Slashdot Mirror
Apple and Google Are Rerouting Their Employee Buses as Attacks Resume (mashable.com)
Slashdot reader sqorbit writes:
Apple runs shuttle buses for it's employees in San Francisco. It seems someone who is not happy with Apple has decided to take out their anger on these buses. In an email obtained by Mashable, Apple states "Due to recent incidents of broken windows along the commute route, specifically on highway 280, we're re-routing coaches for the time being. This change in routes could mean an additional 30-45 minutes of commute time in each direction for some riders." It has been reported that at least four buses have had windows broken, some speculating that it might caused by rubber bullets.
"Around four years ago, people started attacking the shuttle buses that took Google employees to and from work, as a way of protesting the tech-company-driven gentrification taking place around San Francisco," remembers Fortune, adding "it seems to be happening again."
At least one Google bus was also attacked, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which adds that the buses "were not marked with company logos, and the perpetrators are suspected of broadly targeting technology shuttle buses rather than a specific company."
"Around four years ago, people started attacking the shuttle buses that took Google employees to and from work, as a way of protesting the tech-company-driven gentrification taking place around San Francisco," remembers Fortune, adding "it seems to be happening again."
At least one Google bus was also attacked, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which adds that the buses "were not marked with company logos, and the perpetrators are suspected of broadly targeting technology shuttle buses rather than a specific company."
Reminds me of that isolate tribe of people on a remote island who throws spears at helicopters.
They must have bought and iPhone X.
After all, San Francisco was a quiet, inexpensive little town to live in - right up until Apple and Google moved into the area. In fact, no one had even heard of the place until around 2000.
#DeleteChrome
I certainly don't have the balls to do it.
that's not rubber bullets, these are old unusable iPhones.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
So many problems caused by them. Nice to see the poor fight back against these regressists.
It reminds me that my grandfather with a high school degree could buy a house in my town, my parents with college degrees could, but even with a Master's I am hard-pressed to do so.
Maybe if we encouraged density over NIMBYism we wouldn't be held in regulatory capture by today's feudal landlording class.
it's OK to make 500K/year, but if you are a software engineer, you obviously should be attacked.
-- Some guy throwing rocks at buses
Embarrassing
to blame for any social unrest around affected area. Shitty smelly parasites must be exterminated. Call pest control.
I mean seriously.
You got some of the richest companies in the world needing to transport their engineers, pool your resources and get it done.
I wonder how it got that way? I wish there were records from before 1987.
It's ironic how some of the biggest internet companies couldn't figure out how to get work done without having everyone physically present. All of these location-dependent problems would go away if they just allowed their employees to telecommute.
Rubber bullets rarely break windows. Also, this is California we're talking about. I think rubber bullets are illegal even in Wisconsin where I live. Also, they're not called rubber bullets, they're rubber shot because they go in shot cups inside shot shells inside shotguns. You know what's easy to get in CA? BB guns and slingshots. Let's be real, here, people. I mean they're just making things up. It could have been bigfoot, or particle accelerators, or ultra high energy cosmic rays.
I hear that you guys have it in the dispensers in the cafeteria down in Frisco. No wonder, your software design and choices suck dead horse balls and look like they were coded by a bunch of monkees!Result being that the Zuck is starting to eat you for breakfast when it comes to picking up and getting along with the chicks and the old farts of this world. Wonder if Faceplant is considering releasing a hardware OS in future if they do it could put you in a world of hurt because it would make the grade in the market if it could run separate from your OS wares.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
San Francisco is an excellent example of encouraging "density" - and it's crazy expensive. That policy doesn't work, anywhere.
London is the most expensive city in the world to buy or rent in. In fact, most of Europe is significantly more expensive to get a home or apartment in, plus the homes are a fraction the size of what you get in the US.
Your "density" drive UP housing costs. The only thing it improves is traffic. Everything else becomes more costly.
Why might someone attack these buses?
UBER!
Just put plastic down before you sit!
...instead of spending money for mandatory ideological indoctrination programs.
Apple needs to create a VR headset to connect to an iPhone that may provide better separation of their employees from reality. Perhaps they could start their morning meetings early this way, for the sake of efficiency.
