...one issue stands out as particularly urgent and complex: housing. The lack of new supply, combined with the rising cost of living, has resulted in a severe shortage of affordable housing options for long-time middle and low income residents. As Google grows throughout the Bay Area—whether it’s in our home town of Mountain View, in San Francisco, or in our future developments in San Jose and Sunnyvale—we’ve invested in developing housing that meets the needs of these communities. — Google
Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the company's pledge to invest in the development of affordable housing across the Bay Area. With the multi-billion dollar tech company calling the San Francisco Bay Area home with its beginnings starting over 20 years ago, Google is aware of its impact in the area. Considering the company is one of the largest employers within the area, Pichai expresses the need to "being a good neighbor" and investing $1 billion into housing projects.
Initiatives to repurpose already purchased Google land which would have been used for commercial space or extended office space is said to be turned into residential housing. Goals of creating "at least 15,000 new homes at all income levels in the Bay Area, including housing options for middle and low-income families" is a statement Pichai shares in last week's press release. In addition, initiatives to establish building incentives for developers and the creation of more grants for nonprofits that focus on issues of housing and homelessness will be put into effect.
As admirable as this sounds, will the tech company's efforts truly make a difference in altering San Francisco's current housing issue? Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel responds to Google's efforts in a recent Fortune article. "It doesn't recognize the reality that building more houses won't fundamentally solve the Bay Area housing crisis." Kasriel goes on to say, "In fact, this approach perpetuates the antiquated notion that when your company expands, you build additional offices, add nearby housing to support all the new workers you bring to town, and fund more mass transit. And while alleviating burdens on existing infrastructure is wise, this approach ignores the fact that most work can be done remotely in the digital age, and we can spread opportunity more broadly as a result."
According to Kasriel's response, is remote work the key to helping offset the Bay Area's housing crisis? With the looming number of residents deciding to move out of the area, it is hard to see Google's efforts making a long-lasting impact on the situation. Although intentions may be useful and genuine, the Bay Area will need more than a mega-tech company to create a sustainable solution to better housing practices.
3 Comments
obviously the lack of housing in the bay area is not due to a lack of capital to invest. unless google has some secret trick for upzoning and increasing developable area, any "investment" they make is only going to cause a proportionate increase in land prices, which is by far the largest share of housing cost in urban california.
so long as development is strictly limited, this is literally a zero sum competition. the winners will be existing property owners.
Yeah, I trust the CEO of Upwork with the future of cities and housing. The quote from the CEO can be tied DIRECTLY to their goal of making sure the future is 1099, with the CEO and the Company being in charge like the great age of the company store...
How about making the Silicon Valley stop outsourcing their fucking worker housing?
You would think that if they moved some of their divisions OUT of California altogether they could pay less and their employees could have a better quality of life, including affordable housing and more long-term savings
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