A Google Gentrification Fight That Doesn't Involve San Francisco

The locals say they don't like the tech folks pouring into town to work at places like Google. They're insular. They're driving up housing prices. And they fear those newcomers are more like invaders than people trying to fit into their new community.

For once, this is not about San Francisco.

In Boulder, Colorado, Google is running into problems that would be quite familiar to people in the Bay Area. Over the past month, as the City Council approved a plan to let Google build a 4-acre campus where the company would have the space to quintuple its local workforce to about 1,500 people, there has been a spirited debate about Google's potential effect on local home prices and whether the company's country-club-like campuses would pair with the city's desire to increase walking and pedestrian traffic.

It's easy to see why Google would want to be in Boulder. The city, about a half-hour drive from Denver, has an educated populace and a well-regarded university, and - with its mountain locale and a combination of open space and compact, walkable development - is considered a fantastic place to live. The company has said its Boulder office works on apps like Google Earth and Google Drive, and also has sales and marketing teams.

But cities - in particular, cities like Boulder that are already pretty successful - can have mixed feelings about good, well-paying jobs of the sort Google brings.

"Prices are rising. We are becoming less and less affordable to lower and middle income. We're also seeing local businesses that have been here for decades being priced out," said Suzanne Jones, a City Council member. "It puts a finer point on this issue of, where are we headed? Attracting big business is great, on the one hand, but it will be part of that change on the other."

In meetings, in emails to City Council members like Jones and with letters to the local newspaper, The Daily Camera, Boulderites have expressed grave concerns about Google's potential to raise home prices higher than they already are.

One resident, Allison Davis, who recently moved home to Boulder after three years in Google's hometown, Mountain View, California, wrote a letter to The Daily Camera relaying her observations on what happened to the Bay Area.

"As Google expanded, they rapidly priced out those who had not been lucky enough to buy housing in Mountain View before 1990. A city can lose its feel easily in a decade, and I already see that happening in Boulder," she wrote.

Another point of contention, raised by both the City Council and the city's planning board, was that Google's famously lavish campuses - with cafeterias, exercise areas and lounge-like common spaces where employees chill out behind closed doors - will create a dead zone for pedestrian and retail activity.

When the proposal came before the planning board this year, a board member suggested that the company include first-floor retail shops to attract people who do not work at the company to the area. A Google spokeswoman said the company discussed the idea, but ultimately decided against retail space for a number of reasons, including a concern that it would increase car traffic.

Traffic, of course, was another big concern. Google has noted that when it comes to transit, the campus is an urban planner's dream. It will be next to a major bus depot, which should encourage its workers to take public transit. Googlers who do not take the bus are likely to car-pool or ride bikes, given that the campus will have just 600 parking spots for more than twice that number of workers.

The company also agreed to put a bike and pedestrian path through the middle of its campus, creating a public thoroughfare through the property.

And, of course, there are other benefits of having a big company like Google in town. For instance, it is likely to step up its hiring of graduates from the University of Colorado, Boulder - people who may not be able to stay in town if the local economy does not add jobs.

Google writes a lot of checks to nonprofits and encourages its workers to volunteer. And while its free-lunch policy will never win the favor of local sandwich shops, the company noted that most of the food in its cafeterias is from local farms and merchants.

Still, Elizabeth Payton, a member of the planning board, pushed back against the idea that Boulder is lucky to have Google. Maybe, she said, it is the other way around.

"The citizens have worked really hard and they have paid a lot of extra taxes to create this fabulous place," she said. "It may be luck, but maybe we created this place where Google wants to be. Maybe it's not just luck."

© 2014 New York Times News Service