You are making a bad joke at the expanse of those folk living there... But the reality is that *inflation adjusted* rent and house price are insane. e.g. https://medium.com/@mccannatro...
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*MdPAr5dt5AH73H1mO_NahQ.jpeg
It is CPI adjusted so reflects indeed an appreciation/gentrification rather than inflation.
Even if you are house owner you can easily understand what this means : imagine your house which had a monthly cost of 600$-700$ (inflation adjusted cost) now has a monthly average cost of 4000$. Would you be able to keep it ? no ? Well that is what is happening to some people, and those with the weakest salaries are pushed further and further away meaning their cost increase both in time cost (travel time) and in transportation cost, or go in worst neighborhood if you can.
Basically I forsee a wall coming to SF bay area, something will have to break.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Heretic! Miscreant! Republican! Europe can do no wrong! You will pay with your life! Bring the gasoline can!
Get the cops or private detectives to run a bait bus up and down the route and if somebody attacks it they arrest / detain the perp.
Right. I have no formal qualification but I can afford to purchase property in the boom areas â" how does that fit into your model?
Work hard and smart, make sound financial decisions. Thatâ(TM)s how Iâ(TM)ve made my way to moderate success, certainly not through some ridiculous sense of entitlement.
I think eventually all big companies face this backlash from some. Even Golden child companies like Apple and Google. Some people become disenchanted with these companies who's image becomes tarnished over time. I also believe we as human's appear to be going backwards in our tolerance of big city life. Maybe all the complexity of big city life leads to people less and less tolerant of it. I've seen a trend of people having less ability to just tolerate something that bothers them, and more likely to take up violence to fix it.
Which Windows? 7 10 XP?
> ... Firearms against civilians reminds me of domestic terrorism ...
Are you sure those firing the guns are Americans?
Frisco is crawling with ALIENS, legal or otherwise - making up more than 50% of its population.
Maybe it's just a cover for bugs in the mapping software...
Obviously a bunch of southerners who have no place being there, mad that some people make banks, for their skills and education, while they eat shit in a minimum wage job, due to no proper educations and overall stupidity.
How does sf encourage density? The building codes prevent almost any living dwelling over 3 stories high.
Not everyone is willing to sell meth and pimp out their little sister to pay the rent.
From the Los Angeles Times
http://beta.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-jackson-california-poverty-20180114-story.html
Title: Why is liberal California the poverty capital of America?
And London discourages density--the "greenbelt" zoning practiced by the government prevents the construction of any suburbs to provide large amounts of low-cost housing to the population.
Avoiding poor neighborhoods
We all love Capitalism. Except when we hate it.
I grew up in California. Well into the 80s you could actually ride the cable cars without waiting in line for hours or taking out a second mortgage. You could even find a parking spot at Fisherman's Wharf.
Sigh
I was saying if you are property owner, to get a representation of the plight the renter suffer in the bay area, IMAGINE that your house cost (property tax, reparation cost etc...) went from 600$ to 4000$... Are you getting it now ? It would make it unlivable and you would have to sell. And no buying a new one would not help if it has the SAME 4000$ price tag. You would be out priced for housing and pushed outward... which is what is happening for a lot of folk. And quite a lot of people on slashdot are hard at grasping at that.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Never lived in SF, but I grew up somewhere a megacorp set up shop.
At first, everyone was really excited, because there were going to be all these jobs! Hooray! There were some construction jobs whilst it was being built; folks bought new houses, new trucks. It was pretty nice. Unfortunately when it was done, the only jobs that the locals were qualified for were janitorial, canteen and security. Not surprising; Rural Nowhere doesn't have a massive stock of biotech scientists and chemical engineers just sat waiting for a pharma plant to be built.
But at least the area was going to get rich off the taxes, right? Well, see, to get the plant, the state and municipality had cut a special deal for "innovating job creators", so the firm was basically getting paid to be here. 90% of property taxes go to the state, so even though property tax revenues would be higher, the local services wouldn't see much of it.
