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Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

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Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#71

Post by jxub »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #30
doombolt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why it will be harder to attract software developers to Italy versus Poland. Weather and environment are much nicer and if this job ends you just move elsewhere. I would easily move to a cheap locale even if tech scene there is not abundant. I'd not move to London or Switzerland since you will always be 2nd class citizen compared to e.g. bankers. Which is just non issue in southern europe. Weak eco…

Do people move to Poland, or do employers hire local underemployed (and Soviet era educated) talent?

Well, to be honest both jobs and salaries are booming there right now.

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#72

Post by mehrdadn »

bko wrote: post #68
eropple wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is restricting Google from doing anything. They are expressing--in a way that is part of, and frankly should be expected of being a member of, one of those "free societies" you mention--that Google is unwelcome , and no, nobody is obligated to make you feel welcome . There are cases where not making somebody welcome kinda makes you an asshole, but that does not, frankly, apply to anybody who's got a stock tick…

> Nobody is restricting Google from doing anything From the article: In September activists occupied the building it was to be located in for several hours. That seems like the activists were preventing them > This is "you piss in the pool wherever you go, please stay away from our pool." This isn't NIMBY in any meaningful way and the comparison is downright mendacious. Saying you do [something I don't like] and I do…

> Saying you do [something I don't like] and I don't want you to do [thing I don't like] in my neighborhood is exactly NIMBY

No, that's most definitely not NIMBY. NIMBY means you support something when it's farther away but oppose it happening close to you. It stands for "not in my backyard", not "not in any backyard".

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#73

Post by eecc »

expathacker wrote: post #43
fjsolwmv wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't local government use these techies' income tax money to pay for schools and development? This smells like classic blameshifting.

If you've ever been to the San Francisco Bay Area, you'll find that this never happens. Quite the opposite in some cases, the influx of thousands of upper middle-class young techies has priced out families (and teachers). This lowers enrollment, which results in school closures. Circularly, school closures reduces educational funding to the detriment of schools while increasing distance for children to travel to scho…

Exactly the same dynamic is happening in Amsterdam, where schools are closing down fast as less teachers can afford to live within the ring and move out to Almere and other satellites. Some local politici were even celebrating and advocating this displacement but were trounced at the last municipal elections, but the process continues and these schools are being refurbished and sold as elegant lofts in Hartje Hoofdstad.

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#74

Post by ahartmetz »

doombolt wrote: post #11
ddebernardy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google already has a campus in Madrid if the article is anything to go by.

Of all places in Spain Madrid is probably the "meh"est. Not wanting to be snark but the selection process seems strange indeed.

The selection process is strange indeed. Google's first German office was in Munich of all places. Extremely expensive, not very exciting (for people to move to), and very high competition for IT workforce. So they have one of Germany's best universities for IT, but the differences between universities actually aren't that large here.

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#75

Post by aesh2Xa1 »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #22
jschuur wrote: post #9

If I read the article correctly, this wasn't about building a new 'Google campus' (i.e. a huge building to house a large number of Google employees as their main regional HQ). This was about building Campus Berlin, an incubator for startups like they pioneered first in London and then brought to other cities. See https://www.campus.co/berlin/de and https://www.campus.co/london/en . It's easy to misunderstand this bec…

> help diversify the tech ecosystem in Berlin and give them access to facilities and other resources. Another way of looking at that, is "gentrify the vibrant neighbourhood by trucking in techbros to displace the artists". It's not new (1) I don't necessarily agree with that framing, but it is understandable and coherent, not a misunderstanding 1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18282143

The article lists that reason (gentrification) explicitly. The only other one given in there is that Google is evil (data collection, tax evasion, etc.). Someone else pointed out that the type of hosted campus would not lead to the same gentrification when the startups don't offer high salaries, but I think the point is still valid. At least, I do not know of another Google campus where this was not the case... I could be wrong.

As an aside, I dislike the term "techbro." It's obviously pejorative and I hardly ever see anything kind used to describe men working in the IT/CS sector. Just that and "neckbeard."

