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Berlin Google Campus occupied

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Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#151

Post by jschwartzi »

Apocryphon wrote: post #134
ajross wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are good answers. But they're ones of housing policy and urban planning, not "#FuckOffGoogle", which serves literally no one.

Telling angry people that they're irrational and not entitled to their anger is not a good answer, either.

That's not really what he's saying. What he's saying is that just being angry and flailing around about it solves nothing. What will actually solve this crisis is if Google starts listening to the residents of the neighborhood, and if the residents of the neighborhood can take what Google's representatives are saying in good faith, and finally they can both find a way to live in harmony.

Google not providing any information or responding to anyones' criticisms helps about as much as #FuckOffGoogle does.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#153

Post by ajross »

titzer wrote: post #143
ajross wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Honest question: where would you prefer to put those thousands of individuals making $150-250k? Well, tech companies, if anybody, should have figured out telecommuting, but they don't because of policies directly from the top. But failing that, tech giants are giant because they want to be giant and have a tendency to want to gobble up smaller companies. A less sharp growth rate and a more "small business-oriented"…

> A less sharp growth rate

On the macro scale we're talking about, that means you want everyone to be poorer. You get that, right?

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#154

Post by beat »

joshuakarjala wrote: post #98
beat wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is working for free on a voluntary basis, they're probably not being "exploited". When I was trying to build a startup, I got plenty of free help from various friends and interested parties who were excited about what I was building - but nothing on the level of employee-level work. Hell, if someone was remotely useful and willing to put in real hours, I'd have called them co-founders and given them equity…

Plenty of startups have students / recent grads in marketing, pa roles working 20-40 hours a week for no pay.

Are they getting equity? Experience? Networking? Fun?

As long as they feel like they're getting something useful from the experience, then I don't think "exploited" is the right word. And if they think they're not getting anything out of it, it begs the question just how that early stage startup is going to make them stick around. Exploitation involves more stick, less carrot.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#155

Post by checkyoursudo »

brewdad wrote: post #142
checkyoursudo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lack of highrise developments is what makes those areas attractive in the first place. Why? Aesthetics? Google-type people don't want to live in high-rises? I don't think I've ever heard anyone say they aren't willing even to live near high-rises. That's a new one to me.

In the neighborhoods of Portland, residents are absolutely flipping out over mid-rise developments. In many areas, single family homes on corner lots are being torn down and replaced by 3-4 story apartment buildings. Neighborhood associations are very much up in arms against these developments that alter the "character of the neighborhood". Often these new buildings are shorter than the trees around them, but still t…

And I would assume those people wouldn't want a multistory office building being built in their neighborhoods as well?

What I don't understand is, as the parent comment seems to suggest, that a company like Google wouldn't locate near a locale with existing high-rises? I realize I may be misunderstanding.

I fully understand that there are plenty of people who don't want development in their neighborhoods. I've just never heard the idea that some critical mass of employees would not want to live in or even work near already existing high rises such that a company would deem locating in such a place to be unacceptable.

Does that make sense? Like, would a lot of potential Google engineers not take high-pay, high-prestige jobs at a Google site that is located in the middle of a bunch of high-rise apartments in a boring city? Or are all Google engineers just really super cool and fun and adventurous while also only tolerating low-slung buildings? I'm really curious--not at all being sarcastic.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#156

Post by Xylakant »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #139
Xylakant wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If pay was more equal, at least opportunities to stay in your local area would be more equal. I don’t think it’s the price as an absolute that makes people angry, it’s the feeling of being unable to compete for a beloved space.

Things might be slightly better then, but if there's still X number of housing units, you're still only going to have Y number of people living there. Giving people a more even chance at winning musical chairs is nice, but how about just making more chairs ?

This is partially at least an emotional problem which you cannot only tackle with logic. The other problem that you’ll currently see is that even if you can convince people that tearing down their house and building a new one in the same spot, they’ll often still want to be able to afford one of the new flats - and that’s currently not a given. So people understandably prefer to stick what they have.

So a fundamental ability to compete is IMHO a basic requirement for building more chairs.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#157

Post by visarga »

titzer wrote: post #65
driverdan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3-5 story isn't very tall. Tear them down and go taller.

This "tear it all down and just go higher" attitude pisses people off to an extent that is difficult to convey. People are sick of being mugged by economics and having their homes, neighborhoods, villages, streets ravaged by "more at all costs." People are sick of being priced out to the suburbs, displaced by rich corporations and all these rich young people. Come to a European city and walk through streets with hund…

> People are sick of being priced out to the suburbs, displaced by rich corporations and all these rich young people.

"these rich young people" are people, too

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#158

Post by visarga »

arez wrote: post #70
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…

sure we want good jobs with high salaries, but these jobs are just for a minority and they will pump up the prices in the whole area. There're lots of unemployed and people with low paying jobs in berlin, some artists, students etc. they make the city vibrant, fun, adventurous, but they can't stay if you have to pay 1200€ a month for a decent flat.

> they make the city vibrant, fun, adventurous, but they can't stay if you have to pay 1200€ a month for a decent flat.

But they can also leave and make another city vibrant, fun and adventurous.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#159

Post by Xylakant »

jupp0r wrote: post #147
Apocryphon wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telling angry people that they're irrational and not entitled to their anger is not a good answer, either.

It's not like Google can influence Berlin zoning laws to build more apartments ...

Google could for example work with the locals to actually provide good for the quarter. The google campus replaces a space that was used for venues at least some of the time. For example it hosted a Christmas market every year for a weekend. Not much, but a bit of community involvement. Google could have worked towards making things possible, but google has, from what I heard even managed to anger other tenants in the building by steamrolling their wishes (such as attempting to cut fire escape routes for others offices that went through their space) and has generally been pretty tone-deaf in communication even within the building. It’s certainly not a guarantee that things would have gone smoothly, but it would have taken some edge off. I know for certain that quite a few people in the building (which is full of startups and IT-focused companies) sympathize with the protests.

Re: Berlin Google Campus occupied

#160

Post by Xylakant »

hobofan wrote: post #150

Pretty interesting that Google is protested that much, while there are no actions of any comparable size against Zalando. Zalando also is a "big tech firm", and it already has and continues to change Berlin in exactly the way it is claimed of Google, on a much larger scale than Google will in the foreseeable future (since they already have their German HQ in Hamburg).

Zalando, especially the new office space close to the Lido, has been heavily protested against. The space has been squatted IIRC, but it’s harder to make news by squatting an empty plot. The space close to the Ostbahnhof is less contentious since it’s not right in the middle of a living area but in a newly built commercial zone.
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