As people moved in from out of state (mostly existing employees of the company from plants they'd shut down, but some new hires), a few people in town made what they thought was a pretty penny selling property to them. Of course, the house prices in Nowhere were pretty low, so when they tried to use the money to buy elsewhere, they couldn't get as much house as they'd sold. When house prices started to rocket, rents got jacked up, and any locals who were renting was basically SOL. No way you could work at the gas station and pay rent on a one-bed apartment, so you'd better get real friendly with someone real fast or move back in with your folks.
The company knew they were sending their employees out to Nowhere, so they'd planned ahead. Subsidised employee daycare, canteen, gym, even a subsidised laundry and convenience store on site. Outside the fence, the local shops and services had to either compete with the subsidised prices or accept that most of the company folk weren't ever going to come in.
The local schools got swamped with new kids; rich and poor kids mixing there was about the only good thing to come out of it. Of course, there wasn't a lot of extra money to deal with it, and the huge wealth disparity definitely caused some problems. Suddenly parents were demanding more AP classes, more after-school clubs and activities and generally expecting higher standards. Some of that was good - I wouldn't have got where I am without it - but the budget-strapped school spending resources on activities that only a few could afford to do created a lot of tension. We had a new swimming pool and textbooks that were falling apart; of course company kids had shiny new ones their parents had ordered for them.
After ten years, the house prices had increased from about 25% below to 50% above the state average; about half the existing population had been forced out by rising property prices and rents, many local businesses had been empty for years due to the loss of trade and the competition from subsidised on-site businesses. I've just graduated with a relevant STEM degree (I actually got a small bursary from the company and the offer of an interview if I maintained a 3.5 GPA), and the company has decided to shut down the plant. They've come up with a new way to make the thing they were producing, and it's cheaper to build a new plant in a new town (with new tax breaks, of course) than to update their existing plant. So in a few months they will be gone, as will half of the town's population. Anyone who struggled to buy a house there or took out a second mortgage to exploit the rising value will be underwater, and we'll be left with really nice school and no kids to fill it, and thus no money to maintain it.
The company attached itself to our town like a parasite; they used the existing public infrastructure for their own benefit without without paying a dime. They broke the local economy, made it depend on them, and then cast it aside when it was no longer convenient, leaving behind a dying husk of what used to be a small but pleasant town. The worst part is that the best and brightest of the local kids are now working for the company, and excited to move to this new picturesque little town across the state where the new plant is being built... myself included.
I was economically ejected from the place I grew up in and which I love the most in the world. So on behalf of all of us middle class folk who don't work for a mega IT corporation, fuck Apple, fuck Google, and fuck all the rest of the corporate slave masters too.
I and my children cannot live there because we were not born into walth, and in my chosen profession one must live like a slave if they stay in the SF bay, with horrendous commutes, insane living costs and crushing mortgages.
To all of you who have not suffered through poverty until forced out of the SF region, fuck you too. You do not understand why we are so enraged, and should shut up with your defense of these soulless corporate monsters. I earned good money, had a good career, and it wasn't enough to ever buy a home or have a comfortable life.
AAAARRRRGGGHHH! It pisses me off.
And it should be punished harder. Find the hooligans, and hang 'em up with proper inscription tags on all the routes.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
In fact, most of Europe is significantly more expensive to get a home or apartment in, plus the homes are a fraction the size of what you get in the US.
most of the Western Europe is more expensive ... ... our homes are build to survive winter and foreign armies marching around ... ;-)
Size is not everything. commute time is also important.
And
No just paper-wood-paint type
If you look at multiples of wages that houses can now cost in some cities, then even with low interest rates, they can be unaffordable for many, unless "living within your means" means not eating.
It's not just London - they do that in every city in the UK. As you increase the radius of a city, you have to widen the arterial roads. That involves demolishing homes. Those displaced people then require more homes to be built. So you end up with ring roads, interconnects, freeways and nobody actually wanting to live there due to the pollution.
The alternative is to have everyone live in small villages dozens of miles away from work and commute hours by train or car.
Density isn't likely to be driving up costs, but rather it is a function of the desirability of an area driving building companies to build dwellings that demand means they can sell.
In London, houses are typically very much smaller than the USA (mostly under 1000 square feet), and very expensive. On my current wage, which is twice the average, then even given healthy savings and equity currently, I would not be able to get a mortgage, probably even on a two bedroom apartment above a launderette.
