Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/12/20/18748143.php

by negrit • 13 years ago

202 319 13 years ago

sp3324• 13 years ago

The bus remained where it was, the thought of driving to Mountain View with a broken window and flooded with cold air an unthinkable horror they could not endure.

Or maybe because it was a crime scene?

TrainedMonkey• 13 years ago

Driving with a broken glass raining behind bus does not sound like a particularly safe thing to do.

wil4212• 13 years ago

I wouldnt take a bus if it got attacked with a brick and had a shattered window.

johnward• 13 years ago

TIL: "cold air" is ~54f.

sp3324• 13 years ago

At 54F ambient, wind chill at 40 MPH drops to just above freezing.

DannyBee• 13 years ago

People wear ear muffs in 60 degree weather here. I don't get it.

notdonspaulding• 13 years ago

Meanwhile, in Illinois, we're enjoying a high in the lower 40's as if it were a heat wave. ;-)

angersock• 13 years ago

First against the wall, it would appear. All of us doing tech work should be paying very, very close attention to this sentiment.

That said, why can't these folks find more constructive ways of trying to change the system and address their grievances?

zrail• 13 years ago

The private buses are a very visible symbol of what's going on in their neighborhood. They're an obvious target.

dragontamer4• 13 years ago

They're an obvious soft-target. An easy target that they can attack without penalty.

The "obvious target" would be to do this in the middle of the city, to raise better awareness of their anger and their message. As it is, this is simply an unknown attack on a bus. Even the spin-propaganda blog post is very unclear on what the problem is...

boumblesnopass• 13 years ago

Because then people might listen, things might change and then they'd have nothing else to talk about!

jaibot3• 13 years ago

Pain and fear do not tend to lead to rational approaches to complex problems. People's lives are getting worse, and they're not thinking through the problem fully - just lashing out at the most visible, proximate cause.

It's the same pattern one sees in anti-immigration efforts - outsiders competing for a limited resource (jobs, housing) reduces the consumer surplus of the in-group. The traditional response to this throughout most of human history is along the lines of "attack the encroaching tribe", so we're actually doing better than the historical baseline.

Of course, the much-better-response - "let's respond to an increase in demand with an increase in supply by lifting zoning restrictions and allowing for more housing" - isn't intuitive enough or emotionally evocative enough to get a crowd.

gress15• 13 years ago

The tech companies, and Google in particular have far more power and resources at their disposal and are actively trying to change society in numerous different ways. They choose not to use this power to improve the local community, instead insulating themselves from the problems by providing their employees with a way to ignore the lack of infrastructure around them.

What 'constructive ways' would you suggest people without money or power use to change the system?

dragontamer4• 13 years ago

I dunno. They can always become the next Google or Facebook and do something with THEIR money.

These mega-corps grew from nothing in only ~20 years. The new rich of America is NOT like the "old rich" of Wall Street. Basically any no-name nobody with 5 guys working in a basement can become the next Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest, Groupon, Zynga or whatever.

gress15• 13 years ago

What would you suggest they do?

jrockway3• 13 years ago

It would be much better to have 100 more cars on the road during rush hour, right?

diab0lic• 13 years ago

I can't imagine they were protesting the literal act of using a bus to ferry employees to work. Rather this was an easy way to target members of a group the protestors feel wronged by/animosity towards.

Crito16• 13 years ago

They should consider reviewing their tactics then, because it sure as hell seems as though the buses are one of their complaints.

minikites• 13 years ago

It would be much better to have affordable housing for all instead of the wealthy pricing out the ordinary.

adamnemecek• 13 years ago

Can you really blame Google for this though? Seems a bit misplaced.

PeterisP4• 13 years ago

Correction, 'affordable housing for some not all' is what's implied here - there's not enough housing for all, and the only way it's going to stay affordable, given the current housing policy, is if all the googlers get kicked out of the place for good.

Pxtl• 13 years ago

In that case they should be smashing windows at City Hall (or not anywhere, preferably). The municipality must be up to its gills in property tax cash and is the only people who can properly manage the response to this skyrocketing demand for housing. This isn't Vancouver or Tokyo or Manhattan, there's room to build more housing and drive down the supply/demand imbalance, and money to be made doing it... but without the municipality leading the way on intensification, it's not going to get better.

k-mcgrady• 13 years ago

By providing free transportation from SF Google employees are encouraged to live there. Why not live closer to work? It would probably result in a few more cars on the road but a lot of the employees would move closer to Google freeing up apartments for people who actually work at businesses in SF and HAVE to live there.

NB: I have no stake in this, I like in Ireland.

cbhl3• 13 years ago

It is mind-boggling the number of employees that Google manages to stuff onto their main campus. A large number of employees do live in Mountain View, but many also live in SF and in East Bay.

Those who live in the city proper have plenty of financial incentives to not live there; I can't imagine that they'd suddenly move en masse to the suburbs just because Google took their double-decker WiFi-enabled buses away.

Crito16• 13 years ago

Why not live closer to work?

It is a bit funny to hear people say that the lives of Google employees do not revolve around their employer enough already.

kkowalczyk• 13 years ago

1. Shortage of housing is even worse near Google campus than in SF

2. Angry mob or your opinions should not dictate where people choose to live.

I could offer many suggestions as to how you should live YOUR life to better suit MY goal and ideas, but I don't because that would be stupid.

You should choose a place to live that suits YOU the best and you should offer the same curtesy to others.

The "occupy Google bus" movement is straight-up bullying.

saalweachter• 13 years ago

I'd bet you've got it backwards, actually.

Google isn't trying to encourage people who work at Google to live in San Francisco: they are trying to encourage people who live in San Francisco to work at Google.

It's the same reason they have such a honkin' big office in the middle of Manhattan. They could much more cheaply have an office park out in western New Jersey, but having the office in Manhattan captures a large number of employees who want to live in New York City, and would end up working at a hedge fund to support their NYC-habit.

Likewise, they probably found themselves interviewing a lot of great people who turned down the job because they lived in San Francisco and couldn't deal with the commute, and would rather find a different job than leave San Francisco. (Or employees who were commuting by car/rail and were quitting because they couldn't handle it any more.) The buses were probably a cheaper / more satisfactory solution than setting up a new office.

jack-r-abbit3• 13 years ago

Why not live closer to work?

1) Maybe they got the job at Google half way through their year lease in SF and are relying on the bus to get to work for 6 months until they can move.

2) Maybe they are fresh out of college and still live in their family home in SF and are only using the bus to get to their new job while they save up enough to move closer.

3) Maybe they live in SF because it is equal distance from their job south and their partner's job north or east.

4) Maybe they are in that group of people that thinks jobs come and go but your home is your home. These people don't move closer to their job.

That said, nobody HAS to live in SF. A fair number of people actually commute INTO SF.

yetanotherphd4• 13 years ago

I imagine that, like most highly educated people, the people making these decisions do not think that the impact of Google employees on rent is their concern.

This is because in a free market, housing is like any other good. Some people happen to be particularly affected when competition drives up the price of a given good. But it is not for individuals to try to mitigate this effect. The most efficient and fair outcome is for the government to redistribute money, and for the poor to spend their money however they feel is best.

This is not libertarianism, it is basic economic theory that is shared by moderates on the left and right.

