing from them. As it is, the city is collecting property and local taxes from these people. They probably also do most of their shopping in the city, so the local businesses are making money and the city is getting sales taxes. It''s my understanding that most of these tech places also have their own food services and such, so I fail to see how the city is losing much from the lunch crowd either.

      Now if you want to see the reverse of this, come to D.C. Damn near everyone who works in the city lives along the beltway in Virginia or Maryland. So the city gets all of the lunch crowd people. Then they go home and spend their money where they live and pay their taxes there too. Those areas are very well off for the most part. DC itself is broke. If it wasn't for the federal government propping it up it would be an even bigger hell hole than is already is. The 2010 violent crime rate> was 207% higher than the national average. Sanfrancisco was 73% higher. So no, Getting people to move away is not going to do anything for the city. Just look at Detroit.

      Your remark about driving the property values up I agree with, but that seems to be happening most places.

    5. Re:Next thing you know... by Macman408 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe these people aren't eating lunch in the city any more, but the people I know who have moved there want to live there exactly because they want to spend their time and money there. They aren't moving there because it's more convenient, or less expensive, or has better housing - they move there because there's better food, better nightlife, better social atmosphere.

      Of course, this ends up benefitting the high-class, trendy local establishments, possibly at the expense of the ones that are not.

      I'm sure they're pricing many people out of the housing market - but that's happening everywhere within about an hour of any of the tech companies, save for a few spots that have a reputation of being unsafe or in an undesirable location (adjacent to train tracks or highways, perhaps). It's not unique to San Francisco. Although the presence of a bus stop may amplify the effects of techies in a small area, the techies moved to the city before the bus service started. (I work for a company where it is a perennial request to run a shuttle from the city for the employees that already live there.) Additionally, there are bus stops in many other areas - a friend of mine often rides one from south San Jose, for example. And it's not just distant destinations, either; I have seen an Apple bus dropping off about a dozen employees a mere 3 miles from the mothership, in a completely boring (but still expensive) neighborhood.

    6. Re:Next thing you know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The picture in the article was taken 100 feet from my house, and the rental units in our building have gone up from $1800/mo to $2800/mo within just two years. I'm not complaining, but the article is dead-on that this huge influx of intelligence and money has thus far failed to actually lead to any benefit for the large majority of people who actually live here. It's a bit of a disappointment so far, and possibly a prelude to what's to come for the rest of the country (?).

      I actually left Silicon Valley 14 years ago in order to escape the slit-your-wrists boredom of Silicon Valley. San Jose is loaded to the gills with money, but they never seem to prioritize perks for those who are not directly working for those companies. To give just one example, I distinctly recall having to drive quite a distance to get to the nearest bar, even when I was working for a great company. San Jose's idea of a solution to that sort of problem is to vigorously go after drunk drivers (as opposed to just creating more and better mass transit). Those who have lived in the Bay Area might have noticed the incredible difference between San Jose and San Francisco police officers.

      I think many people are legitimately concerned about what this culture brings with it. The human aspects of San Francisco which set San Francisco apart from the rest of the world -- the electronic music, burning man artists, etc -- have already mostly crossed the bridge to Oakland.

      In reviewing the comments here, I'm honestly not completely surprised that the people here would take a clinical view of the article. This is not exactly a reflective community. You guys probably won't get it until your tech company throws you away at age 45 or 50, as tends to happen when your pay gets too high. Will you know enough to start up your own company at that point? Those who have put everything they had into their work tend not to have the time to think about such things. The same things that make the Silicon Valley culture lacking in empathy also sporadically appear here too.

    7. Re: Next thing you know... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the "lifestyle" they crave is getting killed off by the gentrification the tech money is bringing in.

      Except that SF was fully gentrified forty years ago when the gays and DINKs* moved in. Other than the homeless, poor people haven't been able to live in SF since before you were born. I don't think many theaters, shops, bars and restaurants are shutting down because their customers are "too rich".

      *DINK = Double Income, No Kids

    8. Re: Next thing you know... by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's a cost effective solution. They can get their employees to work on the cheap -- and they don't have to park at Google HQ which is no doubt damn near impossible.

    9. Re:Next thing you know... by micheas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except that it is more profitable to produce housing that is 25% occupied that is priced at > two million a unit than lower priced units that are actually occupied by residents of the city.

      The 25% occupancy rate was a fairly recent number from One Rincon Hill With units going for between $700,000 and $30,000,000. That is some of the densest housing in San Francisco.

      One of the effects of Prop 13 is that in California when your property goes up in value, your taxes go up no more than 2% annually, and when your property goes down in value you get a new lower cost basis for which to limit your annual increase from. This means that housing shortages that predominantly effect the young and entrepreneurs minimally effect the large voting block of older voters allowing rather unique real estate economic systems to form. Many of them encouraging a concentration of wealth.