Several stories of police showing prejudice against those tech employees as well.
Google Street View cams and self driving car tech might be able to catch who is attacking the busses. Or just a video camera?
Or, you know, people using their computers to work remotely.
For those fond of the way things were, you could leave a heavy weight with built-in heat-pad on a chair at their office and work remotely.
Requiem for the American Dream
These are true SJWs! How are you going to advance your cause by potentially hurting the rank and file people going to work. In the end, you sabotage your entire mission and you look like an asshole. What if one of those buses had gotten in a wreck and killed people? If you want to make a dent, you have to go after the big fish in the ivory towers. Fucking idiots!
God you morons stay in the news for all kinds of dumb things
Ting wants companies to give half their tax credit to the state too
Just goes on and on
Maybe they meant "Apple runs shuttle buses, for it has employees."
Apple runs shuttle buses for it's employees in San Francisco.
Apple runs shuttle buses for it is employees?
Don't sweat it, it's only superfluous water in the form of text in this case, as indeed sweating with it is. Superfluous verbiage is a curse of the internet, however correction of the header phrase to "Apple runs shuttle buses for employees in San Francisco." is a little beyond the editing skill of the average submission made on Slashdot, its part of the culture as is the gentrification and genderfication at Apple and Google.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
I hate to break this to you, but that was not at all funny, and just made you look quite foolish.
Feel better now?
You can afford a house, you're just to bigoted to live near "those people".
That works out well for people whose jobs are done only on a computer and don't require F2F interaction with others.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Right. I have no formal qualification but I can afford to purchase property in the boom areas â" how does that fit into your model?
Work hard and smart, make sound financial decisions. Thatâ(TM)s how Iâ(TM)ve made my way to moderate success, certainly not through some ridiculous sense of entitlement.
So you say you have good finance?
Can you buy phone that not post gibbish like this: Thatâ(TM)s -- wtf is that gibbish??
Grammar nazi makes mistake of his own. News at 11.
#DeleteFacebook
Sure but it reduces the number of people living close and commuting. Just because it doesn’t work for everyone, doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
Cali politicians act like parasites to advance their failed political policies and transportation boondoggles.
Fail troll is fail.
their locations.
If you can, make sure to leave animal urine/defecation in the executive offices.
Have a ring of protesters around the outside to keep police out until your 'raiding party' is finished. Cause maximum financial impact to their operations.
Do that enough and you either get a dystopian future, or the problem relocating to another region. Just realize the local economy may or may not recover from the lost jobs and the bay could rapidly go from a congested economically important region to a ghetto with all the economic disinterest to permanently hurt its prospects.
Whoosh
Sure, cover a mistake by saying whoosh.
San Francisco has made it nearly impossible to expand outwards by building new housing. As a result, single family homes are being replaced by apartments, and apartments have been significantly decreased in size in order to fit more of them into existing buildings.
London has done much of the same thing; strongly discouraging expansion into the suburbs, which in turn requires an increase in housing density in the existing spaces. 60% of people in London live alone, to give you some idea of the demand for housing. The average apartment size is less than one third the average US apartment size, with many "one-bedroom" apartments entering at less than 200 square feet.
High demand + limited construction = high density. If they wanted to decrease density, they would authorize expansion. By banning less-dense suburbs, London is doing exactly what was described: encouraging density.
Apple didn't start out in S.F.
Google didn't start out in S.F.
Companies that big can locate their offices anywhere they want.
Pick almost any city along route 5, and the housing prices for your employees would be an order of magnitude less.
You wish. Sorry, there's a pretty relevant difference in this case: they can actually hurt you. A lot.
Just use buses MARKED with the names of various tour companies. The perps won't know which ones are run by Apple, and they certainly can't attack every bus that comes down the freeway.
There are many tour buses running on California roads; since SF is a tourist destination, having similarly-marked buses wouldn't be unusual.
Besides being a shitty company, they use child labor. So not surprising that people are mad at apple and google because they both support child labor.
I remember that too.