So Google has no moral obligation, or indeed any good reason, to discourage their workers from living in SF.

what_ever• 13 years ago

I am not taking any side, but I don't think this argument is valid. If there were no shuttles, I think most of the Google employees would prefer to stay close to MTV instead of an hour away. I know that I would not like to drive for at least an hour on each side in traffic on 101 everyday. I would just rent an apartment in MTV or Palo Alto.

hoytie• 13 years ago

I think the situation would be drastically different if the buses didn't exist, for better or worse. Workers would make completely different choices in where they live, and it's not likely they would choose the same neighborhoods that the buses afford them the convenience of. And just maybe SV companies would change their highly suburban and unsustainable real estate policies. Just because 1 bus going form a to b is better than 100 cars going from a to b doesn't justify the policy of the buses or even demonstrate they're sustainable.

etjossem6• 13 years ago

It's faster to damage a single bus than slash 100 tires.

The protesters don't care about the state of rush hour. They care about what the corporate buses represent: large tech corporations increasing the wealth gap and raising rent in SF/Oakland. It's a fact that each stalled bus will have a bottom-line impact on Google or one of its partners.

That said, smashing windows is not an effective way to win allies. It just makes it a little bit easier to dismiss opponents of gentrification as supporters of vandalism. These "activists" are alienating the very public officials who would otherwise support measures that favor existing residents (e.g. rent control and stabilization).

wankerrific• 13 years ago

No - it would be better to have those 100 people living down near where they work - in Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Fremont, Santa Clara, Milpitas, etc. The GBus only solves a problem it creates currently.

nathanvanfleet• 13 years ago

"driven up the property values and rent prices, creating animosity, evictions, and poverty" I'm sorry but I can't imagine the gentrification has caused poverty. It's probably made it more inconvenient and pushed out people in poverty though.

patrickg_zill• 13 years ago

I hesitate to say that it "caused" poverty.

But for people who have seen their rents go up while working the same jobs at roughly the same pay, you can see that a larger percentage of their pay goes to rent.

altero3• 13 years ago

Rent prices and other expenses skyrocketed. And not everyone has option to move out. So yes, it caused powerty.

PeterisP4• 13 years ago

Zoning laws creating an artificial scarcity of housing has caused the rent prices to skyrocket - already before that the prices were high enough to cause a boom in building lots of living space, if the city (by their voters) would allow it.

hyperbovine• 13 years ago

Rent adjustments in Oakland are pegged to the CPI except in special cases. So long as you do not move, your rent will remain relatively stable.

api12• 13 years ago

Not surprised to see this. The real estate hyperinflation in the Bay Area is beyond sanity at this point.

altero3• 13 years ago

Technicaly the bus is place of work, so there are interesting implications for Google as employer.

anextio• 13 years ago

No, the bus is owned by a third party contractor. That does not count as Google's workplace.

altero3• 13 years ago

And the office could be rented. I think it is clear that Google expect people to check emails and do 'work stuff', it was mentioned several times.

foggycrypt• 13 years ago

Incorrect. This used to be true back when Bauer was under contract. This is no longer the case. Google owns their own fleet and employs contracted drivers. The infrastructure is all in-house now.

The secure wifi network used by the employees to check email, do work, push code, etc. make it a satellite office on wheels. Ask anyone who works for Google.

huu2• 13 years ago

Has this actually happened? I can't find any other news source confirming this.

Edit: Yeah, this actually did happen. Picture of the broken window: https://twitter.com/craigsfrost/status/414121201754468352/ph...

JimboOmega4• 13 years ago

Someone tweeting a picture isn't exactly verification. There's no real way to tell if that picture has anything to do with the location or bus in question.

I'd really like to see some more verification - especially after the way the last Google Bus "incident" turned out. (A guy who at first appeared to be an employee trying to shout down the protesters... was actually a guy there to support the protesters, and make an artificial 'scene')

huu2• 13 years ago

Here you go: https://twitter.com/craigsfrost/status/414074094578307072/ph...

Edit: The SF Chronicle is currently reaching out to the witnesses to get a better feel for the story. I'd expect something to come out in the mainstream news real soon.

zem• 13 years ago

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/12/20/eviction-protesters...

sp3324• 13 years ago

Since the last incident included a guy impersonating a Google employee, I'd imagine most news outlets are going to vet this story a little harder before covering it.

quantumpotato_• 13 years ago

"kind young man".. really? Fucking spin.

kohanz• 13 years ago

The writing is strange and sounds very biased. The repeated reference to a kind young man, for example.

jaibot3• 13 years ago

This isn't a news article - it's a post on "East Bay | Global Justice and Anti-Capitalism"

JimboOmega4• 13 years ago

Yup.

Would really like to see a real news article - or at least several other sources discussing the incident.

mgraczyk2• 13 years ago

The account was written by a participant.

eloisius• 13 years ago

The "nice young man"?

bluedino2• 13 years ago

> Many tech employees currently reside in these locations and have driven up the property values and rent prices, creating animosity, evictions, and poverty.

Damn Google employees. Causing poverty.

spiritplumber• 13 years ago

If my rent goes from 40% to 50% of my income because property values changed, I am poorer.

elwell• 13 years ago

Yeah, the bias started earlier with "waiting for their giant white bus".

cinquemb• 13 years ago

"While this is taking place, the City of Oakland and Federal law enforcement are attempting to spread a surveillance network called the Domain Awareness Center throughout Oakland. Intended to secure the Port of Oakland against terrorist attacks and labor struggle, this surveillance network will actually monitor the entirety of Oakland through over 800 cameras. The authorities want to monitor the crazy and uncontrollable city that is pressed right up against the Port of Oakland."

Would be interesting to get the coords of the cameras when they go up on iSee[0], so people can take the necessary action to avoid them. It would be interesting in general if someone made a mobile app where people can stand where cameras are (and take a photo of it for some spacial awareness) and submit the coords to a public database where people can take the data and plot their own paths away from a central server.

[0] http://66.93.183.118:8080/isee/s1

mnml_• 13 years ago

so ?

gojomo• 13 years ago

Now we know where Google can deploy Boston Dynamics!

vacri6• 13 years ago

Their employees can ride to work on Big Dogs? :)

Symmetry3• 13 years ago

I'm imagining a techno-catbus now that runs over the rooftops of the city on robotic legs to avoid the cars and barricades on the road below.

davevil• 13 years ago

Suddenly, Google's purchase of military robot manufacturer Boston Dynamics makes more sense.

marvvelous• 13 years ago

Better article describing 2 more bus incidents from this morning - http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/12/20/eviction-protesters...

defen• 13 years ago

As if the real problem with Oakland is that there are too many Google employees living there. Let's be honest - the only reason they do this is that Google employees sitting in a bus are a "soft" target. There is essentially zero chance of reprisal or consequence, at least if it's done as a one-off thing. You get to feel self-righteous for fighting "the man" without any risk.

Let's say they win this quixotic crusade and actually manage to force everyone with an income above $N to flee the area. What is the next step toward a better Oakland?

aetherson• 13 years ago

Yeah, I want to know what people think that alternative to gentrification is. Do they imagine that high income people will eventually just not live anywhere? Do they imagine that life would be better if all growth in the Bay Area were new construction sprawl out in the edges of the urban area where there's no displacement? Is it explicitly selfish, like, "go gentrify San Jose, those guys are assholes anyway"?

gohrt4• 13 years ago

Not saying it's correct or fair or appropriate in this situation with these protestors, but one philosophy is an equality-of-results (or even equality-of-opportunity, depending on how you interpret "opportunity"), that says "high income people should not be wealthy, should not enjoy the comforts of upper-middle-class existence, while the masses are poor"

kasey_junk• 13 years ago

I don't have a dog in this fight, but there are some pretty obvious things you could do to fight the burden of gentrification on lower income original members of the population (they may have other side effects that are burdensome).

