For this week’s blog I want you to read about the controversy between Google Bus and San Francisco residents and discuss how it is connected to issues of gentrification, theorizing work in the information society, activism, the ways in which activism is reported (how is race reported). How does this fit into our discussions about technology, race and everyday life? Please remember to use class readings to ground your analysis. You may start here and here andhere for resources.
Google isn’t the only company that provides bus transportation for its employees. I am from the Seattle area, and in recent years I have notices the Microsoft Connector, a transportation system for Microsoft Employee’s, driving around my neighborhood. On the contrary, I have never heard of an instance of Seattleites causing such and uproar about it like the San Franciscans have. I’m curious to know why that is…
Public transportation is huge in the Bay Area. I feel that these citizens are upset because Google Buses do not have to pay to use public metro stops. This, apparently, causes the non-Google employee citizens to feel somewhat segregated. However, I feel there is more to the issue than that. I assume it has something to do with the gentrification of Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley has funneled in vast amounts of technological innovation and wealth within the past few decades. Companies are turning larger profits, employee pay rates increase, and the cost real estate increases. Factory workers, however, do not receive the same benefits as developers. According to the film, Secrets of Silicon Valley, assembly factory workers for HP printers never received pay increases as promised by management, and costs of living still increased in the area. Why should the developers who are getting paid exponentially more that the factory workers living in the same areas get special, exclusive transportation as well? I can see w
hy there was cause for protest.
Now that I think about it, the situation in San Francisco seems incredibly similar to the situation in
Seattle. Microsoft employees are provided their own exclusive transportation, Boeing engineers and managers receive higher pay than the assembly workers who all live in the same area…I wonder if Seattle is a ticking time bomb, too?
Nick Lee - Digital Diversity 