Protesters Smash Google Shuttle Bus Piñata In Fight Against Rent Increases

http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/06/protesters-smash-google-bus-pinata/

by chengyinliu • 13 years ago

73 100 13 years ago

What is the solution to this problem? You can stop rent increases with a law, but that causes lots of other problems.

You can get rid of the buses with a law, but then people will just drive or use other transportation, which causes traffic problems.

borlak• 13 years ago

What is the "problem" that you want solved?

patmcguire• 13 years ago

Massive rent increases, the bad aspects of gentrification. Rent in some places is doubling in a year. http://uptownalmanac.com/2012/05/rental-prices-wwaayy-every-...

w1ntermute3• 13 years ago

The real culprit here is draconian zoning laws which are drastically limiting the economic potential of this country and leaving millions of people unemployed or underemployed: http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO

If you were to remove many of the laws restricting redevelopment and the construction of tall buildings, everyone would benefit - property owners, property developers, tenants, local stores, rich people, poor people, the government, etc.

_delirium2• 13 years ago

Some decent urban planning would help as well. For one thing, SF's public transit is poor, it has too many cars, and its bike infrastructure is poor. It should take 15 minutes to get from the Sunset to SoMA by subway, but it takes an hour by antiquated streetcar. And if you try to bike it, you're constantly stopping at lights and sharing streets with cars, instead of on a proper bikeway. Compare Copenhagen for an example of how to do it better.

Also, some more integrated policies would help; the ridiculous fragmentation of municipal governments and transit districts doesn't improve the situation. Why are BART, Muni, Caltrain, AC Transit, and the VTA run in such an uncoordinated manner? Why doesn't BART go down the peninsula? Why are there miles of light rail in the middle of nowhere in Santa Clara County, but not in more dense areas? Why is there no higher-density housing near the Caltrain stations in places like Palo Alto?

bcoates2• 13 years ago

The root of the problem is the tension of interests between the landlords who gain from an increase in property values, even if it prices out current residents, and the residents who have perverse incentives to make their area a worse place to live to keep out the yuppies.

Maybe you could securitize the value of the tenant's rent control, entitling an exiting tenant to a windfall if they are replaced by a higher-rent paying replacement? This would be on the theory that residential property values are an externality created by the people living there.

uvdiv2• 13 years ago

Maybe you could securitize the value of the tenant's rent control, entitling an exiting tenant to a windfall if they are replaced by a higher-rent paying replacement?

Can you clarify how this is different from simply prohibiting rental, forcing residents to own their apartment? A securitized right to property value increases sounds a lot like equity.

edit: Oh I'm stupid. Clearly you mean all of this under price control: the renter gets the benefits of equity, without paying anything for them, and without taking on any risk of ownership (like property values collapsing). A complete soup of misincentives and disaster.

thrownaway24244• 13 years ago

I think the word you are looking for here is "tax". Currently rising property values are created by the people who live and work in the city, but the value itself is captured by incumbent landowners who largely live outside the city and haven't had their property tax assessments adjusted in over 30 years. Taxing rent fixes this problem and erases the stupidity of Prop 13.

ChuckMcM• 13 years ago

"Cheap grocery stores and eateries have been going out of business, while trendy bars and cafes move in."

Probably a moot point but do those new bars and cafes provide jobs? Do these people tip more or less than those who used to frequent the 'Cheap eateries' ?

I am sympathetic to the challenges of having a neighborhood go from affordable to "hip" (and not affordable) but does this bring more disposable income into San Francisco and increase the available money supply or not?

slg• 13 years ago

Yes, these type of transitions improve the neighborhood as a whole including raising wages, but those things happen in the aggregate. Like most economic transitions that means a bunch of individuals suffer while the collective benefits in the long run.

aaronbrethorst2• 13 years ago

I doubt they increased their tipping 29% between 2011 and 2012. Viewing the situation from a distance, it appears that the key issue in SF today is that the Board of Supervisors is unwilling to relax zoning laws[1]. San Francisco obviously can't build out, so the only option is to build up. Until that happens, things will just keep getting worse.

