The presence of Google (and other tech giants) in the San Francisco Bay Area has already sparked local protests against corporate bussing, gentrification, and rising housing prices -- as well as a paranoid anti-tech underground -- but Google's latest plans may turn up the heat even more. Google is planning on moving some of its operations into the Latino and immigrant-heavy Mission District.

Google will take over a 35,000-square-foot building on Alabama Street in the Mission District of San Francisco in an effort to recruit engineers who do not want to commute to the Googleplex outside the city. If successful, Google will house about 200 staffers from the startups Google acquires at an old former printworks building at 298 Alabama Street, according to the Financial Times (paywall).

The plans reflect on two growing trends in the tech industry and in the city of San Francisco: Google is increasingly buying tech startups, like Nest, and tech workers are increasingly finding neighborhoods in San Francisco trendy places to live.

As the Financial Times put it, the leasing of the large new San Francisco space suggests that Google may be planning to buy more hardware start-ups as it expands from web search into markets such as robotics, wearable technology, and the 'internet of things.'" But hip, well salaried tech workers no longer want to take a bus for an hour-long commute outside the city. As one hipster living in the Mission District told FT, "When Google is buying companies, they don't want to work in the big corporate building in San Francisco or Mountain View, so they are acquiring something cool in the Mission where engineers want to work."

But what has been the case before, Google's good for the upstart techies, but bad for the long-term neighborhood residence. That's because the influx of highly paid high-tech workers into San Francisco has caused an acute rise in housing prices, rents and, for those who cannot afford the accelerating gentrification, evictions.

According to FT, for example, office space that would have cost $20 per square foot a few years ago is now leasing for more than double that price. And despite being named after a former Latino-focused mission (Mission Dolores), rising gentrification of the Mission District has led to the Latino population of the neighborhood dropping by at least 20 percent over the past decade. Those consequences are part of the background conditions fueling ongoing protests of Google corporate busses, some of which have turned violent. With an influx of upscale workers who can now walk to work, that trend is likely to accelerate.

A Google spokesperson declined to comment to the FT. Google isn't the only tech powerhouse with its eyes on moving into San Francisco neighborhoods. Facebook is also rumored to be looking for space in the city, and Twitter, Square, and Pinterest already have headquarters in San Francisco. Look to the Mission District as the ground zero of San Francisco's culture wars, as the gentrification process is unlikely to slow down any time soon.