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Google Funds San Francisco Bus Rides For Poor
theodp writes "The LA Times reports that Google will fund free bus passes for low- and middle-income kids in a move to quiet the controversy surrounding tech-driven gentrification in San Francisco. In a statement, Google said, 'San Francisco residents are rightly frustrated that we don't pay more to use city bus stops. So we'll continue to work with the city on these fees, and in the meantime will fund MUNI passes for low income students [an existing program] for the next two years.' SF Mayor Ed Lee said, 'I want to thank Google for this enormous gift to the SFMTA, and I look forward to continuing to work with this great San Francisco employer towards improving our City for everyone.' But not all were impressed. 'It's a last-minute PR move on their part, and they're trying to use youth unfairly to create a better brand image in the city,' said Erin McElroy of the SF Anti-Eviction Mapping Project."
The land of the Free.
But not so free as to be able to pick up passengers while stopped on a public road.
For that you need papers and baksheesh.
Even when given the choice to telecommute, I often choose not to. I often find its much easier to get work done face to face, that and when you're in an actual work environment (or at least, aren't at home) there are fewer distractions.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Same here, I think we let work encroach into personal life enough as it is. Home is home, I want nothing to do with work at home.
Mostly random stuff.
'It's a last-minute PR move on their part, and they're trying to use youth unfairly to create a better brand image in the city,' said Erin McElroy of the SF Anti-Eviction Mapping Project."
This truly bothers me. This guy is like the members of MADD who are upset with ride programs because it means people won't get caught for DUI. Or those who are gleeful when civlians die in a way that proves their point.
When it comes to something like donating money to help poor kids, I don't care who is doing it or why. I care that the kids are being helped. It's obvious who views them as political pawns when one person feels it's "unfair" that they are receiving financial assistance because it doesn't play into his picture of the world. I'll bet Mr. Erin McElroy donates exactly $0 to help these kids out.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
What would be unfair would be to continue to continue the division of rich, clean suburbs far outside the city, only ot be reached by environmentally unfriendly and space/road-wasting cars, and create infrastructure for the upper middle class there - and allow them to avoid contact with the less fortunate.
To find efficient solutions (aka Busses) to transport workers in the city and thus mix income in parts of the city and even help other parts of the population to choose a efficient way of transportation and help in reducing the traffic is *not* unfair. If at all, it may be considered communist.
The tech stuff is better done via electronic communication rather than bringing our "human" personalities in the way . To think of it , the entire outsourcing industry "telecommutes" ..
How does Google employees waiting at bus stops cost the city money? Where's this loss coming from that Google must compensate for? Or is this just knee-jerk hostility from the usual suspects?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
1. Welfare
2. Gentrification
One approach says "give the poor some stuff to help them get a leg up, live slightly better and afford them some opportunities." The other says "Give the rich some room to grown in poor/bad neighborhoods and see if things trickle down to improve the local economy."
Well? I'm a little undecided which is best because frankly, the first option would work on me. I have been on public assistance in the past. I didn't like it and got off of it as soon as possible. On the other hand, some people are quite compfortable wallowing in that sh!t.
Meanwhile, the things I have seen come through gentrification have been successful. I have not seen any information related to gentrification failures other than "they say don't! whites not welcome here!" and then they don't do it. So if anyone can point to "gentrification gone bad" I'd be interested in learning about it.
1. Corporation does nothing to help the poor.
- Evil.
2. Corporation does something to help the poor.
- PR move.
"in Oakland, according to reports from IndyBay, as protesters unfurled two giant banners reading "TECHIES: Your World Is Not Welcome Here" and "Fuck off Google", "a person appeared from behind the bus and quickly smashed the whole of the rear window"
"So we'll continue to work with the city on these fees, and in the meantime will fund MUNI passes for low income students [an existing program] for the next two years.'"
One of these groups is judged by our society as being "evil" and the other as "progressive".
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
"Should this mythical land of the free allow you to run a bus service with vehicles that are a menace to its passengers or other road users?"
They're not a menace. That's emotional talk from someone who feels as if they want to be taken care of by others.
"Would you mind if this bus service cherry-picks the profitable routes, so that companies that try to offer more balanced public transport go bankrupt?"
Yes. Google is allowed to run a bus service for it's employees without regard to whatever service San Francisco wants to run. Maybe San Fran ought to hire Google to run it's busses.
I still don't understand the uproar over Googlers carpooling to work...
Why should we applaud the good prince's largesses? Yes, this is actually nice, encouraging the use of public buses and giving short change for that.