[1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/11/san_francisco...

tiredofcareer6• 13 years ago

The residents who fight tooth and nail against going up and more dense forms of housing are just as much to blame as the BoS. The city could ignore them, yes, but government is about what people want.

Most residents of San Francisco -- homeless, tech, lower-income, whatever -- want absolutely nothing to change except for what makes them happier. And in most cases, the loudest, wealthiest, Pac Heights/Sea Cliff voices want the "charm" of San Francisco to stay the same. Meanwhile, it's one of the most undesirable places to merely walk around that I've come across in my life, and I only work in the city because I have to. I will never move to the city.

Some of the comments are already popping up on TechCrunch; "do you want SF to be the next NYC?" My answer to that is abso-fucking-lutely. New York City is perfectly suited to dense living without gritting your teeth; the subways run 24/7, the risk of stepping in homeless shit is significantly lower, there are very few places in NYC that make me cringe as much as the TL after sundown, the varying cultures get along and complement each other instead of beating Google Bus piñatas at a dirty-ass BART station...

If San Francisco slowly became the next New York City I'd be pleased as a peach. (Imagine NYC with SF's weather!) But it will never happen in our lifetimes. Honestly, I think it's a California thing, because L.A. has a better shot at it and that's not going to happen either.

delinka• 13 years ago

My tipping would increase proportionally to the amount of increase of prices in the restaurant.

mc-lovin9• 13 years ago

As someone who generally believes in free markets, I am already unsympathetic to these people. However the venom directed at tech employees strikes me as something more than just economics.

People are having a go at nerds because they can. The scales of social status haven't changed since high school, but it turns out that nerds can earn a good salary, and in the "fascist" free market economy, this means they can live where they like, and the police will even protect them!

I wish I knew about this so I could show up in my Google sweater.

sp332• 13 years ago

There's a difference between free-market economics and saying that poorer people don't deserve a voice in local government because they don't have money. I don't believe a particular public sidewalk should get preferential treatment just because richer people walk on it.

mc-lovin9• 13 years ago

How do poorer people lack a voice in local government? It seems to me their issue is that they want to extend their control over local affairs far beyond what is their right. It is simply not the right of local residents to determine what kind of person gets to live in that neighborhood. This was a block "party" to make a very specific kind of person feel unwelcome. And then they think of themselves as oppressed when the police break it up.

potatolicious6• 13 years ago

> "I wish I knew about this so I could show up in my Google sweater."

I disagree very much with your notion that this is people pummeling at nerds because of some remnant of high school social pecking order, but please don't do this.

This is the corner of 16th and Mission. The local police station is literally two blocks away and still have zero control over this intersection. It is a mad house. It is the Mos Eisley of San Francisco.

The level of class warfare (from both sides) in the Mission is pretty intense, and the area is already a bit lawless to the point where the police have little control over an open-air drug den just two blocks from the station house. You don't fuck around with that intersection, the cops can't protect you well there, and everyone knows it.

mc-lovin9• 13 years ago

You seem to know much more about this situation than me, but given my experience in the left, I would be very surprised if the people involved in an open air drug den had much to do with the people attending and organizing this protest.

And there seems to be a discrepancy between the extreme danger you claim I would be in, and the claims of other people that this is a harmless gathering. Can you shed some light on this? No sarcasm intended there, I really am surprised by how you characterize the situation because in my experience, no one provoking left wingers is ever in serious danger.

beatpanda5• 13 years ago

Meanwhile, I hang out there on Thursday nights and I've never had a problem. Love it, in fact.

a3n• 13 years ago

This is A against B. B may or may not be affecting A negatively, but A is having a negative experience, and it's bad enough that they'll protest against anyone that seems related to the problem.

What you should be worried about is groups of people angry at groups of people. Protests, jostling, fights, deaths.

Showing up in your Google sweater is just fanning the flames, irresponsible and unempathetic. These people have a problem, and it's real to them. You might want to keep that sweater at the bottom of a drawer, lest it get caught on a pitchfork and burned by a torch. I'll feel sorry for you (I will) as you unjustly burn.

mc-lovin9• 13 years ago

Perhaps group B have legitimate complaints, but I somehow doubt they are serious enough to justify violence against anyone who makes light of their "struggle".

