Living under a tarp next to Facebook HQ: 'I don't want people to see me' | Hacker News Reader

Living under a tarp next to Facebook HQ: 'I don't want people to see me'

theguardian.com

13 pointskafkaesq9 comments

I spent the morning talking with a guy who was telling me about growing up in San Jose during the 60s and how amazing it was playing in all the orchards (hoping the sherif didn't catch them). Anyone who looks around and likes what the valley has turned into is suffering some kind of cognitive issue. This is a disaster of urban planning. A sea of parking lots, 8 lane streets, freeways, and warehouses. There is no shortage of space. We could have had a chain of interconnected walkable towns with high frequency rail connecting them up and down the peninsula catering to three times the capacity it caters to today. The amenities and quality of life would be better for everyone. It's not infeasible to get there now but at this point it requires serious leadership to get us there and Google, Facebook, et al. need to start spending money to make that happen.

Why would it make any sense for them to do that when they can just open up offices in different cities?

They have invested huge amounts of money in the bay area. Reducing costs and making it more livable is a pretty smart decision. You don't lose employees who can't stand the commute, or want to be able to afford more than a tiny apartment at some point. You can improve your public image. Homelessness can be reduced. It's good for the environment. Etc...

The Bay Area doesn't have taller buildings and public transport because the people living there keep voting against it.

Why? A mix of reasons but the biggest is that a drop in housing prices is bad for anyone that owns property.

Also NIBMYism is rampant with a bunch of entitled rich people. Great to donate to help the poor and all but I don't want a train that could potentially carry them to my neighborhood.

The Bay Area doesn't have taller buildings ... because the people living there keep voting against it.

This is way too simplistic. The sordid truth is that the BA (and SoCal, and much of the rest of the U.S. outside the major 19th-century cities) has a legacy of sprawl is because, for several key decades (1950-1980) people just really, really loved sprawl (and the perception of freedom that went with it). And orchards and interconnectedness and community and all the other stuff that they bulldozed to make room for the sprawl -- not so much.

That's the "cognitive issue" the commenter above you was referring to.

I am sure a FB employee will invite her to stay at their house. I saw some of them protesting at the airport when the travel ban happened, and they looked like they really wanted to make a difference in the world. I bet this will happen, they had #resist signs and stuff, I am willing to hold my breath.

(Starting now)

If homelessness continues and we need temporary measures, should we be building public fresh water wells in key encampment areas?

Anywhere there is tremendous wealth, there is going to be a bigger disparity in income inequality. The Bay Area has a housing supply problem right now (and no, starting a company that is cramming five+ millennials into an empty luxury apartment is not a viable solution) that needs addressed, and I don't think we should conflate it with the homeless problem.

The homeless across the nation all congregate in California because of the weather, and its a much harder problem to tackle that requires more than just the involvement of a private tech company to solve. The solution needs to be the government creating more of a safety net for mentally ill, not private companies somehow equalizing them in wealth (read: redistributing) with some of the smartest, hardest working people in the world. I got the impression that this article is pointing the blame finger at Facebook, and I don't see how Facebook has any more responsibility than anybody else for helping the homeless. Facebook shouldn't feel compelled to offer software engineering jobs to skid row, that's not the solution. There are many actors here, it's hard to point the blame at just one.

I think Facebook is here used as a way of illustration and contrast. It's a good way to visualise income inequality.

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