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Google Businesses The Almighty Buck Technology

Berlin Anti-Gentrification Activists Say They Have Occupied Google's Office in Kreuzberg To Fight Against the Skyrocketing Rents (noblogs.org) 161

Posted by msmash from the pushing-the-limits dept.
Multiple Slashdot readers have submitted a blog post by a group of Berlin-based "anti-gentrification activists": Today we occupied the Umspannwerk in Kreuzberg to prevent the planned Google Campus there, to fight against the skyrocketing rents and to open up the space for something better. The Google Campus is intended to be a magnet for annoying young entrepreneurs whose IT-sweatshops ("start-ups") promise to deliver new ideas to Google's company business. 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.

While it is especially aggravating that Google, despite its aggressive collection of data, is morphing into Big Brother with a user-friendly face, this is not the decisive factor for us. We would also put a spoke in the wheel of any other company. What happens now in the Umspannwerk instead depends on everyone who fills the house with life. It could become a base for the many initiatives that are currently struggling against rising rents and displacement -- a campus of subversion. But it can also be used as a covered grill area for the cold months, or something more. We call on all rebellious tenants, subversive and precarious cultural workers, work-shy benefit scroungers, strike-hungry air traffic controllers, long-living pensioners, unruly refugees, and all other local pests from the neighborhood (and beyond) to join us in the occupation as quickly as possible. A neighborhood assembly will take place at 6 p.m. to discuss the occupation and how to proceed. Local media has covered the development. [Editor's note: the stories are not in English.] Some context on the local tussle: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant [May 2018, The Guardian].
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Berlin Anti-Gentrification Activists Say They Have Occupied Google's Office in Kreuzberg To Fight Against the Skyrocketing Rents More

Berlin Anti-Gentrification Activists Say They Have Occupied Google's Office in Kreuzberg To Fight Against the Skyrocketing Rents

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  • Sure, comrades (Score:3, Funny)

    by hawk ( 1151 ) <hawk@eyry.org> on Friday September 07, 2018 @12:04PM (#57269582) Journal

    Welcome to 1968 . . .

    *rolls eyese*

    • One man's gentrification is another man's urban renewal.

      To me they're fighting the wrong battle - they should be fighting for higher wages so that as gentrification occurs they're not pushed into ghettos but move laterally, maintaining their standard of living.

      • One man's gentrification is another man's urban renewal.

        A rose by any other name... [slashdot.org]

        To me they're fighting the wrong battle - they should be fighting for higher wages so that as gentrification occurs they're not pushed into ghettos but move laterally, maintaining their standard of living.

        Exactly how do you plan to make that happen in a short enough time frame to actually make a difference? The primary tool for working class people to effect higher wages are unions and those have been pretty steadily declining in power with no obvious end in sight. And frankly given how fast Google has grown their work force I don't see any realistic way for wages of many professions to keep up even if there were a strong union presence. In a global economy there are limits t

        • One man's gentrification is another man's urban renewal.

          A rose by any other name... [slashdot.org]

          To me they're fighting the wrong battle - they should be fighting for higher wages so that as gentrification occurs they're not pushed into ghettos but move laterally, maintaining their standard of living.

          Exactly how do you plan to make that happen in a short enough time frame to actually make a difference? The primary tool for working class people to effect higher wages are unions and those have been pretty steadily declining in power with no obvious end in sight. And frankly given how fast Google has grown their work force I don't see any realistic way for wages of many professions to keep up even if there were a strong union presence. In a global economy there are limits to how high you can raise the wages of a machinist or a janitor or a teacher in comparison to a high paid tech worker.

          Occupy a bank instead of Google's office. ;)

          • Property Taxes, Not Gentrification is the Problem (Score:4, Insightful)

            by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Friday September 07, 2018 @04:16PM (#57271708)

            People pit out the word Gentrification like it's some kind of KKK scheme.

            But:
            gentrification
            jentrfkSH()n
            noun
            the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste.