Guess what, Capitalism isn't what changed the legal structure preventing growth in the area since the 80s you remember. In many cities in the world, you're allowed to build higher than three or four stories and you don't need everyone in the area to approve your new construction before you can start it. Heck, some locations don't even pass laws forcing building owners to leave the rental market completely if they want to make money from their property.
When you legally artificially restrict supply of something, then you end up with shortages and crazy prices. It works for housing, too.
Lol
You know...there ARE other cities and states you CAN afford to live in, right?
I don't believe there is any "right to live" in an area you just can't afford.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'm curious to know how people who assemble the high-tech sensors that are the product my company sells are going to "work remotely". "Ship parts to their homes" is NOT an answer for lots of obvious and non-obvious reasons.
Hmmmm, I can see two possibilities for who is doing this: a disgruntled employee, or Uber
The original premise was that you could just live within your means, not have to move.
Turning off "smart" punctuation in your keyboard settings would be a smart move.
Maybe if the people riding these buses weren't
such stuck up self-centered assholes, this wouldn't
be happening.
As bad as old money was, at least they tried
to be charitable, setting up foundations, etc.
New money seems to be about "Screw you! Me! Me! Me!"
And yes, poor/"poor" families getting kicked out
of their homes thanks in large part to real estate
"speculators" and getting replaced with higher
paying douchebags really isn't helping the situation there!
Gentrification: Moving into a Shit Hole and making it less of a Shit Hole.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
And local police for that matter
I don't believe there's any "right to evict" people who were already living in an area. Being a programmer doesn't give you the right to seize people's homes because you feel more deserving of the weather or the landscape - regardless of how big your ego is, regardless of whether you do it personally or through a multitude of proxies, regardless of the current legality of those processes.
Besides that, rents are increasing vs. wages all across the United States. Considering that you can't make your employer move with you... this is a problem from which you can run, but you can't hide.
Apple runs shuttle buses for it is employees?
Does not computer.
Grammar nazi makes mistake of his own. News at 11.
And autistic idiot doesn't understand humor, or even what grammar means...
It reminds me that my grandfather with a high school degree could buy a house in my town, my parents with college degrees could, but even with a Master's I am hard-pressed to do so.
Your family's existence in said town was because they could afford to live there. They weren't dropped there by aliens.
You to need to pick a place where you can afford to live.
Why are you so much better than your parents, snowflake?
Can you find a nice location that has affordable housing and access to transportation for your goods? If so, set up shop there.
This is fun stuff. Techies, dont those less fortunate know youre working hard for them so they dont have to? Whats a lib tech elite gotta do to get some respect?!
This is a basic supply issue on the housing market. However I don't see an easy solution. (There are simple solutions but implementing them would be really hard).
The area seems to vote against their longer term interest for small gains in short time. Cities roll over each other to get more tech jobs -- look at what's happening with Amazon HQ2 -- however almost none in the Bay Area want to host the employees of these tech companies in their boundaries. They enact all kinds of barriers against entry, yet what this ultimately causes is pain to existing residents.
The market is about 99% saturated. Any house that goes onto market for rent or sale is gobbled up in about a week or so, and I read that there was only 12 days of rolling supply. If buyers dot not bit ridiculously high prices for buying, or renters want basic amenities to be fixed (like broken sewer system), they lose to the competition. It is a race to the bottom.
The simple solution would be improving the supply. This can be done by updating zoning laws, changing parking limits, and repealing Prop 13 to improve schools, and re-balance economy. However all of them, while simple, affects existing residents in a very bad way, and there is little to no hope of ever getting any of them thru. People have looted their 401k, and went into significant debt to buy falling apart shacks at million dollar prices, and they would not want to wake up to a reality that their property is not actually worth that much.
So basically no solution in the short term.
Err...where is it that anyone is coming in there, seeing a house they want and confiscating it from the current tenant or owner?
I've heard of no programmers coming into the area, seeing a house they want and somehow "evicting" the person within...?
However, a landlord has the right (depending on current in-force lease) to raise rents as they wish, and if current tenant doesn't have the ability to pay increased rent, then they have to move on to other places to live that are more affordable.
Are you saying a landlord has NO right to rent his property out for whatever price he wishes?