Off the top of my head: - Massive taxes on "teardown" or size exploding renovations. - Zoning laws that require at least 1 (or a % based) Section 8 unit per multi-unit development/renovation. - Massive subsidies on empty lot development that implement affordable housing practices.

It would be even better if you implemented these changes throughout the entire metro area, not just the areas currently under development. But if you think protests by the poor for rich folks moving into their neighborhood are bad, wait until you see the inverse.

firstOrder2• 13 years ago

"a soft target. There is essentially zero chance of reprisal or consequence."

Yes, because people are looking for hard targets. Cops don't carry guns because if they confront someone they want the odds to be "even steven". The US doesn't use drones and bombers and machine guns in Afghanistan, because they want it to be a fair fight between the soldiers and the native population.

Wow, you figured out that they did something where they wouldn't all be immediately arrested and tossed in jail, that's a brilliant observation. Now explain how the people who would arrest them, with their guns and radios and SWAT teams and helicopters don't work things so that they don't go after soft targets as well?

Fact is these people all have much more massive balls than 90% of the effete whiners and snivelers here and everyone knows it. I'd love to see rich liberatarian fairies like Keith Rabois or Peter Thiel go to Oakland public housing and get up in people's faces and tell them what they think should be done with them.

chaz• 13 years ago

A bus in San Francisco, too. Claims of it being an Apple bus. http://www.businessinsider.com/protesters-an-apple-bus-2013-...

goldenkey• 13 years ago

'The kind young man' 'An unthinkable horror they could not endure'

Holy shit, the hyperbole that hurts my heart!

jessedhillon9• 13 years ago

West Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past three decades. Now there is an upper class enclave that has been established near the West Oakland BART station, in Jack London, and in the city of Emeryville.

Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks.

There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively know who these protesters were (although there are no "traditional" blacks in those photos) -- but I know (I have a strong suspicion, I don't factually know) that the protesters were not drawn from the group mentioned above. These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families.

The actual, working, poor people in West Oakland were at their first of the two or three jobs they hold. Or they were spending a few rare moments resting, or with their kids. Or they were lining up to get a meal at community kitchen. Actual black people were not part of this protest, because a mob of black people attacking a bus would be getting wall-to-wall coverage on every channel. It would have been responded to with a swift and overwhelming police presence.

The same thing happened a few years ago when these same non-workers shut down the Port of Oakland in the name of workers. The people who actually work the port asked that they not disrupt the port, but in the end these dreadlocked, shiftless complainers cost those longshoremen a day in wages -- Viva El Proletariado!

What we have today is a group of young, electively poor white kids who are upset that the price of unheated lofts and dingy Victorians are being driven up by people who have the means and motivation to actually own and improve them. That they wrap themselves up in the image of the poor (and yes, mostly black) -- whom they themselves displaced by rushing in to bid up rents with mom and dad's money -- makes this appeal all the more ludicrous. At least the tech gentrifiers will actually improve the fucking place, unlike these leeches!

(Source: I live and own property in Oakland)

Edited as suggested below by bonemachine.

api12• 13 years ago

"These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families."

That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians.

thisiswrong• 13 years ago

That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians.

The irony is that your comment only emphasizes the severe disconnect between relatively wealthy & employable 'techies' versus the rest of the struggling recession-hit population.

It's hard to understand how life has changed since 2007 when, coming from a tech-related field, one generally doesn't suffer the everyday hardships that most Americans endure [1].

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-a...

unclebucknasty5• 13 years ago

But, how is it that we recognize "many things in the world sucking" and criticize today's activism as lacking; yet have not done more ourselves to reduce the world's suckage?

bonemachine4• 13 years ago

That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists,

A rather untenable assertion, based on my own lengthy and up-close observation of e.g. Occupy at its peak.

zach• 13 years ago

So it's hipsters versus nerds now? Has it come to this?

Crito16• 13 years ago

I wouldn't call it hipsters or nerds. The nerd angle has little to do with it actually, in another city it would be financial workers, or lawyers, or local university students.

Anyone that can be spun into an "outsider".

ritchiea2• 13 years ago

Let's be real. Some of the nerds are also hipsters.

johnamaeda• 13 years ago

The problem is that a big corporation like Google gives less than it takes as of now, tax wise, and guarantees their employees a standard of living out of reach for most americans now, or the rest of the world for that matter.

A standard of living paid for, in part, by the very same taxes they manage to avoid, along with several other big corporations. Not to mention they are no stranger to the US government, and probably might have helped the very development of those formerly secret and hated programs, also with direct knowledge transfer http://cryptome.org/2013/08/assange-google-nsa.htm

manicbovine8• 13 years ago

It's as if you are auditioning for the Glenn Beck show. That's probably where you belong

edit: Since when is political vitriol acceptable for HN? If I wanted to hear bullshit political rants with gems like "traditional blacks" or "fuck you and your dreadlocks", then I'd turn on Fox News or MSNBC. Seriously, traditional blacks with weasely scare quotes? That comment could not be less informative, disingenuous, or falsely provocative. It's like reading something by a slightly racist college freshman.

nknighthb8• 13 years ago

Do you understand that you are attacking some of your most powerful political allies, and that it is not helpful to solving the systemic issues contributing to poverty?

jack-r-abbit3• 13 years ago

I believe the OP only put quotes around "traditional" because, in the very quote he lifted from the article, West Oakland is referred to as a traditionally black neighborhood. It is typical behavior to use quotes around words that relate directly back to the original source.

antiterra2• 13 years ago

Your disdain for people who attend Burning Man, have so-called 'useless degrees,' and are self-styled-artists does nothing but discredit you as a reasonable person. Plenty of people who fall into any combination or all of those groups are productive and capable, many of them in the technology/tech startup sectors (and don't have a problem with Google's buses.)

EDIT: removed some of my own frothing

anigbrowl4• 13 years ago

He's nopt expressing venom for people who/are those things, but for those who use such status to justify the sort of violent nihilism on display in this article. I know lots of Burning Man/weirdo artist types who work hard, care about their neighbors, and manage to express their political views without slinging bricks through windows or justifying intimidation by calling it 'direct action.'

gohrt4• 13 years ago

So... we need to organize a working class resistence against the... pretend working class resistance?

Not even joking. If the imposter protestors make it acceptable for "civilized" folk to have a reactionary attitude against equality concerns, they will become a (perhaps unwitting) tool of oppression of the poor, who do have valid (if unvoiced) concerns.

Crito16• 13 years ago

It's a good point. These protesters, far from helping the 'locals', are giving them a worse reputation. Among it's other problems, Oakland is now "the city that smashes buses", even if the people who did it really have nothing to do with Oakland. The residents of Oakland have every right to be angry with these protesters.

api12• 13 years ago

Abso-fucking-lutely.

Like I said elsewhere I used to live in a "trendy" place that had a huge contingent of these obnoxious faux-radicals. They would organize this silly clownish protests of GMO foods, "chemtrails," free this, liberate that, whatever, and they'd march around looking like clowns in front of all kinds of trendy businesses catering to hippie-tourists and retired old white people.

