San Francisco Natives Are Attacking Apple, Google Buses As They Can't Get Affordable Housing
It's probably not malicious teens or troublemakers, but just a desperate group of people.
Apple and Google have had to reroute their employee shuttle buses between San Francisco and their respective headquarters outside the city, after a number of possible attacks left some of them damaged last week.
One of the Apple buses damaged in the recent attack
Apple¡¯s buses were attacked earlier this week by unknown assailants, who destroyed windows with either rocks or pellet guns, for no apparent reason. Apple has detoured its buses away from the highway where the attack occurred, despite it adding about 30-45 minutes to the commute time for employees each way. Google¡¯s buses were also attacked last week in similar fashion, and they¡¯ve changed their routes as well.
These buses aren¡¯t really marked with company logos, but if people want to find them, all of the buses are colour-coded; Google has white buses, silver for Apple, grey for Facebook, and so on. The thing is, this isn¡¯t just petty mischief-making and vandalism, so it¡¯s not likely to go away anytime soon. It¡¯s actually a desperate protest against what San Franciscans feel is an unseen class war.
The shuttle buses are a standard feature of major tech companies in San Francisco¡¯s Silicon Valley, and they¡¯re also unfortunately a symbol of the city¡¯s gentrification. Major technology companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and many many more have their headquarters in California¡¯s Silicon Valley. This means thousands of high-salaried tech employees have descended on the valley and major headquarters buildings have been set up.
The side effect of Silicon Valley
reuters
On the flip side, the housing industry has not kept pace, meaning there aren¡¯t just fewer homes available in places like San Francisco, Cupertino, and others, they¡¯re also insanely expensive to even rent, let alone buy. Google¡¯s employees for instance can afford those prices, but native San Franciscans can¡¯t anymore. The rent prices have also driven up the general cost of living in the city, pushing out locals that have lived there for years or generations, and that¡¯s made them really mad. After all, this isn¡¯t even the first time tech buses have been attacked. Google had a similar problem back in 2016, and a couple of incidents even before then.
No one¡¯s been hurt yet in this vengeful vandalism, but that may only be a matter of time. Before that happens, tech companies need to do more to for the communities they¡¯ve set up shop in. Before the tinder finally catches a proper spark.
