> But there's not much gentrification going on, since Twitter keeps hundreds of staff inside, with free gourmet meals, plus a slew of free services, dry cleaning, even cleaning staff apartments. It is competing with local businesses rather than helping support them — it's the opposite of gentrification.

It's not as if Twitter or Google provide those services via their own full time employees, right? They hire local companies to provide these services. We're talking about catered food from local companies, apartment cleaning from a cleaning company, etc.

If anything, we'd expect a _greater_ level of commerce with local businesses, since employees might not choose to spend their own income on those services. By providing the services to all employees, those companies actually create more demand for local business than would probably otherwise exist.

The fact that they're being provided as benefits is irrelevant - they are increasing demand.

The article seems to ignore this, and as a result it does not make sense to me.