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'Google Buses' Are Bad For Cities, Says New York MTA Official
An anonymous reader writes "The Director of Sustainability for New York's MTA is calling out Google, Apple, and Yahoo for 'deliberately' building their campuses away from public amenities like restaurants, and public transportation. 'With very few honorable exceptions like Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, who recently moved his company headquarters from suburban Henderson to downtown Las Vegas, tech companies seem not to have gotten the memo that suburbs are old and bad news,' he writes. Instead of launching their own bus services to ferry people from the city to their campuses, as the tech companies have done, the Googles and Apples of the world should 'locate themselves in existing urban communities. Ideally, in blighted ones,' says Dutta." Maybe cities just don't have the right mix of amenities, price, space, parking, and other factors to make them better places to put certain businesses.
If anyone is going to bring us Shadowrun-style corporate arcologies, it'll be Google.
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
I would rather the campus be located away from urban area. Less traffic, less driving, cheap/free parking, cheaper food, less chance of crime happening to me or my properly while at or traveling to work and for most people closer to home. This is double so if locally aimed marketing and walk in customers are not very frequent.
Why is commuting from suburbs to town centers good, but commuting from town center to a suburb bad?
Apparatchik from a tax-dependent transit agency is bad-mouthing private alternatives. HIs approval is neither sought nor required.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So tech companies don't want to be in high crime locations in the middle of neighborhoods that most of their workers wouldn't want to live or send their kids to school? Who woulda thunk it?
I'm already in the suburbs today and if I have to look for a new jobs I'm going to start to look even further from the city I live around. There is zero appeal to working in a city much less living in one.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
This: "Maybe cities just don't have the right mix of amenities, price, space, parking, and other factors to make them better places to put certain businesses."
The Director of Sustainability demonstrates the ludicrous line of thought that puts stadiums downtown.
"Put your company and employees in a more expensive and crowded place (and *blighted?!* = more dangerous) because I say it's better", says a guy who works for a terribly-run monopoly that depends on people needing to get where he's telling them to build.
Whiny mid-level mafia manager bemoans that his big city mafia has chased away business. Maybe if cities focused on becoming good places to do business again, business might move back. Just a thought.
Nonaggression works!
Would be creating a virtual workplace with seamless interaction with coworkers. Why are we not working on this? We could live wherever we want, no commuting, no traffic pollution, no being forced to lived in high-priced areas where everything - housing, space, schools, parking - is at a premium. But the world seems content to move in the opposite direction: we have the internet, so let's move all the tech companies to one place.
'...locate themselves in existing urban communities. Ideally, in blighted ones,'
You mean you want Google to locate its campuses in urban blighted areas (slums). No modern tech company will do that, no one would work for them. It is all about attracting the best and brightest minds. I have a suggestion, why don't you clean up your cities and get rid of the blighted areas and maybe companies will want to locate there.
Maybe cities just don't have the right mix of amenities, price, space, parking, and other factors to make them better places to put certain businesses.
Certain businesses? Which sort? The kind that benefit from building all those amenities from scratch? I call bullshit unless you are operating an airport, naval base, or some other ridiculously large and specialized enterprise. Google, Apple, etc simply balked at the rent/taxes they would have to pay to locate somewhere with a good workforce, and instead camps outside the city limits and cherry picks employees with private buses to take advantage of the city without having to pay for it. If the suburbs were such an appealing location, why aren't the employees there too?
Not to mention the higher taxes inside of cities. In Cleveland, for example, Progressive Insurance wanted to put a big office building right in downtown Cleveland. Then they looked at the taxes they would be paying. The City of Cleveland refused to make an exemption for them. That is fully within their rights, of course. Anyway, where was the office built?
Right outside of the Cleveland city limits. Close to the city, but not where they'd have to pay the extra taxes. Cleveland City Council was pissed of course but they only have themselves to blame.
This stuff matters to businesses. It affects everything they do and it affects the end cost to the customer. After all - a customer, in order to purchase a product or service, needs to pay for all of the costs required to provide that good or service. That includes taxes the business must pay. People always clamoring for more taxes on business never seem to realize that in their fervor to punish businesses for being successful, the real person who is being punished is the customer. Not the business.
In a competitive market a company cannot afford to be paying unnecessary taxes.
Businesses aren't the only things leaving NYC either; many high profile wealthy people are leaving, or have left, for the same reason. Same in California.
Love sees no species.
Really.
Apparently the thousands of tech workers that Google, Apple, and others are shuttling from SF to the Peninsula want to live in a city.
Almost daily I read something telling me that my car will become obsolete, my suburban house will plummet in value, and my suburban lifestyle is heading the way of the dodo. Meanwhile, the suburban neighborhood I currently live in didn't exist 10 years ago. Could it be that people actually like living in the suburbs?
