Commuting by company bus rather than private car or public transit doesn't somehow make a person unaware of the world around them. If anything, I'd wager that the average Google Bus passenger is more attuned to the sorry state of public transit in this city than the average city resident, since not driving to work often goes hand-in-hand with not owning a car.
And no one's experience of the city is "a seamless parade of hip restaurants and privately funded transportation." Regardless of where they work, people who live in the city spend time here. We walk around the neighborhoods, shop at the grocery stores, and play with our dogs (or watch people play with theirs) in the park. We're also aware of the less pleasant aspects of the city: we step over the poop on the sidewalk, we hear the gunshots, our stuff gets stolen. The only aspect of urban life that shuttle commuters are relatively immune from is the snarl of rush hour traffic, but on that front, they're part of the solution more than they're part of the problem.
(And regarding the specific incident in the article that set the writer off, I don't doubt that there are people on the Google bus who push past people as they disembark. But stand next to a Muni bus as it's disgorging passengers, and you'll see the same thing. A significant chunk of the SF population, rich and poor alike, has zero regard for anyone else standing near them.)
The resentment isn't about the "technology industry's lack of civic and community engagement." It's about the rich displacing everyone else. There are more people who want to live in the city than there is housing, so no matter what schemes are in place to assist low income residents, incumbent residents, or people in particular fields, someone will be squeezed out. The rich squeeze out everyone else with their wallet, so some people feel it's appropriate to try and squeeze out the rich by making their lives unpleasant.
Commuting by company bus rather than private car or public transit doesn't somehow make a person unaware of the world around them. If anything, I'd wager that the average Google Bus passenger is more attuned to the sorry state of public transit in this city than the average city resident, since not driving to work often goes hand-in-hand with not owning a car.
And no one's experience of the city is "a seamless parade of hip restaurants and privately funded transportation." Regardless of where they work, people who live in the city spend time here. We walk around the neighborhoods, shop at the grocery stores, and play with our dogs (or watch people play with theirs) in the park. We're also aware of the less pleasant aspects of the city: we step over the poop on the sidewalk, we hear the gunshots, our stuff gets stolen. The only aspect of urban life that shuttle commuters are relatively immune from is the snarl of rush hour traffic, but on that front, they're part of the solution more than they're part of the problem.
(And regarding the specific incident in the article that set the writer off, I don't doubt that there are people on the Google bus who push past people as they disembark. But stand next to a Muni bus as it's disgorging passengers, and you'll see the same thing. A significant chunk of the SF population, rich and poor alike, has zero regard for anyone else standing near them.)
The resentment isn't about the "technology industry's lack of civic and community engagement." It's about the rich displacing everyone else. There are more people who want to live in the city than there is housing, so no matter what schemes are in place to assist low income residents, incumbent residents, or people in particular fields, someone will be squeezed out. The rich squeeze out everyone else with their wallet, so some people feel it's appropriate to try and squeeze out the rich by making their lives unpleasant.