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Berlin Anti-Gentrification Activists Say They Have Occupied Google's Office in Kreuzberg To Fight Against the Skyrocketing Rents (noblogs.org)
Multiple Slashdot readers have submitted a blog post by a group of Berlin-based "anti-gentrification activists": Today we occupied the Umspannwerk in Kreuzberg to prevent the planned Google Campus there, to fight against the skyrocketing rents and to open up the space for something better. The Google Campus is intended to be a magnet for annoying young entrepreneurs whose IT-sweatshops ("start-ups") promise to deliver new ideas to Google's company business. New tech companies are driving the rents up in the area higher and higher. The endpoint of this process can be seen in San Francisco, which once must have been a halfway livable city.
While it is especially aggravating that Google, despite its aggressive collection of data, is morphing into Big Brother with a user-friendly face, this is not the decisive factor for us. We would also put a spoke in the wheel of any other company. What happens now in the Umspannwerk instead depends on everyone who fills the house with life. It could become a base for the many initiatives that are currently struggling against rising rents and displacement -- a campus of subversion. But it can also be used as a covered grill area for the cold months, or something more. We call on all rebellious tenants, subversive and precarious cultural workers, work-shy benefit scroungers, strike-hungry air traffic controllers, long-living pensioners, unruly refugees, and all other local pests from the neighborhood (and beyond) to join us in the occupation as quickly as possible. A neighborhood assembly will take place at 6 p.m. to discuss the occupation and how to proceed. Local media has covered the development. [Editor's note: the stories are not in English.] Some context on the local tussle: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant [May 2018, The Guardian].
While it is especially aggravating that Google, despite its aggressive collection of data, is morphing into Big Brother with a user-friendly face, this is not the decisive factor for us. We would also put a spoke in the wheel of any other company. What happens now in the Umspannwerk instead depends on everyone who fills the house with life. It could become a base for the many initiatives that are currently struggling against rising rents and displacement -- a campus of subversion. But it can also be used as a covered grill area for the cold months, or something more. We call on all rebellious tenants, subversive and precarious cultural workers, work-shy benefit scroungers, strike-hungry air traffic controllers, long-living pensioners, unruly refugees, and all other local pests from the neighborhood (and beyond) to join us in the occupation as quickly as possible. A neighborhood assembly will take place at 6 p.m. to discuss the occupation and how to proceed. Local media has covered the development. [Editor's note: the stories are not in English.] Some context on the local tussle: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant [May 2018, The Guardian].
Sure the prices are going up, but much slower than they used to, and Berlin is still by far the cheapest capital in Western Europe
One man's gentrification is another man's urban renewal.
To me they're fighting the wrong battle - they should be fighting for higher wages so that as gentrification occurs they're not pushed into ghettos but move laterally, maintaining their standard of living.
That is absolutely the wrong direction to push.
If you want to keep rents (and housing prices) affordable, you have to remove barriers to affordable (and not affordable) housing.
Where are housing prices the highest? Cities like San Francisco, New York City, etc. that have strong controls in place that make developing new housing very difficult.
If you removed these restrictions and let developers build loads of new, expensive, luxury housing, you'll find that the value of the old housing stock won't appreciate like it does if you restrict these developers. In fact, you will likely find that the older, less luxuriously appointed housing drops in price.
There are some pretty strong forces that oppose looser zoning restrictions - including existing homeowners who would be very happy to have their buildings double and triple in value. But the ones that make absolutely no sense are folks who think they are advocating for more affordable housing by advocating rent controls and set-asides for affordable housing in any new project. You don't get lower prices by limiting supply and capping prices. You get shortages.