If it's true that these people have organized an event where someone would be physically assaulted for wearing a Google sweater (if there were no police there) then that's precisely why I would want to do it. People have a right to express themselves, they don't have a right to make other people feel unsafe.

vacri2• 13 years ago

Hearing that you would knowingly and consciously choose to antagonise upset people for absolutely no reason beyond your own entertainment, I am already unsympathetic to you should the situation escalate beyond your control.

mc-lovin9• 13 years ago

The funny thing is, I never considered when I posted that that there would be violence beyond the usual getting in your face that I've seen at left wing protests.

Why does the fact that these people are upset make their cause any more just? Why do my rights (and more importantly the rights of any tech employees who might happen to pass through there) end where their feelings begin?

Also, how sympathetic would you feel towards a Black man who "antagonized" white people by passing through a White neighborhood, and was attacked by Whites who were already upset by the civil rights movement.

eeeeaaii• 13 years ago

"Funding some local education or beautification initiatives could go a long way to reducing the gentrification backlash."

Or maybe California could relax its constitutional restriction on city and county income taxes, which would make much more sense than relying on random benefactors to make the city more livable.

lsb• 13 years ago

I'll consider land use complaints from Miwok and Ohlone, but I'm not sure how "my neighborhood is different from how it was 15 years ago" is a valid concern. A vibrant city can't be a museum.

lambdacat• 13 years ago

The issue is who is affected by changes to the city. It is always the poor and underprivileged who are pushed to the periphery by the privileged. Change should be shaped in ways that don't involuntarily displace people.

rayiner5• 13 years ago

Rents wouldn't be going up so fast if these protestors were protesting draconian building and zoning laws instead of Google employees. NIMBY-ism hurts lower income people first.

subsystem• 13 years ago

Do you have anything to back that up? I would imagine that most lower income people have already been hit and preserving status quo might be in the interest of anyone who has managed to stay. At least in the short run.

rayiner5• 13 years ago

Rent control drives up rents for everyone who isn't in a rent controlled apartment. Those higher rents affect the young guy working at Starbucks, who is unlikely to have a rent controlled apartment, before it affects the young guy who works at Google, who is also unlikely to have a rent controlled apartment but can at least better afford the resulting rent increases.

ryanobjc• 13 years ago

I wonder how many commenters here actually live in SF or know anything about it... San Francisco has one of the most tenant friendly laws in the entire country. Rent control is very strict, and the whole "rent has gone up by X%" ... well it has gone up no more than 1% for existing tenants. Because that is the legal limit.

New units are not subject to rent control, but if you don't move, then you will never really pay much more for rent. People in my building pay 50% what I pay for the same layout, and new people will probably pay 2x what I am paying for the same layout as well.

Commercial property tho doesnt have rent control however. But that's kind of a different argument, right?

MattLaroche• 13 years ago

Rent control is only on buildings over 35 years old, and not when one rents a condo directly from its owner. There's other rules, but it's very much not "no more than 1% for existing tenants." Many, many people are rent controlled, but it is not everyone.

tptacek3• 13 years ago

Rent control doesn't apply to single-family homes or new construction (anything built after 1979, according to SFTU). And owners can get around rent control, for instance by using owner move-in evictions.

raldi• 13 years ago

> Commercial property tho doesnt have rent control however.

But they still generally pay far, far less property tax than they should:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978...

old-gregg• 13 years ago

> San Francisco has one of the most tenant friendly laws in the entire country

What? SF is infested by rent-controlled buildings. Rent control is the most tenant-hostile policy ever invented. It basically means that newcomers (or people who had to move) are subsidizing ridiculous rents of those who haven't moved in a while. Rent control restricts the freedom of movement.

My barber pays $1600 for a 2br apartment two blocks from the my building where a shitty 1br got rented within an hour after showing up on craigslist. The very same 1br was $2,400 just a year ago, and $2,200 two years ago.

rayiner5• 13 years ago

Rent control is not tenant friendly. It collapses the supply of housing in a city. It's "old people"/"I got here first" friendly.

grbalaffa• 13 years ago

Anybody else watch the video? There were at least as many cops as protestors present. It's eerily reminiscent of those pictures from OWS where the cops were lined up outside banks.

jurassic• 13 years ago

Tax dollars at work!

gyardley• 13 years ago

Sure, but in both cases that's because when there aren't as many cops, these protests result in widespread property damage.