      --
      Work bio at MMWD
  2. Allegory by CanHasDIY · · Score: 5, Funny

    Every weekday starting at dawn and continuing late into the evening, a shiny fleet of unmarked buses rolls through the streets of San Francisco, picking up thousands of young technology workers at dozens of stops and depositing them an hour's drive south

    Huh.

    OK, maybe it's because I'm an old-school Missouri farm boy, but... that sounds an awful lot like cows at a stockyard.

    They're just one beat off from installing cattle chutes.

    MooooooooHeyisthataStarbucksooooooooo.

    --
    An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    1. Re:Allegory by MatthiasF · · Score: 3, Informative

      They have the cattle chutes, too. They're called security checkpoints. Most of these companies have them and some even search you on your way out.

    2. Re:Allegory by turkeydance · · Score: 3, Insightful

      there's this "turnip truck" thing, too.

    3. Re:Allegory by xaxa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Huh.

      OK, maybe it's because I'm an old-school Missouri farm boy, but... that sounds an awful lot like cows at a stockyard.

      Don't they have school buses in Missouri? This is pretty much the same thing.

      And maybe it's because I'm from a European city, but it sounds like the public transport isn't very good if companies run private buses. The Google, Facebook etc here don't need buses, nor (presumably) do the offices in New York. (We don't have school buses here either, children are expected to use the normal public transport. It's free for them.)

    4. Re:Allegory by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "... that sounds an awful lot like cows at a stockyard."

      It's worse than that.

      I've had A LOT of job opportunities in San Francisco. (I live far from there.) The cost of living there is significantly more than twice as high as it is here. (According to CNET's Cost of Living Calculator.) And that's not all... the "quality of life" is just plain different. Row houses with no yards, built an inch apart from each other. Lack of adequate opportunity for outdoor activities. Etc. I could go on for a while about how "quality of life" is just plain not as good there.

      I keep telling recruiters that if they want me to move, it would have to be an improvement over what I can get here. So that means they'd have to pay me at least 3 times what I can make here, in order for it to be an actual step up.

      They look at me like I'm crazy... but they're the ones who are crazy.

    5. Re:Allegory by nojayuk · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I live in the centre of a city with the best public bus service in the nation, operating at a profit with regular clean modern buses, express services to the airport, park-and-rides, good handicapped access, night bus services etc.

      Despite this the big city centre employers like the financial services companies, healthcare, TV stations etc. all run their own shuttle bus operations as the public buses don't necessarily go from one office to another, although a few bus routes actually go into company campuses to pick up and drop off passengers at the office front door as well as passing through the business parks on the city outskirts.

    6. Re:Allegory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Within the past month I've started a job in San Jose, moving from the US East Coast to Silicon Valley.

      This area has the worst (inefficient, inconvenient, and slow) public transit system I've ever seen. I've opted to rent a car (at $250+ per week) until I can have mine shipped out here just so I don't have to rely on the light rail and buses. It's that bad.

    7. Re:Allegory by Stumbles · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Sounds like the beginnings of "The Company Store" coal miners suffered in the 1800s. i wonder when Google will start paying their employees in Google dollars that can only be spent at Google stores. Of course Apple and others will have their equivalent money.

      --
      My karma is not a Chameleon.
    8. Re:Allegory by Stiletto · · Score: 5, Informative

      There is no serious public transport system between SF and the South Bay/Peninsula (or between tri-valley area and South Bay/Peninsula, or really between anywhere and South Bay/Peninsula). There's only Caltrain which is a sad joke. These companies are stepping up BECAUSE the government has failed. /Disclaimer, I do not work for a company that provides such bus service, but would love to--it's a HUGE benefit to not have to commute yourself 3+ hours to/from work

    9. Re:Allegory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google is hiding over $10 billion in offshore tax havens and Facebook paid no income tax in 2012. Public transportation sucks. I wonder if there's a connection.

    10. Re:Allegory by khallow · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I wonder if there's a connection.

      It's the same government which is too incompetent to run mass transit or tax a business. Who here really thinks that if California and the US were to tap into these businesses that things would be even a bit better? It's not that these governments aren't getting enough revenue, but that they simply squander whatever they get. Double their revenue, and they'll just double what they squander.

    11. Re:Allegory by Stiletto · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, fuck you with facts:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_BART_extension


      "In 2000 Santa Clara County voters approved a 30-year-long half cent sales tax increase to fund BART."

      "In 2008, to mitigate that fact, the voters were again asked to raise sales tax this time by 1/8th of one percent to come into effect when and if federal funding of the project was given the green light."