These businesses in turn paid their workers shit wages with no benefits. How do I know? Because I was good friends with a number of these workers, who never had anything to do with the IndyMedia traustafarian clown show.

I never saw a single one of these outrage-er-tainment fuckups protests unfair wages or lack of benefits. They only protested trendy issues of no relevance to the actually underprivileged.

I propose national trustafarian beat-down day.

ritchiea2• 13 years ago

It seems like you're correct in this case. Or at the very least there is no evidence for their implication that the protesters were black Oakland residents.

That said, let's not allow laziness on the part of the reporter who filed this story, and elective poor dreadlocked white kids to distract us from the real problem that is class disparity in the west. The elite live under different rules than the rest and the middle class is dwindling. That's way more important than bad reporting, which is just a footnote.

batbomb• 13 years ago

People with enough of their parents money don't move to West Oakland. People who can't afford anything else and aren't afraid of getting robbed once a year do. Typically, yes, there's a bunch of kids from the "middle class", but most the ones I know are also "working poor" because they work in some sort of service industry.

Other parts of Oakland, sure. Not the core part of West Oakland though.

But you are also right, this wasn't West Oakland, or even lower class vs. Google. This was "activism class" vs Google. Which tends to describe hippies and burners.

Source: I've spent inordinate amounts of time near Willow Park.

zsiddique• 13 years ago

Local blogs are reporting the story: http://sfist.com/2013/12/20/angry_protesters_smash_google_bu... and it seems to back your theory. I dont think I see a single person of minority in the protest. Also the local sites are doing a better job at reporting the story then this bias site.

99997• 13 years ago

Re: The port shutdown:

The longshoremen's union supported the Occupy shutdown, but were contractually obligated not to participate in the protest. Source:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/occupy-oakland-shuts-down-port/

Since almost everything else you said is anecdotal, it's hard for me to respond to, but your statement about the longshoremen, that's certainly wrong.

In general, the people that you are deriding and caricaturing represent the first wave of gentrification, and those people actually do make meaningful contributions to the areas they move into. Think of the excellent restaurants, concert venues, boutiques, bars, etc. that exist in Oakland now--that's first wave gentrification. Those people are also historically more aware of their surroundings and the culture that they are moving into and tend to show solidarity with the lower income residents that they are paving the way towards displacement for. On the other hand, the second wave of gentrifiers tends to dramatically increase the cost of living, rate of displacement, and tends to care very little about the plight of their fellow citizens.

The Google buses are a convenient symbol for economic disparity though, and I often wonder why Google doesn't try to do a real public works project instead of simply creating a segregated system of buses. Why not add wi-fi to public buses? Why not extend the light rail system into the valley? Why not donate a whole lot of money to a public mental health project so there aren't so many deranged lunatics screaming on public transit? If they did that, then they will have created a more comfortable environment not only for their own employees, but for the entire community.

jessedhillon9• 13 years ago

...but your statement about the longshoremen, that's certainly wrong.

No, it's right. ILWU (the union) leadership has made statements such as

"Organization from outside groups attempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda is quite another and one that is destructive to our democratic process and jeopardizes our over two year struggle in Longview." [1]

So I may not have been right about them speaking out specifically against the Oakland shut down, but in general the union leadership is against strikes. Although, of course, they take great pains to not alienate potential ideological allies while rejecting calls to shut down ports.

The sentiment is at least mixed, as you can see from other coverage: [2]

"Leaders of the ILWU, which represents thousands of longshoremen, spoke out in recent weeks against the coordinated effort by Occupy protesters to blockade ports from Anchorage to San Diego"

"This is joke. What are they protesting?" Christian Vega, 32, who sat in his truck carrying a load of recycled paper from Pittsburg said Monday morning. He said the delay was costing him $600.

"It only hurts me and the other drivers. We have jobs and families to support and feed. Most of them don't," Vega said.

[1] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/occupy-oakland-west-...

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/12/occupy-oakland-port...

pslam• 13 years ago

"Think of the excellent restaurants, concert venues, boutiques, bars, etc. that exist in Oakland now--that's first wave gentrification. Those people are also historically more aware of their surroundings and the culture that they are moving into and tend to show solidarity with the lower income residents that they are paving the way towards displacement for. On the other hand, the second wave of gentrifiers tends to dramatically increase the cost of living, rate of displacement, and tends to care very little about the plight of their fellow citizens."

First wave? Only if you define "first wave" to coincide with the current discussion. There was a wave of bio-tech (e.g Genentech) shortly before the "tech" (e.g Google) wave.

This goes back all the way to the founding of California, the state. The '49ers were the first wave. Since then there has been a sadly repeating history of picking on a group to blame for any ill in society - usually racist - but it appears this time around it's a soft target.

sirkneeland• 13 years ago

"Why not extend the light rail system into the valley?"

NIMBYs, that's why.

nvader• 13 years ago

So the claim here is that wave zero, original inhabitants don't have "excellent restaurants, concert venues, botiques, bars etc.", and their displacement by the first wave is excusable by this fact, and some hand-waving about "solidarity."

On the other hand, the second-wave and later are callous Scrooges who just take what they can get, and thus deserve to be vilified.

This is special pleading at its most naked. I've heard the saying that you pull up the drawbridge just after you enter the castle, but you seem to want to scrape out a privileged little Goldilocks zone on both sides, where first-wavers are each an embodiment of a noble Jake Sully, fighting to save the Na'vi against the invading hordes.

bilbo0s6• 13 years ago

This is the general arc of "gentrification".

First, a few places in the neighborhood are rehabbed by developers.

Next the "...Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the ... overprivileged..." move in to the rehabbed areas and the (usually) blacks have to move out.

These hippy - artist types make the neighborhood more attractive to people even further up the food chain. (Read techies). And soon the time comes for the hippy - artists to move out.

The hippy - artists are unhappy... but the reality is... this is no more than what they did to the blacks.

Soon the time will come for the techies to move out... and, I'm sure, they will be unhappy as well when their time comes.

This same progression happens all over. I think Harlem is probably one of the best examples. (It's WAY ahead of SF area in that regard). Blacks had to move when the artists showed up because they could no longer afford it. Then, when the techies and yuppies showed up... the hippies, artists and teachers hit the roof, because it was their turn to move. Harlem is at the stage now where the celebrities and bankers are showing up ... and like clockwork ... the techies are hitting the roof because it's their turn to move.

The thing is ... in the end ... they all moved. They didn't engage in violence.

That people are upset should be expected... but I would point out that places like Harlem have gone through this process with multiple populations without violence. It can be done.

dualogy• 13 years ago

Is there some migration back to where all the celebrities and bankers came from?

mtdewcmu2• 13 years ago

I've noticed that the truly down-and-out seem to take further misfortune in stride. They expect it.

kevrone• 13 years ago

I didn't know Harlem had a tech community. Brooklyn, for sure. But Harlem? That's news to me.

bonemachine4• 13 years ago

These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families.

Oh, get off it, man.

All that we "know" about the perpetrators at this point is that they were apparently (1) young and (2) non-black. As to the rest the attributes you impute to them -- as of yet we don't "know" any of these to be fact. At best all you can honestly say at this point would be:

Now I don't know for a fact, but ya know, I have a hunch these are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, etc etc ...

