Google's New Plan Is Officially Turning New York Into Silicon Valley

Welp, it's official. 

New York City is no longer the underbelly of the underground, the haven of artists and creatives, the melting pot and hub of punk rock. Which, of course, we've known for a while now.

But with the tech sector rapidly taking over, we fear it's only a matter of time before we're all drinking Soylent for lunch. *Shiver*

Today Google announced a $1 billion expansion project to build a 1.7 million square-foot campus in Hudson Square. Add that to company's $2.4 billion purchase of Chelsea Market earlier this year, along with their original NYC outpost which now houses more than 7,000 employees in Chelsea and, damn, that's a lot of tech bros in turtlenecks.

And this, as you probably know, comes after the planned Long Island City takeover of Amazon, in all its tax-exempt glory.

Nevertheless we're giving the revolutionary search engine turned tech empire the benefit of the doubt here. As a recent New York Times article pointed out, Google has paid close attention to its ties with the community, from donating "$1 million to build the High Line and another $1.5 million to a cultural preservation project for the Stonewall Inn," to providing turkeys and clothing to residents of the neighboring Fulton Houses.

But, in order to give back to the local community, the local community needs to survive in the first place - something both Amazon and Google need to keep in mind if they don't want to turn this city into Silicon Valley 3.0 (2.0 is Seattle, RIP).

[Photo via @jrglrdo]