      "The project was cut into phases with service to northern San Jose at Berryessa originally planned for 2018 and to downtown San Jose by 2025 which may or may not include Santa Clara."

      So, after all these taxes, federal funding, and time, this government project has still gone nowhere, they don't plan to even be done until 2025, and even then, they will have failed to even include all the destinations they planned for.

      Meanwhile, these tech companies have given up waiting for the government to un-fuck itself, and just deployed their own damn mass-transportation system.

  3. Wish my employer did that. by sackofdonuts · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Driving in the Bay area is horrid. Getting bus service to and from work would be great. Could get some extra sleep too.

    1. Re:Wish my employer did that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What's even more confusing is the article treats this like a bad thing, but it's objectively making bay area commutes BETTER by taking thousands of cars off the roads. Can you imagine how much worse traffic would be if these shuttles weren't in place?

      It's not like other mass transit is an option. Caltrain is already overloaded.

  4. This is good. by darkwing_bmf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The buses are better for the environment and road congestion than if each person had to drive individually. And they don't cost taxpayers extra money. This sounds like a win-win to me.

  5. Sooo.... by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Informative

    So we're angry at rich large businesses for doing what poor public schools do? I'm confused -- why is this news?

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    1. Re:Sooo.... by darkwing_bmf · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm not sure that's true. If you divide the cost among all the passengers it will probably be less than the cost for each passenger to drive separately. So getting paid more would actually mean less money for you after expenses.

  6. Worthless article from the legacy media. by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So, the author is pissed off at Apple and Google for solving their own transportation and parking problems instead of waiting around for the incompetent local politicians to handle it?

    Guess it was a slow news day on the "bitching about non-problems" desk at the LA times.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  7. The have's and have not's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Quote: the sharpening division between those who are riding the high-tech industry's good fortunes and those who are not.'"

    How 'bout a little perspective? I'm not riding on one of those buses, but I do recognize the fact that the people who do aren't just lucky. They are actually contributing to the "good fortunes", which trickle down to everybody else.

    Sorry if you are one of those who only get a trickle, but that's a lot better than nothing - especially if you contribute nothing.

    If you want to get "upstream", try going to school for something useful (like STEM) and not liberal arts.

  8. This is nothing new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Railroads have had private commuter club cars for a century. A bunch of wealthy people get together, purchase or lease a train car, add nice seating, waitstaff, & amenities, and pay Amtrak/Metro North/CNWR to haul it around with their regular commuter trains. In exchange for not sitting with the riff-raff, they subsidize everyone else's fare.

    Every so often, some young journalist realizes that rich people can afford nicer stuff and attempts to spin it into a scandal.

  9. Wait, what? by quietwalker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So organized door-to-door mass transit, reduces the environmental impact of rush hour, reduces roadway congestion in an already congested area, removing the need to drive the commute, your fellow passengers will be co-workers, so it's expected that they'll maintain a reasonable level of public decency, and you don't have to find and subsequently pay for parking, and it's not being paid for with taxes but as a perk to attract more workers - and somehow this is a class warfare thing?

    This is just a capitalistic thing.

    You wanna know how you can get on those luxury buses that ferry people from point A to a company's door? Just work for the company. You wanna know how you can get those big salaries that are driving the gentrification of the worst parts of town, making them safe and livable for a family? Just work for the company. You wanna know how you can end up a millionaire? Have an idea, work it, and sell it or start up a company to grow it.

    This isn't a class barrier, it's a time, effort, skill, and experience thing. That's how our economic system works.

    It does suck that an area becoming a better class of neighborhood results in raised rents, but that is literally the price to be paid. The good news is that the more affluent individuals are in an area, the better it is for everyone. It might not increase in equal measures, but it's been well documented - average pay goes up in those areas, following the trend for cost of living.

    It's not like a downtown of a city is ever going to be static. It was different than it was 20 years ago, and 20 years before that, and so on. It's always changing, and there's not anything wrong with that. Besides, what comes to mind when I think of a successful anti-gentrification trend is Detroit.

    You don't want to end up like them.

  10. Re:WTF perspective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I want to agree with you but I it is getting more difficult to ignore the ways in which people are disengaging from the real world.

    When my former college hired crossing guards to help adults cross a minor city street because they couldn't take their eyes off their gadgets I became convinced something significant has changed. When I see a lack of pick-up games and activity in the parks on beautiful days but see the organized indoor summer camps bustling with kids and tight supervision I wonder if we've become unable to live in the real world.

    We live in a world that is safer than ever - whether we're talking about world politics or safety in our neighborhoods but we're also acting more fearful than ever.

