The anger isn't about the buses; it's about the evictions. The buses are just a symbol that attracts the activists' attention. (The activists are mostly transplants too, living out some fantasy that they're fighting capitalism, but whatever.) Nevertheless, here's why it's so vivid:
San Francisco is a city of extreme wealth contrasts in a nation of extreme wealth contrasts.
And many young tech workers want to live in places like the Mission, which are gentrifying but traditionally working class, ethnic neighborhoods, with a strong tradition of bohemia too.
So, picture this: a line of zillionaire white kids in geek t-shirts and laptop backpacks, waiting on a street corner that is caked with human filth and stinking in the sunshine. They are surrounded by ethnic (often undocumented) immigrants, and homeless people limping by, sometimes with untreated open wounds. Then a giant black monolith of a bus swoops down on the corner, releasing a whiff of air-conditioned comfort as the doors open, and whisks all those kids far, far away, to their playground offices.
True story: in the early days of the Google Bus, the contracting company sometimes ran out of buses. So they would have to dispatch other large vehicles instead.
You cannot imagine the burning looks I got stepping into a stretch limousine on 16th and Mission.
Comments
eob is correct, more or less.
The anger isn't about the buses; it's about the evictions. The buses are just a symbol that attracts the activists' attention. (The activists are mostly transplants too, living out some fantasy that they're fighting capitalism, but whatever.) Nevertheless, here's why it's so vivid:
San Francisco is a city of extreme wealth contrasts in a nation of extreme wealth contrasts.
And many young tech workers want to live in places like the Mission, which are gentrifying but traditionally working class, ethnic neighborhoods, with a strong tradition of bohemia too.
So, picture this: a line of zillionaire white kids in geek t-shirts and laptop backpacks, waiting on a street corner that is caked with human filth and stinking in the sunshine. They are surrounded by ethnic (often undocumented) immigrants, and homeless people limping by, sometimes with untreated open wounds. Then a giant black monolith of a bus swoops down on the corner, releasing a whiff of air-conditioned comfort as the doors open, and whisks all those kids far, far away, to their playground offices.
True story: in the early days of the Google Bus, the contracting company sometimes ran out of buses. So they would have to dispatch other large vehicles instead.
You cannot imagine the burning looks I got stepping into a stretch limousine on 16th and Mission.