But I find it weird that a giant company wants to substitute itself with what should the town's/muncipality's/local government's duties. And it's a PR move anyway, one that reinforces the notion that a giant private company can appriopriate public space, pay little to no tax and do whatever it wants with no accountability.
In general, I don't get the cultural fascination that US americans have for charity, while at the same time showing extreme disdain for welfare, public services, public funding of infrastructure (except for roads, military and prisons, go figure) and even decent conditions of employment.
E.g. waiters/waitresses are to be paid starvation wages, and rely on tips. Why do they have to beg?, is it so that customers can feel superior or something?, I have trouble understanding this.
Google hides its profits in the Carribean and pays no taxes. What about fixing that. Hire well paid accountant/fiscalist lawyer types to try and close as many of those fucking tax loopholes as they can. Billions upon billions are missing.
Google wants to give $6.8 million in charity money over two years, probably getting some more tax deduction in the way. Fuck them.
I am a programmer, and I find working with other programmers nearby to be very valuable. Having randoms wander into the office is not so good, but there's a good synergy to over-the-cube-wall conversation when you are coding in a team. Having worked from home for the past decade, this is the primary thing that I miss. The commute, not so much... :)
You are an ignorant idiot. Stop being one.
Economic eviction not gentrification is the issue.
Mostly, it's a problem for renters, who get evicted or have their rents priced out of their reach when someone buys the house/unit they are renting,
It generally has nothing whatsoever to do with Google, other than highly paid people are capable of paying higher rents, and Google tends to pay its employees well. But if the now-priced-out-of-range rental unit were not rented by someone from Google or Twitter or Facebook, or Genentech, or Apple, or some other company, of which many are increasingly based in San Francisco, they would either be rented by someone else with more money than the previous occupants, or they would stand empty, and provide a tax write-off as a loss at the higher rental rate.
There are in fact huge amounts of both housing and office space in SF that are currently standing empty as a tax write-off for some absurd per square foot rental cost that no one in their right mind will be willing to pay.
Note that the vast majority of the investment driving the economic eviction in San Francisco is *not* coming from the tech industry, it is instead coming from foreign investors. Out of 6 offers I made on houses in San Francisco - houses I fully intended to live in, not merely hold as investments or use as rental properties or "flip" in the new real estate bubble - all six were bid out by over 25% at the last second by all cash offers from foreign investors.
Very few countries allow foreign ownership of property; the U.S. is one of the few which does; Japan, China, Mexico, the Philippines, Australia, and Thailand, among others. Minnesota does not permit foreign ownership of agricultural land, period, and does not allow corporate ownership of such land, either, unless associated with an existing long-held family farm. Here's an interesting resource:
http://www.academia.edu/106796...
Perhaps it's time to take a page from one of these books, and apply the same restrictions on a state-wide level, rather than bitching about San Francisco in particular, since San Francisco has no legal ability to regulate foreign ownership.
I imagine the Real Estate agents would not be terrifically happy, since most of their "big fish" clients are foreign buyers.
Exactly. The cure for inequality is to bring them down a bit. To hell with elevating everyone else up, it's too hard. But taking and taking and taking until they are like the rest is easy.
I often find its much easier to get work done face to face
You're not a programmer.
Of course not, the programmers have been outsourced to India and other cheaper counties. It's the developers that are still coming to the office to collaborate with others in the company design and build software solutions (perhaps farming out some of the programming to offshore workers). If your job can best be done without face-to-face contact with others in the office, then it may as well be offshored someplace cheaper.
How about google supports paying more local taxes so that the local transit district can provide the services for free, and forever.
Local taxes would go to Mountain View, where the main Google campus is located, not San Francisco, unless they were willing to merge their transit district with that of the rest of the peninsula, which they've historically gone bat shit crazy every time it's been suggested in the last 30 years.
Also, California prohibits city, county, and municipal income taxes, so it's not like in New York, where the city would be allowed to come yank the money out of your pocket, assuming your job was in San Francisco instead of Mountain View in the first place. Instead San Francisco collects service charges, property taxes, receives money from the state general fund, which together accounted for about 2/3rd of their $6B in revenue in the last year for which they were willing to publish numbers. Other local taxes and federal funds account for another ~$1B.
As a side note, less than 5% of the income San Francisco collects goes to fund aid/assistance programs; 50% of it goes for personnel, with almost a third of that going to pension obligations for retired city employees. About half of one percent goes for facilities maintenance (parking garages, schools, parks, and so on).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
Other states where a city, county, and municipal income taxes is also prohibited include Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas, and West Virginia. You'd probably know this, if you actually lived in California, instead of being someone from out of state trying to tell San Francisco how it should run things with Google or the other companies running busses.