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Berlin Google Campus occupied

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Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#101

Post by seucs »

evanlivingston wrote: post #92
TulliusCicero wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. I'm from the bay area and pay close attention to land use/zoning issues, so yeah, I think I do. The bay area has had particularly extreme series of decades of rent increases precisely because of anti-housing policies. If the market was allowed to respond, rents would still rise, to be sure, b…

Or conversely, look at Portland for an example a place where keeping up with housing demand has not translated into preserving a quantity of affordable housing. Abstracted supply and demand alone does not result in ensuring housing at various price points

Or Vancouver. Singapore and Vienna is really a counter argument more than anything else. These are places were the government have significant control over, and are essentially undermining, the housing market. This isn't changing zoning a little bit. In Singapore the government acquired most of the land. And Austria is spending the equivalent of a defense budget each year on housing subsidies alone.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#102

Post by Apocryphon »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #72
titzer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. It increases rent across the board, which impacts all the people in an area. Sure, it might create a few new jobs for baristas and shopkeepers, a few bartenders and waitresses. But ultimately it just leads to gentrification and pri…

> I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. I'm from the bay area and pay close attention to land use/zoning issues, so yeah, I think I do. The bay area has had particularly extreme series of decades of rent increases precisely because of anti-housing policies. If the market was allowed to respond, rents would still rise, to be sure, b…

> Companies have a basic duty to run themselves ethically and obey laws and regulations.

Externalities exist. Companies cannot pretend they operate independently of the communities they're based in.

They also can't shut their ears. Even if local zoning laws are at fault, these companies which spend lavishly on lobbyists at the national and provincial level, don't seem to be agitating for local change to improve housing conditions, which would better both their employees' quality of life and their own public perception.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#103

Post by Apocryphon »

mc32 wrote: post #89
titzer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. It increases rent across the board, which impacts all the people in an area. Sure, it might create a few new jobs for baristas and shopkeepers, a few bartenders and waitresses. But ultimately it just leads to gentrification and pri…

What are they supposed to do? 1. Not create good jobs 2. Collude to pay lower wages to ensure they align with regional prevailing wages. 3. Build out their own employee-only housing complexes? 4. Do the govts job and plan and build housing and set building and planning policies which align with the economics? I understand people want their cake and eat it, but they have to be reasonable. Tax appropriately, govern app…

They could try working with local governments to get more housing built. They already are involved in politics on matters like net neutrality and immigration. They can clearly pay for more lobbyists and lawyers.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#104

Post by matchbok »

titzer wrote: post #52
TulliusCicero wrote: post #14

> New tech companies are driving the rents up in the area higher and higher. The endpoint of this process can be seen in San Francisco, which once must have been a halfway livable city. This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists who work hard to prevent new housing from going up. Yes, tech companies brought the demand because of good jobs, but last I checked, we wanted companies to offer high payin…

> This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. It increases rent across the board, which impacts all the people in an area. Sure, it might create a few new jobs for baristas and shopkeepers, a few bartenders and waitresses. But ultimately it just leads to gentrification and pri…

Companies have no legal or moral obligation to fix the housing crisis.

Gentrification is, as a whole, a good thing. Nobody has a right to live in a specific neighborhood cheaply. Such social planning/engineering is destined to have countless side effects.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#105

Post by sdenton4 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #14

> New tech companies are driving the rents up in the area higher and higher. The endpoint of this process can be seen in San Francisco, which once must have been a halfway livable city. This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists who work hard to prevent new housing from going up. Yes, tech companies brought the demand because of good jobs, but last I checked, we wanted companies to offer high payin…

One of my favorite spots in Berlin is the Monsterkabinett. It's an underground dungeon full of giant animatronic creatures who dance and sing along with the industrial style music of their creators.

It's also a fantastic example of what's possible when you don't have to worry about rent. The space is part of an old squat, still filled with artists who now get a steady flow of tourists to sell to. And some of the artists, who don't have to worry so much about day jobs, had time to take a side project building these creatures along with software to drive them.

Berlin, and kreuzberg in particular, is full of artists and rebels who moved into a war zone because they had no where to go, found a blank canvas, and made something awesome of it. Bowie did some of his best work in that environment, and it's also given us great punk music, and was an incubator for techno and edm.

You can call it NIMBYism, but for Kreuzberg it's really more about fighting gentrification and displacement, and preserving a city at the edge of society. There's a fundamental difference between fighting development in the mission and presidio...