This has unfortunately been the case since the WTO protests in Seattle in late 1999.

thrownaway24244• 13 years ago

The protest is right across the street from the cop shop.

beatpanda5• 13 years ago

Yeah, look, given the organizers, I am shocked there weren't a bunch of fires in the streets last night. So from a distance the police presence looks like overkill, and I am no fan of the police in general, but they had every reason to believe the event yesterday was going to turn violent.

modarts• 13 years ago

Why are tech employees and companies the getting the blame for increased rent? Last I checked it was the property owners and landlords who control that.

How far back do they want to go? Protesting in front of Tim Berners-Lee's house for being an enabling force in the creation of the technology that runs Google and other companies?

natrius• 13 years ago

Property owners and landlords will charge the highest rent they can convince someone to pay, so treating them as active agents in this scenario doesn't seem useful to me. Supply and demand determine what people are willing to pay for housing, and tech workers are willing to pay a lot.

magicalist• 13 years ago

> As a three-year resident of the Mission, I’ve seen the influx of money from the rise of Apple and Google’s stock plus the Facebook IPO change its character.

It seems weird for the writer to try to separate himself from this. The mission starting gentrifying well before 2010, there was just a bit of a lull at the end of the last decade. Not to put too fine a point on it, but he's a white stanford-grad who covers the tech industry for a website. Even if you're a poor recent college graduate with five roommates, your presence changes the character of the neighborhood.

GuiA• 13 years ago

Of course, but he's writing an article about the underdogs; naturally he'd rather identify with them :)

navyrain• 13 years ago

The core problem here is that high-earners are being concentrated in one area. If the Google employes weren't expected to commute to a computer, and were free to remote in from anywhere, their economic impact on their neighborhoods would be distributed, rather than concentrated in a couple locations.

Steko• 13 years ago

Actually, the core problem is out of control zoning restrictions.

Recent discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5651918

thrownaway24244• 13 years ago

To be clear, the out-of-control things belong to governments outside SF, SJ, and Oak. The three major cities continue to add housing at a fair clip, as they have for the last 15 years.

jopof• 13 years ago

Google/Facebook employees don't work anywhere near SF. They live in SF because it's hip, and endure huge commutes (on the comfy buses) to do so. Maybe if G/F stopped subsidizing ridiculous commutes with the comfy buses, employees would live in the low-cost housing areas near campus.

philsnow• 13 years ago

> low-cost housing areas near campus.

"relatively". relatively low-cost housing areas.

Also, it's not a comparable living experience at all. Mountain View is bikeable, sure, but it's not walkable.

redcircle• 13 years ago

Do you mean East Palo Alto, or the whole valley? There is almost no housing supply in the valley. I have the feeling that engineers are now priced out of the market in the valley. Houses sell to bidders that offer no contingencies, cash, and a price that exceeds a lender's appraisal.

akkartik• 13 years ago

I showed a friend this, and he pointed out the awesome quasi-gonzo http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n03/rebecca-solnit/diary.

mturmon• 13 years ago

It's a nice outsider article. Funny-because-it-hurts:

"All these youngish people are on the Google Bus because they want to live in San Francisco, city of promenading and mingling, but they seem as likely to rub these things out as to participate in them."

Earlier HN discussion, studiously failing to appreciate the piece:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5189580

jstalin• 13 years ago

I bet more regulations will fix it.

racecar789• 13 years ago

I can understand the outrage these displaced people feel. Especially for the hard working lower class.

It is not displacement for a public works project. It is pure class displacement with a rub-it-in-their-face quality about it.

tzs• 13 years ago

Are Google/Facebook/Apple employees living in that neighborhood because the company shuttle buses make it convenient, or did the companies start sending shuttles there because so many employees live there?

flatfilefan• 13 years ago

Yuppies and Gentrification are antonims in my book. Does the author know what those words mean?

Protesters Smash Google Shuttle Bus Piñata In Fight Against Rent Increases

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