[temp42564356]

tl;dr: The City of San Fancisco should prohibit Google buses until Google promises to magically repeal the laws of economics that rents increase when demand exceeds supply.

EDIT:

The paper specifically recommends that the city prevent Google buses from stopping to pick up passengers until Google enters into "Community Benefits Agreements" (CBAs), the purpose of which is to "foster changes" and "mitigate impact".

Unfortunately, it's obvious to any rational person that Google cannot change human nature via any kind of CBA. Hell, they can't even get me to sign up for Google+!

The thing that makes the paper super-funny, are the types of things the author be included in these CBAs would be agreements to "hire locally", which would require Google to open new offices in San Francicso, which would... further increase rents. Funding for parks, which would... further increase rents. Job training, which would increase wages and... further increase rents.

But hey, we could all live in a Marxist paradise if people would all just magically stop being humans who want what's best for themselves.

[nielsbot]

...so you haven't actually read the paper

[temp42564356]

I read the paper. 90% of it was hand waving that could be boiled down to a grudging acceptance that demand exceeds supply, and drives up rents, and the remaing 10% was wishful thinking about how to change reality so that rents would somehow dip below market-clearing rates.

[mempko]

Markets are not any more natural to humans than driving cars or using a cellphone. They are a human invention, not something that comes out of nature, or whatever natural humans do.

[vdaniuk]

Markets are emergent phenomena from trading and ownership. Most cultures independently came to establishing various types of markets, so I'd argue that yeah, until we are not in a post-scarcity society, markets are natural