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Maybe. Or maybe Google (Facebook etc.) employees would be forced to live closer to the Peninsula. Or maybe Google (Facebook etc.) would be forced to invest in t

Maybe. Or maybe Google (Facebook etc.) employees would be forced to live closer to the Peninsula. Or maybe Google (Facebook etc.) would be forced to invest in the public transportation infrastructure with all the taxes they're not paying. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-sho... I don't have the silver bullet answer, but if you live anywhere near San Francisco and are not on the road to tech millions, you can see that we have a big livability problem. Every day SF looks more like Santana Row, or the Plaza in Kansas City, plus homeless people.

chrisrogers 13y ago
or open field offices in the city proper.
rsync 13y ago
I have a silver bullet answer: Don't build terrible, dehumanizing, sprawl-encouraging, traffic-encouraging headquarters out in suburbia. This isn't my idea - it's what every progressive minded thinker that spends even two minutes thinking about urban/traffic/sprawl ideas arrives at. If google, facebook, et. al, were in the city, the network and wealth effects would be staggering. How many boats would be lifted by that rising tide ?
- textminer 13y ago
  If Facebook/Google were in SF, I reckon many of its workers would still live in San Jose, Fremont and Oakland, due to affordability concerns and a lack of density in the city proper.
- batbomb 13y ago
  You are assuming that they could move into SF. I'm sure Google could easily fill the Transamerica pyramid. SF isn't amenable to new construction, and Google and most these companies could easily be more decentralized then they are now in MV if they had to take up residence in the city.
- milesskorpen 13y ago
  It isn't that simple — SF actively rejects attempts to increase density.
- cromwellian 13y ago
  So if Google's entire MTV campus was in SF, you really think housing prices would be better? Move Apple, Facebook, Google to SF and you have gentrification on steroids.
tertius 13y ago
That's not Google's problem, that's the loopholes' problem. Every single entity (including Warren Buffet) will pay the minimum amount of taxes required, i.e. your standard (no higher, no lower) tax burden.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  That's not Google's problem, that's the loopholes' problem. I'm an entrepreneur. I get that. And you can keep repeating it until we turn into India or Brazil or Nigeria or someplace else where the rich ride around in bulletproof cars while the poor beg by the dozen at each intersection. Or you can work toward a better solution.
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    Speaking as coming from an Eastern Europe, here's my view: the biggest problem in poor countries is corruption (in government), not poverty. My country, as well as those you mention, have plenty of middle class people, it's not just super-poor or super-rich. At least in my country, the biggest problem is that it's much harder to be a successful entrepreneur. Taxing corporations more does not, in any way, fix government corruption. In fact, it actually makes the problem worse, since there's more to steal by corrupt politicians.
tolmasky 13y ago
1. Tech buses were a response to people living in the city. I don't think not having them would necessarily "force" them to live on the peninsula. When I worked for a company in Sunnyvale that didn't have a private bus I still didn't move down there. 2. People act like this is a simple matter of getting more money into public transit. This is silly, even if that was the only roadblock (pun intended!), building a new freeway takes a lot of time, and expanding public transportation takes a lot of time, and in the meanwhile makes things even more miserable for everyone. Just look at all the very modest light rail expansions in the city and how they've made those sections nightmares for traffic for years. Google and FB need solutions today, not 5 years from now, and personally paying for shuttling their own employees seems like an incredibly environmentally conscious and fair way to handle it: don't forget, they're decreasing congestion on muni/bart/caltrain for everyone else. Lastly, money isn't the only problem: there's a lot of politics in public transport. For example, the reason the BART doesn't go all the way to Cupertino is because they voted against it there. So when you throw around expanding public transport as if its a defense of poor existing SF residents, realize that it may also be a form of antagonization for people in other communities. Hiring your own bus seems to be the simplest, cheapest, least displacing, and fairest way of solving this problem.

chrisrogers 13y ago

or open field offices in the city proper.

rsync 13y ago

I have a silver bullet answer: Don't build terrible, dehumanizing, sprawl-encouraging, traffic-encouraging headquarters out in suburbia. This isn't my idea - it's what every progressive minded thinker that spends even two minutes thinking about urban/traffic/sprawl ideas arrives at. If google, facebook, et. al, were in the city, the network and wealth effects would be staggering. How many boats would be lifted by that rising tide ?

textminer 13y ago
If Facebook/Google were in SF, I reckon many of its workers would still live in San Jose, Fremont and Oakland, due to affordability concerns and a lack of density in the city proper.
batbomb 13y ago
You are assuming that they could move into SF. I'm sure Google could easily fill the Transamerica pyramid. SF isn't amenable to new construction, and Google and most these companies could easily be more decentralized then they are now in MV if they had to take up residence in the city.
milesskorpen 13y ago
It isn't that simple — SF actively rejects attempts to increase density.
cromwellian 13y ago
So if Google's entire MTV campus was in SF, you really think housing prices would be better? Move Apple, Facebook, Google to SF and you have gentrification on steroids.

tertius 13y ago

That's not Google's problem, that's the loopholes' problem. Every single entity (including Warren Buffet) will pay the minimum amount of taxes required, i.e. your standard (no higher, no lower) tax burden.

auctiontheory 13y ago
That's not Google's problem, that's the loopholes' problem. I'm an entrepreneur. I get that. And you can keep repeating it until we turn into India or Brazil or Nigeria or someplace else where the rich ride around in bulletproof cars while the poor beg by the dozen at each intersection. Or you can work toward a better solution.
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  Speaking as coming from an Eastern Europe, here's my view: the biggest problem in poor countries is corruption (in government), not poverty. My country, as well as those you mention, have plenty of middle class people, it's not just super-poor or super-rich. At least in my country, the biggest problem is that it's much harder to be a successful entrepreneur. Taxing corporations more does not, in any way, fix government corruption. In fact, it actually makes the problem worse, since there's more to steal by corrupt politicians.

tolmasky 13y ago

1. Tech buses were a response to people living in the city. I don't think not having them would necessarily "force" them to live on the peninsula. When I worked for a company in Sunnyvale that didn't have a private bus I still didn't move down there. 2. People act like this is a simple matter of getting more money into public transit. This is silly, even if that was the only roadblock (pun intended!), building a new freeway takes a lot of time, and expanding public transportation takes a lot of time, and in the meanwhile makes things even more miserable for everyone. Just look at all the very modest light rail expansions in the city and how they've made those sections nightmares for traffic for years. Google and FB need solutions today, not 5 years from now, and personally paying for shuttling their own employees seems like an incredibly environmentally conscious and fair way to handle it: don't forget, they're decreasing congestion on muni/bart/caltrain for everyone else. Lastly, money isn't the only problem: there's a lot of politics in public transport. For example, the reason the BART doesn't go all the way to Cupertino is because they voted against it there. So when you throw around expanding public transport as if its a defense of poor existing SF residents, realize that it may also be a form of antagonization for people in other communities. Hiring your own bus seems to be the simplest, cheapest, least displacing, and fairest way of solving this problem.