This is not nit-picking. The fact that you're saying that you "know" everything about their demographic / psychographic makeup when in fact you are merely speculating is what's part of the broader problem here: rather than elucidating the problem, you're subverting the discourse.

And more to the point: you're pushing people's buttons, by appealing to stereotypes and their own identity- and privilege-based insecurities.

In so many words: you're placing the race card.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_card

jessedhillon9• 13 years ago

a) I have no objection to this phrase and will edit my comment thus.

b) I'm reacting to the race card being employed by people who are tokenizing and mascotifying (to coin phrase) the same people who they themselves pushed out!

wavesounds• 13 years ago

I've gotten into some 'debates' with friends on facebook who are are in the 'anarchist/burner/hipster' persuasion. And It's mostly scape-goating programmers for rents going up. But I do think the Startup community in particular could do a better job interacting with the communities we live in. Especially as more and more people jump on the startup bandwagon and don't really understand the hacker/nerd ethos of protecting the little guy that most of us embrace. The recent remarks of the founder of Anglehack come to mind as something that gives the community a very bad name http://valleywag.gawker.com/happy-holidays-startup-ceo-compl...

Edit: I do realize more programmers moving to the bay means higher rents I just think its the fault of SF for not building enough housing http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis...

api12• 13 years ago

I think the rent issue is definitely real, but isn't the fault of techies. It's the fault of several interacting factors:

(1) Anti-development mentality on the part of city councils, zoning boards, etc.

(2) Geographic containment of the area.

(3) Shitty public transit and overcrowded roads.

(4) Foreign investors driving up the price of RE.

... in roughly that order.

#1 is largely the fault of this same stereotypical bunch of braindead trustafarian hippies, since they tend to oppose building pretty much anything because it destroys the Earth, man. In so doing they play their role in the gentrification cycle, constraining supply to drive up rents and drive out the genuinely underprivileged.

As I said elsewhere: fuck these people.

MartinCron• 13 years ago

But I do think the Startup community in particular could do a better job interacting with the communities we live in

The question seems to be, if you have your own distinct infrastructure and shared spaces, are you really living in your community?

JumpCrisscross2• 13 years ago

Fun writeup. Wrong attitude.

Silicon Valley technology, this is Manhattan finance with a word of advice. We know the roots of the problem are housing supply restrictions and a lack of mass transit. In essence, City Hall problems. So why are they able to pin the blame on you?

Because you're painting a target on your back. Ducking your heads makes you a low-risk scapegoat. Scoffing at the less fortunate, regardless of whether they "deserve" it, makes you a juicy red political filet.

I'm not saying you need to up volunteering incentives for technology workers or visibly join hands with your foes and fight City Hall for more housing including, yes, the affordable kind. But don't throw daggers when you're down. As it stands, you're right but you're down.

bilbo0s6• 13 years ago

In Houston I, and several others who live behind the gates on Sunset, have taken to volunteering A LOT of time in Third Ward for this very reason. You're a lot tougher target when your head is raised and you have a track record of advocating for the REAL underprivileged. Because chances are, the people denigrating you would never dare go to a place like Third Ward. (Which is a shame... because the people there are quite nice actually.)

kaitai• 13 years ago

And a super-easy place to start, techies, is making sure that the janitorial/cafeteria/security staff you've contracted to work with are paid at least reasonably. "Living wage" can be hard to compute in the overheated Bay economy, but at least don't be screwing them with 35-hour-per-week jobs with no benefits. This is something that your own company can influence.

raldi• 13 years ago

Could you rephrase that with fewer metaphors? I'm having trouble understanding what actual thing it is that you think techies should be doing.

duairc• 13 years ago

“I own property”

dylandrop2• 13 years ago

It's understandable that you'd be upset if you knew this was a case of rich white kids playing the race card, but you don't -- all we know is that some of the protesters were white. Making generalizations is counterproductive.

..because this is all obvious evidence of the article.

louthy• 13 years ago

These are Burning Man hippies...

Clearly a man with inside knowledge. Which BM hippies was it? Larry Page and Sergey Brin perhaps?

wil4212• 13 years ago

These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families.

New name for them: Hipstervists

blhack2• 13 years ago

These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors

This is such a stupid position to take. First of all, do you realize that those "Burning Man Hippies" are, uh, literally the people who started google? Do you realize that google has made enormous donations to those "burning man hippies"?

And yes, "uesless degrees". History, art, literature, these are all "useless" of course, the only valid degrees are either hard science and hard engineering, I'm sure?

What aspects of life do you enjoy, man? A good design aesthetic? Cause that's art...

Or, perhaps good food? That's also art.

Maybe a good book, wait...

Architecture?

Beauty? Something? Possibly something that poets and artists have given you a context for, or study?

This is such a stupid lazy attitude to take. Come out of your hole sometime and you'll find a whole world out here full of things that you can enjoy. Just try to steer clear of those pesky "artists" who got useless degrees.

The people who are crying about google's buses are idiots. Don't group them together with artists or "burning man hippies".

hcurtiss• 13 years ago

I think by "useless," he meant, "useless for purposes of making money."

jessedhillon9• 13 years ago

Eh, you know what? I think you've gone way out of your way to construe my comments as meaning something different than what they do. Do you think that it was your local bookstore owner and restauranteer throwing bricks in the window? Do you even think it was someone so dedicated to their art that they've appeared in galleries and have become known for their craft? Maybe there was some brilliant author in the crowd?

Somehow, I doubt it.

As for "useless" degrees -- I majored in Political Science so I know what a useless degree is. The point is not to denigrate them for having an economically useless degree. The point is to expose what I think is the real motivation here, that slackers have found it increasingly difficult to float without having any real contribution to make back. It used to be that you could graduate with a soft humanities degree, rent a shitty loft in a neighborhood like West Oakland and still live pretty well. Now, you're gonna have to move out to the suburbs unless you can contribute, generate and capture substantial, financial value.

Certainly engineering is not the only field worth a damn. My comment was an allusion to a strategy employed by a certain class of privileged people, which is essentially to find a local minimum of effort/reward even though they typically come from a background which affords much greater opportunity. I contend that it's the demands of these people on display today, being presented as if it were aligned with the needs of Oakland's truly poor.

In short, the people protesting today are poor for different reasons than the people whose struggle they are claiming in the passage I quoted.

danudey• 13 years ago

A very similar situation is happening in Vancouver. In the older part of town, just past Gastown, Vancouver's original neighbourhood, lies the Downtown East Side. The DTES is 'Canada's poorest postal code', and is home to a large population of Vancouver's homeless. In true Canadian fashion, it's generally a safe and vibrant area, both despite and because of the homeless population living there (compared to the suburbs, where bored teenagers assault the elderly for something to do).

Recently, a few businesses have been cropping up; one of them, Save on Meats, opened a butcher shop and a diner; more accurately, re-opened, as Save on Meats was a cornerstone of the neighbourhood for decades before the previous owners closed it. The current owner bought the building, renovated it (or, more accurately, refurbished and restored it), began hiring the homeless and poor of the neighbourhood, and began a series of social programs aimed at benefitting the area. Their sandwich counter, a street-facing breakfast sandwich dispensary, introduced 'sandwich tokens', which can be bought from them in quantity and traded in by anyone for a warm meal. It's a convenient way to give someone something that you know will be traded in for food, without having to go out of your way to purchase it. Everyone loves it, and even the police who patrol the DTES will give out tokens to people in the neighbourhood.

