Far less so than having to live where you work, rather than being able to live where you want to live. Particularly since they have a bus to ride.
People get on the backs of companies like Foxconn for corporate housing, but that is essentially what they are proposing that Google employees endure. And why? Because as "non-natives", Google employees somehow become some sort of second class citizen in the minds of these fools. They have as much right to live in those neighborhoods as anybody else.
It's obviously a balance. Usually the reason you want to live somewhere has something to do with activities you want to perform while physically being there. So if you're working 10 hours a day and commuting 2 hours a day, that leaves you four hours a day to actually be awake where you live. At some point it's not worth living somewhere you like if you're only going to actually be there a tiny portion of each day.
I don't think baddox is necessarily suggesting corporate housing, just housing that doesn't involve an hour-plus commute each way. Living closer to your workplace gives you a few extra hours each week - it's your choice whether to spend them at work or home.
He is advocating more restrictions (not enforced by law or company policy, admittedly, but driven by community violence) on housing options for Google employees.
Whether the remaining options are owned by Google, or a limited set of independent corporations and landlords is of little consequence. The result is that the employee is forced to live closer to work instead of where they please, serving as a constant reminder that their life truly does revolve around their employer.
What he is suggesting is dehumanizing.
In answer to the original query: "Why not live closer to work?"
Because that is not where they fucking want to live. They should be permitted to live anywhere that they have the ability and means to live. De-facto zoning of residential areas as off limits to employees of particular companies is insanity.
If you ask those aboard the Google bus, you'll get various answers, like "I don't mind the commute" or "I love SF, there's so much to do here."
> Why not live in San Francisco?
Tech workers in Mountain View will give you "I'd rather spend time with my family than on the road" or "I don't really want to live in a large city" or any number of totally individual, valid, human reasons.
The point is that these people live where they chose to live. There are many reasons that they factor into their decision, but it remains their decision. Not the decision of some trust-fund professional protesters.
Not at all. What makes you think that? The only thing I'm advocating is that if your non-work life is important to you (like it is with most people), eliminating commute time is one obvious way to expand that part of your life.