I don't hear of people owning their homes having them "seized" by private individuals, nor even with govt eminent domain from them...if this is happening, please link to it, I'd be VERY interested in reading on that. I would definitely protest that myself.
But you seem to be arguing against the free market and what people that own property can do as far as rental rates or what they wish to sell them for to other people.
I mean, that's as American as apple pie....if you own property, you should be able to do as you wish with it and set your own prices as the market will bear.
Who are you to tell the property owners what they can and cannot rent/sell for?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Sure, cover your inability to understand sarcasm and the basic nuances of communication by being purposefully obtuse.
You mean "for its employees".
Seems Slashdot now accepts articles done by people who failed elementary school.
That works out well for people whose jobs are done only on a computer and don't require F2F interaction with others.
And even jobs that can be done remotely still benefit greatly from it. I hate dealing with remote co-workers, it's pretty much impossible to keep them accountable.
Sure I do. Kelsey Grammer is an American actor.
#DeleteFacebook
Correction: SF government is bribed to 'house' tech employees in an over-populated, no-construction, sea-locked bay instead of market forces driving employees into the much-closer San Jose.
It's 57 kilometres from the 85 highway in Cupertino/Mountain View to Daly City. Going the same distance south would put one in Rucker. Is that too close to the garlic farms? I'm sure there's room in the closer towns of Morgan Hill or San Martin for building gentrified apartments.
I moved to California in 2001, theses things were true then, today not so much. It took me 30m just to 'drive' out of the financial district last year and will never take a job there again unless you pay me $1M/month and I'll quit after 6 month. I live and work in the South Bay and things are still relatively reasonable there, in comparison.
Hello from Turin, Italy. We have had a giant automotive multinational here. In the 1960 they sold do the Public transports 200 trams, that were used also for special tram lines for the factory and the offices, the tramways were built by the public transport. FIAT also built buses, of course, and they were used for workers arriving outside Turin. They also built houses for factory workers and clerks nearby the factories. The municipality built also some public housing nearby.
Most people was happy with the factory, eve if the union workers protests were sometimes hard.
Not to mention Olivetti and Ivrea, if we have to talk about IT companies.
I'm also sure that in the USA there were industries that cared about their workers and the city where they were: I am baffled why nowadays capitalism can't be tied with social responsibilities.
The residences are being taken by proxy, under the threat of violence. New residents use their money (their power) to convince the landlord to evict whoever is living there currently. The landlord typically doesn't personally evict them, either. But should they refuse to go, then the next guys in the chain-of-command get called in, the ones who come with guns.
What's "American" is not on my list of concerns, just what's right. Many like to claim that the way this system works is predicated on some kind of natural law - bullshit. The natural state of man is that he and his family settle wherever is available and they so choose, and anyone who later comes and encroaches on that territory, is the intruder. If the land is to be transferred or shared, a deal is worked out directly between those two parties. As soon as a third (fourth, fifth) party becomes involved in those negotiations, we have progressed beyond the natural state and are now operating under man-made rules. That's not necessarily a bad thing - depending on what we agree on as the rules. What we create the rules to be determines how our society functions. It is not some immutable natural law that we are powerless over.
So, what should the rules be in this situation? To me, it's pretty clear. The people who have been there have already found a way to make a living there. They have already established a community and gotten to know their neighbors probably. They may be raising a family, their kids are attending school and have their groups of friends there. Our current rules mean we rip all that away from them, uproot these people and tell them "Good luck finding somewhere else to go, and no you don't get any help."
To what end? Vanity, essentially. Yes, I realize it's very hip to live where the sun shines and the Summer of Love took place. But these companies could operate just fine somewhere else. They have the power to attract talent to wherever they choose to set up shop. It'd probably even work out better for them - their employees wouldn't have to spend the majority of their pay on rent. (That's a proxy for spending their money/power on removing the existing residents.)
Saying that it's OK because it's legal, or it's American, is nothing more than circular reasoning. It's a fallacy that conflates "the way things are" with "the way things should be". America is what we make of it.
Living in a world with billions of people necessitates some kind of compromise, and we need a rational assessment of whose needs are more important. When it comes down to the "right to live" vs. the "right to evict", I'll go with the right to live every time.
