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].

Comments

Economic development

[Anonymous Coward]

Another word for gentrification is "economic development". If you're opposed to economic development, you could go live in a third world country I suppose.

Re:Economic development

[lgw]

Why don't tech companies choose a location in the middle of nowhere and build their offices there? With such a high concentration of highly paid workers, the free market will build a city around it.

Microsoft did. Walmart did for their tech bunker (want a freaking mansion as a software dev? Work for Walmart.)

Google and Facebook and Amazon want to have offices in prestigious cities, as it helps attract young stupid talent. People who would rather live in a 400 sq foot highrise apartment "in the city!" than a large house somewhere nice. It makes sense if you're mostly hiring guys in their 20s: they don't want a house, they want someplace they can stagger to drunk after a night at the club, hopefully with company.

SF livability not Googles fault

[SuperKendall]

The reason SF has become a literal shithole has nothing to do with Google, and everything to do with the policies of the local government. If more housing were allowed to be built the city might well still be livable by anyone earning less than 200k/year (or is that even livable there these days? Maybe with roommates).

Re:SF livability not Googles fault

[pauljlucas]

And the local government's policies are a result of the local electorate, i.e., NIMBYs, who fight (and vote) to preserve neighborhood "character."

want lower rent? build more housing...

[layabout]

I'm not talking about more single/multi family homes. We need more 15 story urban apartment bricks around each transit stop. The population density should approach 10k people per transit stop at that density you can also support multiple food marts and other retailers to fight the tyranny of the local merchant while preserving a car free/walkable environment.

Re:Wrong.

[volodymyrbiryuk]

Yeah tell that one day to your robo-surgeon, robo-cop (no pun intended), robo-ditch digger, robo-loan shark, robo-sician etc.

Re:Wilkommen der JUDENSReich!

[Anonymous Coward]

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Property Taxes, Not Gentrification is the Problem

[sycodon]

People pit out the word Gentrification like it's some kind of KKK scheme.

But:
gentrification
jentrfkSH()n
noun
the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste.

The Problem is that with improved housing and other infrastructure comes higher property taxes. The curious thing is that Gentrification is pretty funded solely by the citizens moving into an area and spending money to do the renovating and improving. Then, the government of course looks as what you did and says, "hmmm nice place you got there. We think you should pay more money in property taxes". Then they go one worse and say to the poor residents, "people would pay for your place, so you need to pay us more".

Property Taxes are a tax on unrealized gains. They are probably the most oppressive taxes in the US. They can drive someone out of a home they own outright, merely because the State says your home is worth $X and you need to pay $x * y%, regardless of your income situation.

The solution is to decouple taxes on land and homes from current market values and only use market value when acquiring assets such as land and homes. Allow for some inflation of costs of infrastructure and the like, but just because they out a Mall in a mile down the road doesn't mean you should have to pay more.

CA did pretty much this with Proposition 13. It stabilized growth and benefited millions of home owners. Sure, the SJW crowd whined about not having money for they pet programs, but that is arguably a good thing.