The problem with this "urban utopia" concept is that cities suck. They are generally crowded, noisy, smelly, expensive, and all-around unpleasant. Sure, if you are young and don't mind having 3-4 roommates, or you are a history professor type that loves walking everywhere - they by all means - live in a city.
I loved NYC until I had to work there. Holy crap - what a disaster that place is. The experience was so bad, I ran to the suburbs to raise kids - and I'm never going back.
It's no surprise that tech companies, flush with cash, can seek better alternatives. I actually applaud these companies. There are talented employees all over the country - not just in cities. If companies want to bus in their workers - that's great. Government should just get out of the way and keep the roads paved.
I believe he's saying, "If you're bussing your employees from the city to the suburbs, why not put the company in the city?"
If people would RTFA:
"Members of the current generation of in-demand workers wants to live in a city like San Francisco. They prefer an urban lifestyle to a suburban one. They want to be able to walk to grocery stores, restaurants, theaters, etc. They prefer traveling to work using collective transportation, rather than driving -- perhaps, in part, because they can be productive on the way."
Because, if what everyone is saying is so true ("Why be in an urban hell?"), then why are there so many buses heading *from* places like SF to the 'burbs? Clearly the employees like the amenities that the urban areas provide, otherwise they wouldn't live there, and there wouldn't be enough employees to justify a separate bus system to move them to the suburban campuses, no?
And this is exactly what Twitter just did (got a sweet deal in The Mission, not exactly a wonderful area before), but that's created a whole host of other problems. However, rents have shot up, so what he's proposing is working there. Apartments are now fetching $2000/month+ rent in what was a cheap area. These companies have power, and when they bring that power, other businesses follow. And the point of the article is: if the employees recognize this and are living in the cities, why aren't the businesses going there?
Foxconn is already doing arcologies. Workers never have to leave the company's premises. I don't know whether they already include graveyards.
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp
make it worth their while. ... quit asking them to do things that are not in their best interest.
And that narrow view sums up the problem. Where is your sense of social responsibility? Or if not that, can you at least muster some enlightened self interest? You know, the thought that improving a neighborhood is in fact in your own interest, and that just moving into a neighborhood will improve it? That's assuming the business isn't one of those irresponsible sorts that sets a bad example by spewing pollution into the environment and then walking away from the mess they made, leaving it for the public or natural processes to clean up.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
He's saying that businesses should buy more expensive property at higher tax rates, in a slum, tear it all down, and rebuild everything new.
In other words: these companies should take it upon themselves to finance urban renewal.
Now I'm all for corporations being better citizens, and giving more back to the communities, but it is laughable to take an area the city can't take care of, and expect a corporation to somehow improve the area by moving in. Corporations aren't in business to make the area's neighborhoods better; that's the job of the city government.
I've seen a number of big, respected corporations in slums. (The Prudential is HQ'd at Broad & Market in Newark - hardly a shining pillar of civilization). The proximity of the company did nothing for the area.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
"You're not paying our taxes, and it's not fair!"
make it worth their while. ... quit asking them to do things that are not in their best interest.
And that narrow view sums up the problem. Where is your sense of social responsibility? Or if not that, can you at least muster some enlightened self interest? You know, the thought that improving a neighborhood is in fact in your own interest, and that just moving into a neighborhood will improve it? That's assuming the business isn't one of those irresponsible sorts that sets a bad example by spewing pollution into the environment and then walking away from the mess they made, leaving it for the public or natural processes to clean up.
Except that spending my money to improve a crap hole neighborhood is almost certainly not in my best interests. It would cost far more money, have far greater risks and likely benefit me not at all beyond a PR move. Building a new corporate HQ in a blighted area is almost always going to be a moronically bad idea for nearly everyone concerned except the city which gets to tax you to hell and gone for the privilege. On top of that you're almost certainly going to have greater security concerns and far higher crime rates to deal with.
Can you imagine the recruiting message for getting new employees to work at said HQ? Come work in beautiful downtown Crimeville! AKs provided for your security! Only 12 muggings this week!
Yep, awesome idea.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
I love the article that says businesses should move to blighted areas. Yes, that would be a big recruiting attraction for potential employees! I'd imagine downtown Detroit will become a big hotspot!!
Why are you using social responsibility and a business in the same sentence?
A business is there ONLY to make money for itself and/or shareholders if it is public.
Its gift to society is generating jobs for people and helping to fund the community at large by taxes, etc.
But really...there is no social obligation by a business, that is something that is up to individual people in how they interact with each other.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
There's a lot to be said on all sides of this issue. But here's a point of view I see underrepresented: people who live in the city and commute away from it are supporting the city far more than those who live in the 'burbs and commute in to work. Buying lunch downtown during workdays is not a match for paying property taxes and having educated people vote for competent city officials (this isn't an argument to disenfranchise uneducated people, it's an argument to make sure everyone's educated, which also depends on a solid tax base).
Why are you using social responsibility and a business in the same sentence?
A business is there ONLY to make money for itself and/or shareholders if it is public.