So, to translate, tech employees rent expensive homes, and landlords raise rates to get some of this lucrative business, and evict families? Short of rent control, which comes with a large number of problems of its own, I don't see how to restrict that.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Wat?
No, you're making fundamentally wrong assumptions, starting with the assumption that everyone is going to live far from where they work. The problem with the Bay Area is that nobody can afford to live near the tech companies, so they all move farther away, but the tech companies continue to intransigently maintain only a small number of offices that all basically fall in SF, the South Bay, or the tiny, narrow peninsula between the two. And they don't even use all of that, thanks to a mountain chain that runs up the middle of the peninsula.
The way to solve all of these problems is very, very simple: Break up the tech companies. I don't mean like trust busting, but rather pass laws that any employer with more than 10,000 employees in the Bay Area must provide office space for at least 30% of its Bay Area employees outside of that SF/South Bay/Peninsula strip, and that any company breaking that rule will not be allowed to add a single office or desk within the strip, whether by building or by leasing, until that balanced is reached.
Imagine if Apple had a branch office in Gilroy, Facebook had a branch office in Salinas, and Google had a branch office in Watsonville. A decent chunk of the commute traffic would cease to exist, other traffic would reverse direction, etc., getting us much closer to full utilization of the roads that already exist.
Ideally, such a law would go even further than that, limiting how close any company's offices can be to one another, thus spreading each company's offices out across the entire area and making it easier to change jobs without moving.
An ideal law would also simultaneously overturn Prop 13 so that homeowners could afford to move closer to where they work, and so that rental property owners won't have an unfair tax advantage that effectively drives up the cost of housing by limiting people's ability to buy.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Actually, it made me chuckle.
The city will never do that, as it will eventually lead to people realizing they don't NEED to have a presence in San Francisco, eventually moving somewhere else. San Francisco isn't magic, and that would kill the cachet of it all.
Instead of overturning prop 13, why not modify it to only include homeowners and not businesses and renters?
Seems you Americans never heard that government needs to build infrastructure and housing for tens of millions instead of passing away a countryâ(TM)s wealth on nukes, threats fancy bullshot for the right wing and oh yes tax the fuck out of the 1 percenters...I find the pathetic excuses in your country has turned it into a shithole..when I visited SAN Francisco 30 years ago I was astonished to see filth on the public streets, people living in cardboard boxes right in front of my hotel...it was the turd world even then...for a country so wealthy the stats make it clear where that wealth is. Not my affair but it is my anon opinion...
While I agree with you, a logical analysis of the situation is not going to persuade those losing their homes and the cities are complicit in what is happening.
Not really. The allure of living in a city is being in a dense area with lots of things to do. I wouldn't live there in a million years, but the folks who like it... well, like it, and I don't think that being able to live and work in a smaller area—say Gilroy—would have the same appeal to them. What spreading out the offices would do is make it easier for the people who prefer not to live in a high-density urban area to do so, both by making it possible for some of them to not commute at all and by making the commute easier for others who don't have that option (by getting a bunch of cars off the roads).
Because that doesn't actually solve the problem. There are a decent number of people whose homes are now worth in the high six figures, but were passed down to them from their parents who bought the houses for low five figures fifty years ago. Those folks can't move closer to where they work, because they can't afford the thousands of extra dollars in additional property taxes that they would pay every year by selling one house and buying another house of equal value. And even for the people who can afford it, that tax hit is a real disincentive. As a result, the housing market behaves very strangely.
Also, if you removed the protection for rental property, it would make the traffic problem even worse, because people would no longer be able to rent out their homes to others after getting a job far away. So a lot of those folks would end up driving further instead, or else be forced to move and pay more than their fair share of property taxes.
No, what we need instead is to replace Prop 13 outright with a rebate (either via property tax or income tax) for some portion of the property taxes paid by people living below a certain wage threshold, with rules that automatically raise that rebate amount based on inflation to ensure that the poor don't get thrown out of their houses solely because the houses became more valuable. And that rebate needs to be phased out progressively as you make more money. And then we need to regularly assess the value of every home and tax property based on its actual, current value. IMO, that's the only approach to solving the problem that will adequately avoid the serious negative side effects that we're seeing in the housing market today.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.