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#76

Post by eropple »

mehrdadn wrote: post #72
bko wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody is restricting Google from doing anything From the article: In September activists occupied the building it was to be located in for several hours. That seems like the activists were preventing them > This is "you piss in the pool wherever you go, please stay away from our pool." This isn't NIMBY in any meaningful way and the comparison is downright mendacious. Saying you do [something I don't like] and I do…

> Saying you do [something I don't like] and I don't want you to do [thing I don't like] in my neighborhood is exactly NIMBY No, that's most definitely not NIMBY. NIMBY means you support something when it's farther away but oppose it happening close to you. It stands for "not in my backyard", not "not in any backyard".

Exactly. The "my" part is operative here.

If I had to guess, a lot of those protestors probably don't care if Google ever opens an office anywhere--but, not being billion-dollar panopticons-as-a-service, they are constrained to act locally rather than globally.

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#77

Post by woodpanel »

keiferski wrote: post #62
bko wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think arbitrary restrictions on groups that can purchase or lease space in a neighborhood is bad for a free society. I guess people say it depends on what group you're imposing. Now it's Google which you may or may not like, but other groups can be harmed in the future. This is part of the whole NIMBY movement. As long as the group is following laws and zoning restrictions, there should be nothing preventing them f…

I used to agree with you, but considering the fact that San Francisco has gone from “semi-affordable haven for weirdos and off-beat culture” to “single most expensive city in America filled primarily with tech workers and the homeless” in less than 30 years, I don’t any more. Semi-similar situations for lower Manhattan, Paris, East London, ad infinitum. A place can have a unique culture that’s worth maintaining. How…

San Francisco is actually a good example of what NIMBYism does. Zoning restrictions and rent controls that are unrivaled in the US did everything to that city you've just stated as things to avoid while attributing them to "MegaCo".

The housing market by its nature has a weak flexibility to adapt to new demand. NIMBYism acts like a lever on that inflexibility.

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#78

Post by nradov »

expathacker wrote: post #43
fjsolwmv wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't local government use these techies' income tax money to pay for schools and development? This smells like classic blameshifting.

If you've ever been to the San Francisco Bay Area, you'll find that this never happens. Quite the opposite in some cases, the influx of thousands of upper middle-class young techies has priced out families (and teachers). This lowers enrollment, which results in school closures. Circularly, school closures reduces educational funding to the detriment of schools while increasing distance for children to travel to scho…

That might be true in San Francisco, but across the Bay Area as a whole enrollment is actually rising at many primary schools.

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#79

Post by woodpanel »

l5870uoo9y wrote: post #69
keiferski wrote: post #42

I’m honestly kind of surprised at Google’s complete lack of cultural or diplomatic knowledge about Berlin. Kreuzberg is/was the center of artistic culture in the city, and choosing to have a presence there, no matter how small, would clearly be viewed as a corporate American attack on local countercultural values. As another commenter stated, they could have avoided this entire issue by picking somewhere in Mitte or…

Kreuzberg is the center of left activism in Berlin which is anti-globalisitic, anti-corporate, anti-american and anti-gentrification, Google (and its entourage) is the embodiment of that. Ironically however, Google is present in Kreuzberg at "Factory community".

The irony is that this activism is often made up of people who are highly educated, affluent (because of parents or soon-to-be paying off high-education) who weren't born in Berlin themselves – in other words: By gentrificators.

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#80

Post by lallysingh »

keiferski wrote: post #42

I’m honestly kind of surprised at Google’s complete lack of cultural or diplomatic knowledge about Berlin. Kreuzberg is/was the center of artistic culture in the city, and choosing to have a presence there, no matter how small, would clearly be viewed as a corporate American attack on local countercultural values. As another commenter stated, they could have avoided this entire issue by picking somewhere in Mitte or…

Google probably thought "Hey, what's the coolest part of Berlin, where we'd make engineers happy to be in?" and that's about it. "Subtleties"[1] about why it's cool, or what its response to Google being there, probably weren't considered.

After the selection had occurred, the procurement machine had been tasked and at that point it takes a lot of resistance to stop that machinery.

[1] For some real estate group in Google determining office locations.

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