With demand from tech industry workers sending home prices and rents soaring in the San Francisco Bay Area, shuttle buses that companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and Yahoo run to their campuses “have become a much-derided symbol of the antagonism many longtime residents feel toward tech workers,” NPR reported this summer.
Google, at least, seems determined to do something about the impact the company has had on the surrounding community, and is investing in a number of affordable housing projects. In 2010, the search engine and Internet advertising giant invested $100 million in eight affordable housing projects. The Silicon Valley Business Journal reports that the latest Google-backed project, a 51-unit apartment complex in Mountain View, includes a donation of free Internet access and computer equipment. Source: bizjournals.com.