Another restaurant opened lately, called Pidgin, across from a location called Pigeon Park, a common area of congregation for the DTES's residents, homeless or otherwise. On occasions, it's blocked off and turned into a giant street market, where individuals sell whatever items they've managed to scrounge up, trade, for, buy, or sell. Pidgin is a nice restaurant, it's the upper end of midrange, a place you could certainly go to in jeans and a button-down, but you might fit in better in a suit and tie.

Then came the protesters. The protesters came, spurred on by a feeling that Pidgin was making fun of the homeless people across the street, like a slap in the face. Ignoring the fact that Pidgin also hires people from the neighbourhood, the protesters congregated outside of the restaurant every day, shouting and harassing the restaurant, the staff, and the patrons. All this despite the fact that the people who actually live in the area disagree with them; both the homeless and jobless poor and the more well-to-do people who live, work, and own businesses in the area.

The other facet that the protesters seem to ignore is that part of the problem with the homeless population in Vancouver is a problem of perception; many people, especially those from the suburbs, see the DTES as full of dirty violent criminals, where you'll get knifed for your sneakers before you know it, Canada's Detroit. The reality is that these are just normal people in awful circumstances, making the best of what they have. The more people who see that, and who see how wrong their horrible misconceptions about the poor are, the easier it will be to gain support from the voting populace to improve conditions there, and the less uphill the fight will be to convince others that these people aren't lost causes cluttering up the streets of Vancouver's history.

The protesters never cared though. Even after being told by police to stop harassing people, even after being told off by people who've run businesses in the DTES for years, and working against the needs and wishes of the community in the DTES, they kept protesting.

And what population of them even live in the area? What population knows anything about the homeless that they're white-knighting? None of them. They're largely comprised of people from the suburbs, people who commute from all over the region to tell everyone how these people feel without ever asking them. Some leaders of the protest were even forced to give up their allegiances with organizations who actually aim to help the homeless populations, because their missions were so at odds and they were giving these charitable organizations such a bad name.

So the idea that trust-fund hipsters and well-meaning interlopers will thrust themselves violently and unnecessarily into a 'class warfare' which didn't exist (or wasn't as heated or unpleasant) before their interference isn't a strictly Oakland issue either. This behaviour, which focusses on driving people apart and creating open conflict where none existed, contrasts directly with what is necessary, which is for people to understand one another and interact.

It's pretty sad.

bovermyer• 13 years ago

It's because of things like this that I'm glad I live in the Midwest and not California.

mgraczyk2• 13 years ago

Is it just me, or does the psuedo-intellectual/conspiratorial rhetoric used in this post make anybody else uncomfortable? I feel like class warfare tends to start with misplaced high-mindedness, as if there is an element of being "in the know" for those who take part in the violence. Obviously the author thought writing this way would help further his cause, so what does that say about the participants? Too uninformed to know the difference? Too angry to care?

anigbrowl4• 13 years ago

Of course, it's agit-prop bullshit masquerading as reporting. Self-satisfied ideologues (of all political stripes) are nauseating people.

null_ptr7• 13 years ago

Gotta love “TECHIES: Your World Is Not Welcome Here”

I find it hard to sympathize with a bunch of lazy thugs who do nothing to improve their situation. Engineering and white collar jobs in general have always paid well. Industries who are in demand even more so, and for just reason. Did similar protests happen in Detroit 50 years ago during the auto boom? Did unskilled rubes that do nothing all day put up banners saying "Auto boys not welcome"?

This is absurd. Take control of your own damn life. Educate yourself and learn relevant skills. The resources are out there and more accessible than ever. Spend a few good hours in your public library every day for a year and walk out of there a changed person with valuable skills to offer.

yarou2• 13 years ago

These kids never worked a day in their life, though. Their parents provided them with all the tools to succeed, but they still managed to fuck it up. They have no desire to improve themselves, they simply want to continue to leech off of whatever person will tolerate them the longest. Sickening.

null_ptr7• 13 years ago

Exactly. They want a free lunch off the hard work of others. Otherwise they would have been on their way to work this morning, not vandalizing a bus.

vdaniuk• 13 years ago

That is the most unsubstantiated claim I've seen in a comment in this thread. Pure hate and vitriol. Sickening.

And mind you I don't support these protests and the general animosity towards the techies.

r00fus• 13 years ago

Nice broad sweeping generalizations. Do you have proof all these protestors are trust-fund babies?

Otherwise, your comment is out of line. Provide light, not heat.

bluedino2• 13 years ago

> Did unskilled rubes that do nothing all day put up banners saying "Auto boys not welcome"?

'Auto boys' are/were unskilled rubes.

Whites weren't holding up signs saying 'blacks not welcome'. They just left. It was 50 years ago, after all.

edit: They were, up to a point.

bcoates• 13 years ago

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-out-sundown-town...

The racial distribution of the US is neither an accident or the result of voluntary actions by individuals.

greenyoda2• 13 years ago

"'Auto boys' are/were unskilled rubes."

You need a lot more skill to work in an auto plant than you need for serving up fast food. 50 years ago, auto production wasn't nearly as automated as it is today, so the guys on the assembly lines needed to know how to do welding and other skilled trades. Robots do a lot more of that stuff today.

heurist• 13 years ago

Some more information on what happened in Detroit during the great migration:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Race_Riot_(1943)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot

unclebucknasty5• 13 years ago

I wouldn't defend these guys in particular, but I will say that things were vastly different in Detroit (and the U.S. in general) 50 years ago. Those unskilled people could much more easily become skilled to the point that they landed solidly in the middle class.

In general, there was much more opportunity to pull one's self up by the bootstraps, more even income distribution, and true mechanisms that allowed a rising tide to lift all boats.

unclebucknasty5• 13 years ago

Always love the downvotes without debate.

negamax3• 13 years ago

My thoughts on this are, techies are generally nice and intelligent people. Last thing they will do is to harm someone or get to a physical fight. Unionised autoworkers wouldn't be a soft target. I really hope that this is a one off incident and not beginning of some demonifying of tech sector. Incidences like this could be shocking to some people and may change their perception about poor and helpless. In this thread itself, there are so many comments with words like leeches and useless thrown in.

null_ptr7• 13 years ago

Being a soft and easy target has to be part of it. It stands to reason that people who smash bus windows are the same people who used to beat up nerds at school when they were children. Some people set themselves up for a life of shit from the get go and never bother to change course.

baddox8• 13 years ago

I would love to see Google hire some muscle to provide security for their buses. Just let the protesters choose what level of violence to bring to the table.

ffrryuu3• 13 years ago

You mean guns? Maybe give bullet proof vest to Google employees.

Crito16• 13 years ago

Big imposing dudes with mace would probably be sufficient. These kids are spineless bullies from entitled backgrounds, not hardened criminals.

baddox8• 13 years ago

I'm just mean security guards. I doubt they are allowed to carry guns.

anigbrowl4• 13 years ago

As a resident of Oakland who is sick to death of professional protesters slapping agit-prop posters on any available surface (not least community-financed public artwork), fuck these people and everything they stand for. And no, I don't work for some billion $ startup or even a million $ one, I'm the sort of starving artist that they claim to be fighting for, but aren't.

djs1sjd2• 13 years ago

I take that bus routinely (though not this morning), and I can assure you that its occupants are a diverse group of East Bay residents of many races and ethnicities (black, white, asian, hispanic, etc), and though I haven't done a survey, I doubt any of us are 1%s.