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#106

Post by usrusr »

Xylakant wrote: post #43
usrusr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of highrise developments is what makes those areas attractive in the first place. Berlin has plenty highrise residential, yet Google and the like are decidedly avoiding those areas. Converting more of the cityscape into the kind of area where neither Google nor the protestors would want to be would make the situation worse, not better. Also, it's quite possible that you widely underestimate the existing density,…

One of the problems in Berlin is that dense residential areas cluster at the edges of the town and office space tends to cluster at the center. So now, if you want to have an office in Berlin and are a company that has more than a handful of employees, people will come from all sides of town, so you'd preferably want office space in the center - which gradually eats up all space that could have been used for housing…

Berlin has a center? Last time I checked (Sunday), it was still more like an eye of the storm kind of void. But that's perfectly consistent with your finer point, if you could somehow restrict your employees to roughly one quadrant, many things would be much easier. That will never happen of course.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#107

Post by Apocryphon »

ajross wrote: post #87
titzer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. It increases rent across the board, which impacts all the people in an area. Sure, it might create a few new jobs for baristas and shopkeepers, a few bartenders and waitresses. But ultimately it just leads to gentrification and pri…

Honest question: where would you prefer to put those thousands of individuals making $150-250k? I mean, they have to work somewhere, right? And they want to live in big, vibrant metropolitain areas for the same reason that YOU want to live in those areas (which is why you're upset about the rent in the first place). Is there really a solution in your head where high-paid geeks are going to move to Boise or Zagreb or…

Many Californians have been moving to Boise.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#108

Post by azinman2 »

ajross wrote: post #87
titzer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists I don't think you quite grasp the effects of a massive influx of hundreds to thousands of new individuals making $150k-250k. It increases rent across the board, which impacts all the people in an area. Sure, it might create a few new jobs for baristas and shopkeepers, a few bartenders and waitresses. But ultimately it just leads to gentrification and pri…

Honest question: where would you prefer to put those thousands of individuals making $150-250k? I mean, they have to work somewhere, right? And they want to live in big, vibrant metropolitain areas for the same reason that YOU want to live in those areas (which is why you're upset about the rent in the first place). Is there really a solution in your head where high-paid geeks are going to move to Boise or Zagreb or…

Sometimes there aren’t good answers. Prosperity for some displaces.

You can’t be surprised that those who aren’t rich, and we’re already here, are angry at the situation.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#109

Post by mc32 »

Apocryphon wrote: post #103
mc32 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are they supposed to do? 1. Not create good jobs 2. Collude to pay lower wages to ensure they align with regional prevailing wages. 3. Build out their own employee-only housing complexes? 4. Do the govts job and plan and build housing and set building and planning policies which align with the economics? I understand people want their cake and eat it, but they have to be reasonable. Tax appropriately, govern app…

They could try working with local governments to get more housing built. They already are involved in politics on matters like net neutrality and immigration. They can clearly pay for more lobbyists and lawyers.

I’m not sure about the sitch in Berlin, but here in the SF Bsy Area they do try to push for policies and development, they are seldom successful. They get lots of pushback.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#110

Post by dexen »

sdenton4 wrote: post #105
TulliusCicero wrote: post #14

> New tech companies are driving the rents up in the area higher and higher. The endpoint of this process can be seen in San Francisco, which once must have been a halfway livable city. This is more the fault of NIMBYs and supply&demand-denialists who work hard to prevent new housing from going up. Yes, tech companies brought the demand because of good jobs, but last I checked, we wanted companies to offer high payin…

One of my favorite spots in Berlin is the Monsterkabinett. It's an underground dungeon full of giant animatronic creatures who dance and sing along with the industrial style music of their creators. It's also a fantastic example of what's possible when you don't have to worry about rent. The space is part of an old squat, still filled with artists who now get a steady flow of tourists to sell to. And some of the arti…

There is no difference in kind between two hungry IT students developing better web search, and several hungry artists developing awesome dungeon of animatronics. Either start off poor, but once they get major traction, the money starts rolling in. Of course, the web search scales faster, but that's about it.

Point being, the artists' den would become expensive bohemian district of the city anyway, startups or not, as "new money" people learn of it and start moving in to bask in the splendor of the underground culture. Eventually pricing out the actual artists.

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