And people wonder why we are willing to pay such astronomical real estate prices to live here…

Douglas — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:26:22 +0000

Despite the fact that the weather is totally beautiful and mild nearly year-round, one of the bay area’s greatest gravitational forces for me was the power-to-the-people factor. This area is known for its progressiveness, but few outside of its borders really understand the totality of this characteristic. People of all ages have come to realize that it is really us that is in power—and are in the position to utilize that to our advantage—and that without us/our support/our co-operation the corporations are nothing.
When I first moved here a few years ago, someone told me about a battle between the Pixar Studios complex and its surrounding neighborhood. Essentially, Pixar wanted to expand their facility by like six blocks, thus taking space and resources away from the neighborhood that surrounds it. So, the neighborhood organized and went to Pixar with a few demands, rationalizing that “Hey, you are going to take away some of our resources in doing this, so we want you to re-coup them in exchange.” The neighborhood requested a few things, of them being free day care service for the residents of that neighborhood, another being the construction of a new park. Pixar supposedly kind of scoffed at this and pushed forward with their plans for expansion while paying no heed to the neighborhood’s requests. Where I’m from (Louisville, KY), the residents would have probably just hung their heads and trudged onward in defeat. Here however, things operate a bit differently: the neighborhood organization effectively stopped Pixar in their tracks and prevented them from expanding because the company was not willing to acquiesce to their justifiable request for equal exchange.

Of course, this is just one example amongst many, but it is illustrative of our collective mindset here: we can change the world (or at least our small corner of it). The notion that we can do anything with a bit of effort in mobilization has become inherent even in our passtime activities. For example, every Easter there is a massive big wheel race where hundreds of people simply show up, sans-permits, and block off a street to race each other on vehicles built for five year olds, there are zombie walks several times a year in which all participants dress as zombies and descend upon the financial and shopping district of downtown SF, and there are mass pillow fights in the middle of the downtown SF a few times a year as well.

In combining the two—governing corporations and organizing spectacles to behold—I give you our latest approach: CarrotMob.

Chapter 42 » big kid activities

And people wonder why we are willing to pay such astronomical real estate prices to live here…