Many of us, myself included, support strongly progressive economic policies, but there is no real conversation to be had with people who will resort to violence like this. Sadly, use of violent and illegal methods to convey a message seems to be somewhat common in these parts.

I suspect that these "protesting" groups are acting out some sort of imagined war between rich and poor, and since the real 1% don't take a bus of any kind to work, we're their next best target.

marquis2• 13 years ago

In our industry we are privileged. I am not sure another time in history when anyone (almost) could bootstrap themselves to relative wealth compared to their neighbours and families with determined effort rather than hard labour and luck (such as the gold rush or being born into wealth). To assume that there is no problem, that everything is fine and people are just upset for the hell of it is hubris. We could become the new oil barons, and be glad of low wages so we can live like kings. Or we could adjust to our wealth, at least acknowledge it and even if you never donate to your local foodbank or get involved with a local community group or night school, understand that you have privilege. Noblesse oblige and all that.

djs1sjd2• 13 years ago

Who said there is no problem? Not me. I'm aware and upset about many of the same problems. However, I think smashing bus windows under presumption that those inside are uniquely responsible for the problems sends the conversation backwards, not forwards.

elipsey• 13 years ago

If "Gentrification is a dynamic and nuanced problem", perhaps throwing bricks through windows is not the best approach to finding a solution.

I'm not convinced that "gentrification" is always a problem. Must prices always remain the same? Am I entitled to be protected from competing as a buyer with other buyers who can put scarce housing resources to more valuable alternative uses, for example allowing someone else to commute to a job at Google, rather than allowing me to work a pizza place? This is not condescending, I have, and I wasn't surprised that I couldn't afford housing near the private university, or fancy corporate campuses at that time.

Furthermore, if we think housing prices are a problem, perhaps we should look at zoning and density. If entrenched interests prevent a majority consensus from altering zoning laws, then try throwing some bricks.

Has that happened in SF and I just don't know about it?

brent_noorda• 13 years ago

Let's move those Google employees to Atherton and bring DOWN someone's property values!

gohrt4• 13 years ago

This is not news, this is a rant site.

Splendor• 13 years ago

Correct. The "by Anti-Cyborg Conglomerate" signoff at the end was nearly too much to take.

meritt• 13 years ago

I'm surprised this article hasn't been downmodded yet due to the incredible amount of arguing and controversy within.

ffrryuu3• 13 years ago

Class warfare.

linux_devil• 13 years ago

Scary , good nobody is hurt , but this kind of attitude is really disappointing .

GrinningFool• 13 years ago

    “Bus driver, what are you gonna do, man? What are you gonna do?”
    “Don’t worry. It’s freedom of speech, freedom of speech.”
    The kind young man then walked to the rear of the bus, saying,
    “Oh my god! What’s gonna happen next?”
    The same female passenger took out her phone and began filming the blockade.
    “At least we’re warm in here and they’re cold out there,” she said.

The nice thing about 'journalism' like this is that when you just make shit up to improve your 'story', there's nobody to hold you accountable.

rodly• 13 years ago

As usual, the irony is at an all time high.

"While they took their seats, several people unfurled two giant banners reading “TECHIES: Your World Is Not Welcome Here” and “FUCK OFF GOOGLE.”

People holding banners that were laser printed with materials synthesized by complex machines. People with cell phones tucked away in their pockets. People who have used Google a million times.

negamax3• 13 years ago

Cellphones likely running Android OS. And these rioters might have found each other using some Goggle powered LBS.

gress15• 13 years ago

Yeah - all political protest that uses modern technology is automatically hypocritical.

Because Google makes a useful product, they are above any kind of criticism.

kevinchen2• 13 years ago

The irony still stands: these people benefit from tech workers' products, but they still want Googlers to "fuck off" and "get the fuck out." So it's NIMBY-ism -- just like the placement of cell towers, Google employees have to live somewhere. People want to benefit but nobody wants to shoulder the cost.

Crito16• 13 years ago

Yeah - all political protest that uses modern technology is automatically hypocritical.

No, only those protesting modern technology.

Protest Gitmo with modern technology all you want. Nothing wrong with that.

vacri6• 13 years ago

Careful, your bias is showing. Despite no photos of the banners, and the banners being described as having been 'unfurled' (suggesting cloth) you declare them to be laser-printed.

There is no irony to be had when you manufacture the story.

kevinchen2• 13 years ago

People posted photos in the comments of the article. Although the banner was hand-painted, the flyers were clearly made on a computer.

edit - Not to mention, many of the people who find this article are going to come through...you guessed it! Google.

mkaziz• 13 years ago

Did anyone else notice that the bus in the image doesn't have a back window?

math0ne• 13 years ago

Wow, there is some hate in this thread. I always think it's interesting when a piece like this comes along that seems to spark a personal insult style reaction from a community.

You can draw your own conclusions. I don't feel either way about this but it's been fun reading the comments here.

dangrover• 13 years ago

Man, I'm worried we're going to get some Milagro Beanfield War style shit going down soon. Maybe Betabrand should sell their hoodies in kevlar.

squigs25• 13 years ago

Things change. Neighborhoods get gentrified. Neighborhoods get bombed. You adapt, or you die. Protesting progressive change is futile.

You're not homeless because rents went up in your little neighborhood in Oakland. You're homeless because you chose not to move when rents went up.

People need to take responsibility for their actions. I would like to protest the protests of today.

drhayes9• 13 years ago

"Chose not to move" is an interesting angle. I'm pretty sure I don't support these protesters, but you're targeting the poor with your comments and I don't think that's fair.

Here are some hypotheticals:

* I live paycheck-to-paycheck and can't afford to pay the application fees, deposit, or moving costs to move to a new place.

* My child attends a good school nearby and I'm investing in their long-term future; moving would save me money, sure, but there aren't other good schools in new neighborhoods I can afford that give me the same commute time.

* My commute to work is bad enough as it is and moving farther away from the city center makes it worse. Higher commute times are long-term stressors to the human body: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your...

* My blue-collar wage has stayed the same over the last thirty years while the prices of everything else have gone up. I am, thus, poorer. Moving doesn't solve that.

* If I move away from my low-cost childcare, who takes care of my kid while I go to work long hours (especially with, say, a longer commute)?

vacri6• 13 years ago

On your first point, I find it's a vastly underrated concept. People who aren't poor generally handwave away the costs of moving. In addition to the ones you state, there's also things like connection costs for utility bills. I moved about once a year in my 20s. We'd generally hire a trailer for $50 and move with sweat equity, but all these little "you're now 'initialising' in a new place" costs really add up.

Futurebot• 13 years ago

Ultimately, the issue comes down to housing supply - a problem created both by long-time locals and municipal governments. It's the same exact story in other places, particularly here in Manhattan. Would this problem exist if the number of apartments/houses kept up with the number of people who wanted them? There are answers to this dilemma, but they are politically unpalatable to many. See a previous comment of mine for more:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6549063

Short version: build a lot more, and put a regulation in place to keep the "look" of the new buildings similar/the same to the current neighborhood/buildings being replaced.

People want to live in these places. People need to be near jobs. People will avoid commuting if they can. People want to be near cultural institutions. Many people want to be near lots of other people. Look at the housing shortage in North Dakota - before the energy boom, no shortage. People move in because of jobs - shortage, and very high prices. In that case, building, rather than policies did not keep up (there are answers here as well, particularly prefab / modular housing.)