            The Problem is that with improved housing and other infrastructure comes higher property taxes. The curious thing is that Gentrification is pretty funded solely by the citizens moving into an area and spending money to do the renovating and improving. Then, the government of course looks as what you did and says, "hmmm nice place you got there. We think you should pay more money in property taxes". Then they go one worse and say to the poor residents, "people would pay for your place, so you need to pay us more".

            Property Taxes are a tax on unrealized gains. They are probably the most oppressive taxes in the US. They can drive someone out of a home they own outright, merely because the State says your home is worth $X and you need to pay $x * y%, regardless of your income situation.

            The solution is to decouple taxes on land and homes from current market values and only use market value when acquiring assets such as land and homes. Allow for some inflation of costs of infrastructure and the like, but just because they out a Mall in a mile down the road doesn't mean you should have to pay more.

            CA did pretty much this with Proposition 13. It stabilized growth and benefited millions of home owners. Sure, the SJW crowd whined about not having money for they pet programs, but that is arguably a good thing.

            • Property Taxes are a tax on unrealized gains. They are probably the most oppressive taxes in the US. They can drive someone out of a home they own outright, merely because the State says your home is worth $X and you need to pay $x * y%, regardless of your income situation.

              The solution is to decouple taxes on land and homes from current market values and only use market value when acquiring assets such as land and homes.

              A better solution would be to get rid of property taxes entirely.

              Let local government be funded from a share of state tax income - and don't let the states tax property.

              A lot of problems in the USA can be traced in part to property tax policy - such as having the highest incarceration rate in the world. Many people turn to crime when they don't have other alternatives.

              "After the Civil War, separate and racialized tax structures were set up to enable segregated schooling in the South and North. Astonishing

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by pots ( 5047349 )

              The Problem is that with improved housing and other infrastructure comes higher property value.

              The poor residents mostly don't own their own homes. The trouble is that as a location becomes more desirable to live in by people who have money, and are willing to pay to live there, the location becomes less feasible for people who don't have money. The difference in rent can't be explained by property taxes, that's a relatively small factor.

        • Minimum wage increases, unions, etc.

          In a global economy there are limits to transferable professions. A janitor and teacher are needed locally to perform their duties.

          The other thing to consider is that as Google grows it's workforce that is adding money into the community. Typically in these situations the trades become high demand professions as everyone is spending their wealth on things like home improvements. Those contractors can then raise their rates, etc.

          There is short term upheaval to gentrific

        • Exactly how do you plan to make that happen in a short enough time frame to actually make a difference? The primary tool for working class people to effect higher wages are unions and those have been pretty steadily declining in power with no obvious end in sight. And frankly given how fast Google has grown their work force I don't see any realistic way for wages of many professions to keep up even if there were a strong union presence. In a global economy there are limits to how high you can raise the wages of a machinist or a janitor or a teacher in comparison to a high paid tech worker.

          So you want Google to strike the tent and leave? Will that fix the problem by driving out high paying jobs? Here's the trick, and it isn't very popular.

          I've done well financially. I've adapted my skillset to the job at hand, and learned new skills as they were needed.

          Told ya it wasn't popular.

          Many or most people want to get their first training, get their job, and remain in that career, if not in the same workplace for their entire life. I've worked with so many people that have the "not my job" att

      • Re:Sure, comrades (Score:4)

        by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Friday September 07, 2018 @01:06PM (#57270090)
        That isn't going to work to the extent that it would be necessary. When companies like Google, Apple, etc. move to an area, the workers they bring are highly skilled, highly paid individuals. Unless additional housing is built, those new workers will lead to an increase in price of a limited resource. They can easily afford to pay more for housing than existing residents whose labor may not command as high of a wage as a software engineer. The additional influx of new highly paid employees means that the local economy in general will see a boost, but it's not going to be evenly distributed (the owner of an eatery might make a good deal more money, but the fry cook isn't going to see as much of a bump) and it won't offset the increased prices that these newcomers are willing to pay for good housing.