Its gift to society is generating jobs for people and helping to fund the community at large by taxes, etc.
But really...there is no social obligation by a business, that is something that is up to individual people in how they interact with each other.
Hiring employees is not a "gift to society" It is a means of increasing the value to the shareholders. Without at least some employees, it's hard to turn a profit. As for socially responsible, well, that's interesting. Companies can choose to be socially responsible or let the public rise up and enact legislation forcing them to do so. Companies don't operate in a vacuum. Everybody complains about OSHA and the EPA, but they only exist because companies weren't socially responsible in the past and once the government gets involved, it's like opening pandora's box.
Put differently, being socially responsible increases shareholder value in the long run.
Google Pittsburgh located itself in a blighted area as well as a number of other Google locations have done the same. I think its a very narrow view to call out google on this if you look at the issue more globally.
Maybe NYC and SF should build walls around their cities with barbed wire and mine fields to keep citizens from leaving. Then the companies will have to "pay their fair share". I hear it worked for East Germany.
Oh come now, are you telling me you wouldn't want Google to park itself in South L.A.? I mean come on, think of the attraction that would have for all those 20 somethings. "Why play the video game when you can live it? Grand Theft Auto: Google edition"
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
but the metro area I live in (Georgia) is not safe for kids in town. to be fair it's a lot less bad than it was when I was a student at Georgia Tech in the late 80s but most people w/kids & good jobs lives in east Cobb (us) or north Fulton (which has been trying for decades to split off from south/city). and before you say I don't know what I'm talking about I spend plenty of time in town - I work in Buckhead & have had GT season tickets for 15+ yrs/seen Midtown's renaissance (was actually working in Biltmore in early 00s when all that started). great to eat & visit but raise kids? no way...
Wrong,
He is badmouthing poor Transit infrastructure planning that he is responsible for and asking for people to pay his company for substandard service that can be provided with cheaper alternatives.
I also think it is funny that he is referring to south bay as the suburbs of San Francisco. Realize that San Jose (South Bay) is a larger city than San Francisco, Cupertino (Apple) is just minutes from downtown San Jose, and within a mile of the actual city border. San Fransisco has INSANE property values and would be very difficult for a company to build a building that can host 10K+ employees there. It was hard enough for apple to get permission to build in Cupertino.
To say the younger crowd is interested in living and working in the city isn't quite right. Many of the younger crowd prefers to live and work in the "suburbs" to the convenience of living, shopping and parking all without the burdens of getting mugged, having my car broken into and having streets that smell of urine. Frankly NYC and SF are both hellholes to be tolerated at best. I would never live in San Francisco as it is way too expensive, the schools are bad - and frankly anything that is worth going into the city for I can drive there, enjoy the evening and then Go home to a nice safe place in south bay.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Why are you using social responsibility and a business in the same sentence?
Because there is no reason you shouldn't have a social responsibility as a business. In fact when corporations were first created they were only created when they demonstrated a public good to society.
You yourself even say that its responsible for the community by paying taxes however a significant number of huge corporations pay nothing in taxes therefore even your meager expectations aren't being fulfilled.
Right, because it's the government that steals from companies, not companies stealing from the government. Which world do you live in? In mine, companies do everything in their power to not carry their fair share of the burden (via taxes, etc.) while at the same time taking in as many advantages and benefits as possible, including lobbying of representatives to pass laws to get even more favours.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Would expect them NOT to shop around?
No, I don't. The tragedy is exactly that everyone behaves rationally and it leads to the whole thing going down the drain.
The vicious cycle very, very simplified:
a) company goes to a cheap community
b) other communities want jobs, too, so they become cheaper
c) company moves to a new community that is now cheaper
d) original community is miffed and can't attract any replacements because everyone is cheaper, so they drop their taxes, too, make special excemptions, etc.
e) rinse and repeat
in the end, just like free market theory dictates, taxes and all other government costs will drop to zero. Except that then we can't finance streets, police, firefighters and all the other nice things we prefer to have anymore.
There is no race to the bottom among shoe stores or food stores... there is just the market place.
That's because a store has a minimum cost it needs to cover. It can't sell below x because otherwise it would be selling at a loss.
A community never has any services that it could not cut or reduce further - until there's nothing at all left.
There is a price point at which the services that companies need cannot be provided. The market place will discover that price point.
We already know. It's 3rd world cheap labour countries. Where a workers hour is pennies and nobody sane wants to live their because they don't have running water, working hospitals, non-corrupt police, streets that don't destroy your car or basically anything we've become used to as a standard of living.
like they are in Russia and Europe, we will end up with government as corrupt as they are in Russia and Europe (hint: they have elections too... they don't help)
Your world-view needs massive updating. Europe is a big place with 50 different countries. Some of them are corrupt and have pseudo-democracies, others are leading the Corruption Perceptions Index, far ahead of the USA (which barely makes it into the top 20, at #19).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org