How are the infamous Google buses and other corporate shuttles from Silicon Valley changing the fabric of San Francisco? Eric Rodenbeck, a map designer whose studio overlooks the 16th and Mission BART station, offers an interesting perspective.
Last year, Rodenbeck’s company received a grant to gather data on the corporate shuttles, the findings of which he’s published in Wired.
“I had assumed that most of the shuttles stopped in the Mission District…” Rodenbeck writes. “…But we were completely surprised to find that an even greater number of shuttles roll right through the Mission and into the more traditionally moneyed neighborhoods of Nob Hill, Pacific Heights and the Marina.”
After studying the data, Rodenbeck concludes that the corporate shuttles aren’t just a sign of gentrification. They’re physically restructuring “an entire system of urban inter-relationships.”