        The only way to solve this problem is to build additional housing, but cities are often loathe to grant building permits at all (it will require destroying old buildings that "represent the history of the area") or have implemented rent controls that mean developers have no interest in building new housing since they can't charge what they feel is a fair rate. If everyone owned their own housing, you could get the government to implement laws to prevent property taxes increasing for existing owners just because someone wealthy moved next door, but governments are often too greedy to agree to that and it does nothing to help the people who are renting.

        So we repeat this useless set of actions and whine about gentrification instead of learning from mistakes or doing something that will actually solve the problem in a way that makes most people the happiest. People eventually get pushed out due to rising prices and while they are upset, no one else really cares about them as everyone else has their own set of problems to deal with and aren't personally affected by this issue. Eventually everything settles down as a new equilibrium is reached where the people living in an area can all afford to do so. Meanwhile, somewhere in another state or a neighboring city, a new business has moved into the area and has brought with them employees who earn significantly more than existing folks in the area.

      • To me they're fighting the wrong battle - they should be fighting for higher wages

        Wages are unlikely to go up just because they "fight". Who exactly would they be fighting?

        Better suggestion: They should spend, say, 5 minutes, learning about economics. Prices are high because of mismatched supply and demand. So either decrease the demand (unlikely), or increase the supply (easy: just issue some building permits, and relax height restrictions).

        • Unionizing, fighting for a higher minimum wage, shared common costs reductions (like a national drug plan), etc. Things that increase wages or decrease the average cost to those least able to afford it.

          • Sure. The effective way to do that is to build more housing, so the less well to do will not get priced out.

            • Except many cities are at the point of needing to build up, which is significantly more costly to build. That drives the entry level rates up, which requires higher wages.

      • Re:Sure, comrades (Score:5, Informative)

        by Cytotoxic ( 245301 ) on Friday September 07, 2018 @01:24PM (#57270276)

        One man's gentrification is another man's urban renewal.

        To me they're fighting the wrong battle - they should be fighting for higher wages so that as gentrification occurs they're not pushed into ghettos but move laterally, maintaining their standard of living.

        That is absolutely the wrong direction to push.

        If you want to keep rents (and housing prices) affordable, you have to remove barriers to affordable (and not affordable) housing.

        Where are housing prices the highest? Cities like San Francisco, New York City, etc. that have strong controls in place that make developing new housing very difficult.

        If you removed these restrictions and let developers build loads of new, expensive, luxury housing, you'll find that the value of the old housing stock won't appreciate like it does if you restrict these developers. In fact, you will likely find that the older, less luxuriously appointed housing drops in price.

        There are some pretty strong forces that oppose looser zoning restrictions - including existing homeowners who would be very happy to have their buildings double and triple in value. But the ones that make absolutely no sense are folks who think they are advocating for more affordable housing by advocating rent controls and set-asides for affordable housing in any new project. You don't get lower prices by limiting supply and capping prices. You get shortages.

        • I agree that zoning is one tool to help. Toronto is in desperate need of a reality check on that front. The problem with not increasing wages at the same time is that you won't get affordable housing, you'll get slums. As you say, the value of the old stock won't increase and inflation will quickly make it uneconomical for those owners to invest money back into their property. Landlords begin doing less in terms of upgrades, maintenance, etc. to keep it profitable for them and decay sets in. By increas

    • What, the East Berliners will invade us again!? What did we do to them this time?

    • That's about the right timeframe.

      There was a TV news show around then -- "60 Minutes"? -- that interviewed a local woman. If these aren't her exact words, they're pretty close to her exact words. "Them white boys come in on they motorcycles and they start fixing things up."

      She saw this as a bad thing.

      Apparently it's a bad thing when an area deteriorates, and property values and rents go down, and it's a bad thing when an area is repaired, and property values and rents go up.