  11. Re:Can't win by ebno-10db · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If they were public buses instead of company buses, would they clog the streets any less? Whoever owns and rides them, they are mass transit. Only in San Francisco would people complain about folks using mass transit. I'm no big fan of Silly Valley and its satellite communities like San Francisco, but this has to be one of the silliest, and most hypocritical, complaints I've ever heard.

  12. Wait, wait by drolli · · Score: 3

    Now the people who work hard and are not egocentric enough to fill the highway by their personal ton of steel senslessly produced are having a "luxury". Company busses exist in Europe and Japan since a very long time, connecting the next station/city with big branches of a company, even for factory workers.

    It is cost efficient and you have workers who are fresh and relaxed when they arrive at work. It makes economic sense for the company. Meetings start on time. It makes sense traffic-wise (for the space which one bus takes you can maybe have 3 cars, but there may be up to 60 people in the bus).

    Further indicaiton that the article is biased: Coaches have air conditioning? That does not make them "luxury coaches". Every car driving there has air condition. The city busses in the city where i live have air conditioning. It is reasonable to have it in such climate. Plush seats? Really? No please tell me: The seat in the cars are probably made of wood. And When did the last time travel in a normal travel bus when the seat where not soft seats? The time that publi transport had wooden seats only is a long time ago. Wireless interent access? The budget bus line in germany has wireless interent access, as have the high-speed trains in germany, japan, austria, france (these are the countries i know of). Having interenet access in a mass transit system makes sense. Just because it does not make sense in a [personal car does not mean it is "luxury". If your employees can chek the mail on the way to work, this qquickly pays off.

    So the bottom line is: This is not isolating the employees from the real world" but it is ecologically, economically, and socially reasonable approach. Only a complete moron woud turn around the need to hide yourself in your own car (and pay for it) as a sing of "being connected to the world". Instead of affording a car in a 40km ouside suburb i prefer to pay a little more rent, accept that there are time when the bus goes, get in the queue and relax, and do my private things by subway and walking/cycling.

  13. Re:WTF perspective by asmkm22 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Despite the crappy summary, the articles aren't about public transportation. So I guess, leave it to the average slashdotter to not even bother reading.

    They talk about how the big ass buses are just one of many examples of how the gab between the wealthy and the poor keeps widening in that area. They have tons of billionaires and millionaires, yet record numbers of people on food stamps. Any rental property within half a mile of the various elite bus stops is apparently going for up to twice the normal rate, effectively pushing out anyone who doesn't make a google wage.

    They also complain about how the tech people don't even get out and interact with the community that they are taking over. They order stuff online rather than go shopping at local places; they bury their noses in smartphones when walking around, etc..

    Next time, RTFA.

  14. Re:Commuting by ebno-10db · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's what I love about Silly Valley. On the one hand they complain about not being able to get enough people, in part because housing is too expensive, and on the other hand they won't allow construction of new, preferably higher density, housing. Either you want to be a major tech hub, or you want to be a low density suburb. Sorry folks, you can't have it both ways.

  15. Re:Actually... by Stiletto · · Score: 4, Informative

    The cost of living is much more than 2X, especially for housing, which can be up to 10X the cost of normal areas in the USA. When I moved out here from "flyover" land, my salary increased by about 1.5X but my cost of living practically tripled. It was not a good deal.

  16. Re:This is bad. by Stiletto · · Score: 3, Informative

    Live closer to work? LOL. Let's see, where are these companies located? Cupertino, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park... Where STARTER homes are $1 million??? In the Bay Area it is impossible for a regular tech worker to live close to work. Your only real option is a long commute. I'd rather do it in an air conditioned bus with my laptop open than in my old beater with the fan on and my blood pressure rising...

  17. Re:And The Best Part Is by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google and Apple do nothing of consequence? How in the hell did you get modded up past -10?

    Google is worth many many thousands of dollars/year to my company. There's no way to program in a modern system like RoR without being able to search and find answers to questions. That's not to mention all of the other stuff that I can easily search and learn about, like when I had shingles 4 weeks ago. What used to take me a day at the library 25 years ago now takes me 5 minutes. Sorry, that's value.

    Don't even get me started about my iphone.

    --
    Do you have ESP?
  18. Re:Actually... by Stiletto · · Score: 3, Informative

    Simple. They can't.

    Homes out here are not being purchased by middle-class families. They are being purchased by:
    * Foreign (mostly Chinese) investors
    * Hedge Funds
    * Real Estate investment trusts
    * Multiple families pooling their money (and planning on having 15 people living in a 3 bedroom house)

    If you're making 60 to 80 thousand a year, you're not even close to being able to afford a home. You're living in a 1br or studio apartment in a not-so-nice part of San Jose.