The number of people in cities (particularly large ones, but smaller ones as well) continues to grow (again, see link.) Our policies (in particular) need to adjust.

dylandrop2• 13 years ago

I'm seeing a lot of vitriol and generalizations in this thread. It's understandable to be upset about this, but automatically assuming that the protesters are "lazy trustafarians" leeching off of the tech community is not a mindset that is helpful to anybody. If anything, it just escalates the situation. The approach we should be taking is: what is the problem, why are people upset, how do we solve it. Of course smashing the Google bus is not a productive way to protest. But the tech community needs to take the high road, not the low road. Making sweeping generalizations only creates more anger and thus makes the situation worse.

rchiniquy• 13 years ago

It seems obvious this is the same group that obstructed a Google bus in SF earlier this month. Protesting Google from the vantage point of a privileged SF resident wasn't sufficiently sympthetic, so they're cloaking themselves in the very real oppression and problems still crushing West Oakland. Shameful.

People bringing their protests to Oakland is nothing new (like the black bloc protests during Occupy). I've been living in my Oakland neighborhood for about 9 years. On my block, that makes me the newcomer. I don't speak for Oakland and neither do these protestors or whoever contributed that article.

yetanotherphd4• 13 years ago

I don't care about the legitimacy of their cause - violent thugs like the author and his fellow protestors being in jail.

Call me a libertarian, but I believe I have the right to be safe and not be attacked. In the twisted mindset of the author, I imagine that the impact that tech employees have on house prices is morally equivalent to violence. However people who believe in rule of law rather than mob rule should be able to see through this.

kika• 13 years ago

sterilize a city that carries rebellion deep inside its heart

I thought it was called "law enforcement"...

firstOrder2• 13 years ago

"Someone threw fliers with a smiley face logo and the message disrupt google into the air."

Hilarious! Disrupt Google!

Lots of posts here "there's more constructive ways to deal with this". How constructive is a bunch of pigs evicting a family because their landlord is jacking up the rent because a bunch of Google hipster yuppies want to slum it in Oakland?

Then there's the usual "these people weren't the poorest people in Oakland" posts. The police shoot people like Oscar Grant dead over nothing in Oakland, I could imagine if a swarm of young black men started throwing rocks at Google buses. The whiners here win either way - either they would get a Fox News story about how apolitical young black thugs are harrassing Google workers, or we get the comments here complaining that this is not what they were confronted with.

It's not like the moneyed classes aren't pulling the political strings in the Bay Area now, like Ron Conman getting his boy Ed Lee in as San Francisco mayor. Which goes to other inane comments of the "why don't they do this outside the mansions in Altadena, instead of to us poor six-figure Google employees?" Well the Altadena people aren't the ones gentrifying Oakland and driving rents up. Some people here claim that Oakland residents like that gentrifiers are coming in and driving up rents, which shows how out of touch they are.

People here are so out of touch they forget (perhaps excepting people like Ben Horowitz) that the Black Panthers were born in Oakland. I suppose almost all don't remember the 1934 waterfront strike. These actions are harbingers of these things coming about again.

yetanotherphd4• 13 years ago

How constructive is a bunch of pigs evicting a family because their landlord is jacking up the rent because a bunch of Google hipster yuppies want to slum it in Oakland?

That seems perfectly reasonable to me, assuming the eviction is legal.

This is a nation of laws. People like you who don't believe in rule of law need to find a country of your own.

funkjunky• 13 years ago

HAhaha that's my town!

FiloSottile• 13 years ago

The bus remained where it was, the thought of driving to Mountain View with a broken window and flooded with cold air an unthinkable horror they could not endure.

Yeah, a neutral article for sure. The employees actually took the effort of collecting the fliers off the street, but after a violent attack, would you feel like going to work, or are they to blame if they didn't?

rexreed2• 13 years ago

Time for Google, et. al to switch to Uber / Lyft / etc? Not as eco or commute friendly, but a lot less noticeable. Or maybe time to subsidize publicly accessible commuter bus lines?

blhack2• 13 years ago

Or maybe time to subsidize publicly accessible commuter bus lines?

They could call it a tax!

rexreed2• 13 years ago

It would have to be regional tho, because those commuter bus lines would run across city and county lines. So who would be the taxing authority? The state?

scottmp10• 13 years ago

Those ideas would both lose valuable aspects of the buses.

Uber/Lyft/cars would have a much bigger impact on traffic on 101, which is already terrible congested during rush hour. The buses help to minimize the impact of commuters.

Public commuter options eliminate some of the convenience for two reasons. First, Google has a single destination for everyone which reduces commute times. As you increase the number of destinations, you increase the possible routes exponentially, making it much less feasible to have direct routes everywhere. Second, you can't do confidential work when on public transportation. So you would be much more limited in what you can accomplish during the commute.

blahbl4hblahtoo4• 13 years ago

If Google would pay their fare share of taxes instead of sheltering them offshore then the bay area could have awesome public transit for everybody.

For all of you bitching about the "burning man" types. The bay area is full of runaways that look just like those kids and are easily radicalized. San Francisco is a "libro-cryt" city. Its very liberal, but they treat the poor like shit.

Apple and Goolge should stop sheltering their taxes.

Symmetry3• 13 years ago

All the money that Google keeps offshore to avoid paying taxes on is money that was taken in over seas, and so would only be taxed by the federal government on repatriation. Even if they brought it all back to the US next year SF wouldn't see a cent of it.

blahbl4hblahtoo4• 13 years ago

It's only "earned overseas" because Google pays foreign subsidiaries money from its US operating company. Its a dodge and everyone knows it.

damon_c• 13 years ago

There is a real issue with these buses. In New York City, gentrification tends to be correlated with subway commute time to Manhattan and distances to subway stations.

When you introduce private busing, you plop gentrification down in strange places that may lack public transportation and you're giving the gentry exclusive access to an incredible convenience.

This convenience is conspicuously not shared by their neighbors who have long walks, bike rides, buses to other buses to trains, to take them to their often much less remunerative work.

The convenience also allows a certain economic class to enjoy more geographic options while not forcing the city to have appropriate taxation to build real infrastructure that can be shared by everyone.

It does kinda suck.

Someone very dear to me takes a Google bus daily and I fear for their happiness.

ebiester• 13 years ago

The tech community in the bay area is keenly aware of the issues. The idea of protests aren't the issue; the destruction of property is the issue. That said...

We have plenty of ideas on how to solve it, but they involve the buyin of people entrenched in power who have other power bases. The solution is more housing, more dense housing, and more cultural activities closer to the places of employment. However, nobody's digging up Mountain view for skyscrapers anytime soon. Subways aren't being built in San Mateo county that link to BART anytime soon, outside of Milbrae.

I've said that if Colma would just move the cemetaries and and build skyscrapers, a few museums, another symphony hall, and an entertainment district, our problems would be solved. (We'd probably also have to give the residents there a good deal, all 1700 of them. The big shopping center might need a buyout too, we could rebuild that union square-style.)

It's quick to SF, well connected by car, we could probably bring a bunch of industry in with mixed-use, we could do it well. Of course, it would probably hasten the gentrification of Daly City, but a 2 square mile city could be done, and the land would be a fraction of the cost of almost anywhere else.

Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

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