      So, what isn't a bad thing?

  • Economic development (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Another word for gentrification is "economic development". If you're opposed to economic development, you could go live in a third world country I suppose.

  • That is the problem with renting: you are at the mercy of someone else. Even with buying you can still be hit with increasing costs, like property taxes, etc. But if you are renting you better be flexible and be ready to leave when your lease expires.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There are correct ways of dealing with skyrocketing rents:

      1) build more apartment homes. Supply going up will bring costs down. Homeowners always resist this since it lowers their property values; so you have to mount a sufficiently strong political force.

      2) If necessary, operate within the established political framework to adjust zoning, regulatory requirements, or legal barriers-to-entry that prevent new apartment homes from being built.

      3) Move somewhere else. When demand for property in your area goe

  • Skyrocketing? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Carewolf ( 581105 ) on Friday September 07, 2018 @12:15PM (#57269668) Homepage

    Sure the prices are going up, but much slower than they used to, and Berlin is still by far the cheapest capital in Western Europe

    • In America wages are going down. In particular we've got high paid work being replaced by low paid (e.g. good factory jobs replaced by "McJobs"). If you're wages are going down then it doesn't really matter if inflation's only 4%.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Cite your source. Everything that I have read said that salaries have been going up for the last year or more.

      • In America wages are going down. In particular we've got high paid work being replaced by low paid (e.g. good factory jobs replaced by "McJobs"). If you're wages are going down then it doesn't really matter if inflation's only 4%.

        In Berlin they are going up, since the wages are lower than German and EU averages, as the city is slowly westernized, so are the salaries (most of the city was Eastern Europe 25 years ago, and not everything is restorated yet).

  • SF livability not Googles fault (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Friday September 07, 2018 @12:17PM (#57269678)

    The reason SF has become a literal shithole has nothing to do with Google, and everything to do with the policies of the local government. If more housing were allowed to be built the city might well still be livable by anyone earning less than 200k/year (or is that even livable there these days? Maybe with roommates).

    • Re:SF livability not Googles fault (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pauljlucas ( 529435 ) on Friday September 07, 2018 @01:14PM (#57270178) Homepage Journal
      And the local government's policies are a result of the local electorate, i.e., NIMBYs, who fight (and vote) to preserve neighborhood "character."

    • Sounds like Munjoy Hill. Look it up.

      Oh, and if on Munjoy Hill your house burns and has to be torn down and replaced, the city will likely fight that, claiming current fire codes prevent reconstruction. As if the existing house wasn't tolerable. If the fire code is so important and critical, then start buying and tearing down nonconforming structures. Oh, wait. That seems fascist.

      San Francisco seems to want to deny the fundamentals of economics, population, and human nature, or they just don't want to, well

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      The reason SF has become a literal shithole has nothing to do with Google, and everything to do with the policies of the local government. If more housing were allowed to be built the city might well still be livable by anyone earning less than 200k/year (or is that even livable there these days? Maybe with roommates).

      Yes. And they'll vote those same Democrats right back into office, believing that the Republicans are boogeymen.
      Collectively as a city, probably the dumbest in the US.

      Such a shame. SF was one of the best cities prior to WWII. Then the navy started to discharge all their crazies there.

  • Not Google's fault (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    These are the same people that protest new construction of homes or fight for policy that makes it impossible to build higher density housing.

    High housing prices are caused by a lack of housing. Full stop.

    These people are responsible for their own problems.

    -And no. Developers don't "only build high cost housing". This is stupid. This is the economic equivalent of flat-eartherism and chemtrails. When there is a low housing supply, ALL housing becomes high cost housing.

    Even if developers want to build "High c

  • "Squatters evicted by police. See it here at 11."

    What happens now in the Umspannwerk instead depends on everyone who fills the house with life...

    No, the short-lived PR bump will depend on everyone who occupies the house. What happens in the Umspannwerk will still be determined by the private owner.

