Google As Landlord, The New 'Company Towns'? A Looming Feudal Nightmare
"Google As A Landlord? A Looming Feudal Nightmare." To fight a housing crunch of their own creation, tech companies are planning company towns worthy of Gilded Age robber barons. The Guardian, July 11, 2019.
Much contemporary criticism of Google focuses on the invisibility of the company’s vast monopoly power and the consequent indifference of both everyday consumers and government regulators. In ways that we rarely stop to acknowledge, much less understand, the tech giant’s digital domination shapes everything from the profitability of individual corporate enterprise to our consumption and communication practices.
Soon, however, as Google expands its geographic footprint beyond the digital world into physical urban spaces, the potential impacts of the company’s unchecked powers may become both obvious and intolerable. This year alone the tech giant will spend $13bn expanding in 24 US cities. In some places, the company will bring not just jobs but entire campuses with fully equipped offices, data centers, retail spaces and even residences.
- Richard Suchanuk cuts grass in front of one of his rental properties in Marktown section- a former company town- of East Chicago, Indiana, April 16, 2013.
Like industrial monopolies before it – from US Steel to the Pullman Company – Google is leveraging its significant influence to create entire urban economies dedicated to its own productivity and profitability. While this may sound like a recipe for economic boom, history suggests that the intimate intertwining of monopoly-driven corporate profit, governance and everyday life may undermine both democracy and individual autonomy.
Already, much of Google’s geographic development has been shrouded in secrecy, making it nearly impossible for local communities to understand – and to oppose – the long-term impacts. Only through public records releases has the public learned that the US locations of Google’s expansion have been influenced by furtively secured tax breaks.
But are the jobs and financial investment that this behemoth company brings nonetheless worth it – especially for cities with stagnant economies? What’s the worst that could happen? It’s hard to imagine, but the example of Google’s expansion in San Jose – where a profoundly undemocratic, feudal nightmare looms – may be instructive.
Google has spent $380m on land for the development of a new company campus in this Silicon Valley hub. Rather than celebrate the company’s impending presence, savvy residents and watchdog groups have raised alarms that Google’s expansion will exacerbate the high cost of living and augment displacement and homelessness. Amplifying their fears is the reality that city’s negotiations with Google have essentially taken place behind closed doors through the company’s use of non-disclosure agreements.
But Google has assured the public that it also plans to address the local housing crisis that it helped to create by investing $1bn in the development of 20,000 new homes in the Bay Area – 5,000 of them in San Jose alone...
More, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/11/google-as-a-landlord-a-looming-feudal-nightmare
Related, 'Facebook & Amazon are so big they’re creating their own company towns- 200-year evolution, Business Insider,' 3/26/18.https://www.businessinsider.com/company-town-history-facebook-2017-9
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My parents were raised (at least partly) in a company town. Separately, of course. The company built churches, schools (including one of the first in the county), stores, post office. You could live in the house--paying rent--for as long as you had a connection to the company.
During the Depression the company shut down for a while. They stopped charging rent because all their employees were laid off.
My parents said that their parents got paid partially in scrip, which worked out ok. The prices weren't higher than elsewhere, and were often lower (since the company wasn't making much profit at the store--it wasn't quite in the middle of nowhere, but it provided a significant portion of the labor force). It was good for staples. The alternative was, after it was built, taking the streetcar. You could always buy your own car, of course, but this was the 1910s and '20s and '30s. Before the streetcar went in, nobody wanted to ride a horse that far each way 5 or 6 days a week 
And once the streetcar went in, it was still inconvenient to get back and forth. The streetcars didn't run empty--they ran frequently when shifts changed, not at all when there were no shift changes.
During the company shut-down, the company continued to issue scrip against future wages. You'd be out of work for 5 months and still draw scrip that would give you and your family food while you lived rent-free. When the company restarted, those in company housing were rehired first and had to repay the scrip. Of course.
Downside? Sure. Many. You built up limited equity in your house. My mother's father died in a car crash when she was 5. With no company employee in the household, they were evicted. Same when you hit retirement age. And at one point the company decided it wanted to built on the company town's land so they told everybody to get out, tore the town down, and put up additional production facilities.
One Billion Dollars ($1,000,000,000)
"But Google has assured the public that it also plans to address the local housing crisis that it helped to create by investing $1bn in the development of 20,000 new homes in the Bay Area – 5,000 of them in San Jose alone..." ($1B for 20,000 homes = $50,000 per home)
Per Zillow: "The median price of homes currently listed in San Jose is $998,000 while the median price of homes that sold is $949,600." ($1B divided by $949,600 = 1,053 homes)
If only the 5,000 homes get built by Google in San Jose: ($1B divided by 5,000 = $200,000 per home)
So much for home values in the Bay Area! The benevolence of Google knows no bounds! 