  • want lower rent? build more housing... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by layabout ( 1576461 ) on Friday September 07, 2018 @12:24PM (#57269746)
    I'm not talking about more single/multi family homes. We need more 15 story urban apartment bricks around each transit stop. The population density should approach 10k people per transit stop at that density you can also support multiple food marts and other retailers to fight the tyranny of the local merchant while preserving a car free/walkable environment.

    • Berlin is still rows and rows of Soviet era apartment blocks.

    • I'm not talking about more single/multi family homes. We need more 15 story urban apartment bricks around each transit stop. The population density should approach 10k people per transit stop at that density you can also support multiple food marts and other retailers to fight the tyranny of the local merchant while preserving a car free/walkable environment.

      There is plenty being build in Berlin, it is one big construction site. But all the new apartments are going to be high price as that would make the builders the highest profits.

      As for your transit stop estimates, that is complete BS in Europe. We have closer to 500 inhabitants per public transport stop, and that shouldnt go any higher.

  • People need to make up their minds (Score:5, Interesting)

    by El Cubano ( 631386 ) on Friday September 07, 2018 @12:26PM (#57269762)

    "Community Activists": Businesses and white people are leaving downtown areas for the suburbs, and it is not fair to the poor who have no where else to go. They need to come back, help rebuild the neighborhoods, and open new businesses.

    White people and business owners: OK. (start returning, improving the neighborhoods, and opening businesses)

    "Community Activists": It's not fair. Businesses and white people are flooding the neighborhoods, improving them (the cause of higher rents, prices, and tax valuations), and opening businesses, and it is not fair to the poor who have nowhere else to go.

    Somebody needs to get their head on straight and decide what they really want.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      What people want is to live in a nice neighborhood that is also affordable.

      To what extent that is an achievable goal, OTOH, is an open question.

      • To what extent that is an achievable goal, OTOH, is an open question.

        Easy solution. Move to Berlin. It's an incredibly cheap European capital city to live in.

      • The problem with nice neighborhoods is that everyone wants to live there. It's the same thing with beaches, lakes, etc. It would be nice if everyone could live (or have a nice little bungalow they could escape to for vacations) no more than 10 feet from the ocean, but there's a limited amount of beach front property, etc. When demand outstrips supply, prices increase. This is fundamental economics and inescapable. Attempts to circumvent this will inevitably fail, much like the design for an aircraft that fa

    • What I want is somewhere to live. My problem is that buying a house in any major western city has become a giant leveraged speculative investment where you bet your lifetime earnings that central banks will continue to reduce interest rates so that the next generation of young people can buy your dumpy house in ten years time using an even bigger mortgage, thus allowing you to scale up your leverage into an even bigger speculative investment somewhere less stabby than you were before. And if I rent, I have

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        My problem is that buying a house in any major western city has become a giant leveraged speculative investment

        I agree. That's why I rented until I had saved enough to pay cash for a house. Not a leveraged speculative investment now. If house prices double because of some BS, I'll sell and move somewhere cheap. If they fall, I still have the same house to live in, can't be underwater (even literally: FFS people, check flood maps before you buy a house).

    • They are also bringing economic opportunity to blighted areas, and some of those minority individuals living in that neighborhood, over time, will find an economic niche and get out of poverty. There will be disruption, sure, but it the end result will still be better than nobody in that neighborhood escaping poverty.
    • want the services provided by the colored people (and yes, I'm aware of how horribly racist what I just wrote is, but, well, it seems to be what we're doing on this thread). But those same white people don't seem to want to _pay_ for those services. So they want a sort of slum area just outside the city where the folks who cook, clean, do their laundry and cut their grass live. Third world countries have these sort of communities, but America used to be better than that.

  • Do you want a nice city with jobs or what? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Do you want a nice city with jobs or what?

    • We all want change and progress, but only up until it affects us personally. The rest of the people who were swept up in its path, we can easily dismiss if we bothered to take them into consideration at all. But when it comes for us, now there's a fucking problem and why isn't anyone doing something about it?

  • TFA seems to have been written by someone with a well-thumbed thesaurus and way too much time on his hands.

  • 200 (Score:2)

    by Luthair ( 847766 )
    out of 3.5 million, I can see how that would really tilt the rent....

  • “Everyone in life has a purpose, even if it's to serve as a bad example”

    I think it's great that Berlin takes on the burden to demonstrate the dangers of this kind of policies. And I'm glad they are using Google to do it. It's a win-win situation!

  • Construction of the Google Village with 20,000 employees in downtown San Jose will is start in 2025 [santacruzsentinel.com]. This will be an interesting case study. San Jose has always been a bedroom community with more housing than industry and virtually empty in the day while surrounding cities and San Francisco are filled with workers. Google Village will bring more traffic to downtown. However, it will be located next to a major transit hub with VTA buses and light rail (Silicon Valley), Caltrain (Gilroy/Silicon Valley/San Fr

  • Some of the best entertainment I've read in years. Better even than Wired's unintentional satires from not-long-enough ago.

  • What's old is new again. (Score:3)

    by Hylandr ( 813770 ) on Friday September 07, 2018 @01:32PM (#57270330)

    1923 called, they want their Beer Hall Putsch back.

  • Tech basically doesn't matter in the long term housing cost trend [blogspot.com] for the San Francisco area. The rate of increase has been unchanged for many decades, laying the blame squarely at the feet of development-killing regulation/NIMBYs.

  • ... I love this.

    I'm 72 years old and we did shit like this when I was a young lad.

    Put a stop to the Vietnam war, we did.

    Jump-started the Civil Rights movement.

    Fucking Woodstock.

    We're long due a happening.

    Right on!

  • ... are a tough bunch. They usually have a left leaning socio-political agenda and quite often sympathy with regular citizens. And they can hold out for a loooooong time. ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]ÃYe )

    Google perhaps should consider some other place to set up camp. :-)

    • Google perhaps should consider some other place to set up camp. :-)

      That will indeed bring the rents down

  • Currently, the gentrification process is 1) upgrade buildings then 2) import gentry. I would propose that we 1) Upgrade the people in-place then, 2) upgrade the buildings. Lets invest in the people that already live somewhere and then let them upgrade their buildings. Give that rundown neighborhoods tend to have rundown schools we owe these residents a lot for failing to invest in them while they were young.

    • Currently, the gentrification process is 1) upgrade buildings then 2) import gentry. I would propose that we 1) Upgrade the people in-place then, 2) upgrade the buildings. Lets invest in the people that already live somewhere and then let them upgrade their buildings. Give that rundown neighborhoods tend to have rundown schools we owe these residents a lot for failing to invest in them while they were young.

      A lot simpler to move to an area where they actually want you. If the fine citizens of Germany feel that they have to storm a business and occupy it, it is unquestionable that they do not want that business to be there. I would shut the offices as soon as I could relocate, and make no bones about the reasons that German police do not provide security, that the German people do not want us there, and that the entire local business infrastructure is in danger of the citizenry deciding that the building need b

  • > The Google Campus is intended to be a magnet for annoying young entrepreneurs whose IT-sweatshops...
    > We call on all rebellious tenants, subversive and precarious cultural workers, work-shy benefit scroungers, ... and all other local pests from the
    > neighborhood (and beyond) to join us in the occupation

    I wonder if annoying young SF techies are included in the "local pests from beyond the neighborhood" that are welcome to join in the occupation....

  • Unwashed lumpenprole anarchists vs capitalist running dog Progressives.

    Is it not delightful to see one's enemies fight?

  • "Gentrification" often seems like an insult for progress. Sucks for the people already there but good overall. I'm tempted to say the same thing about the Indian Wars...now I'll discuss something less controversial, like Israel's security policy.

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