My day riding 'Bird' e-scooters shows how the tech industry has changed my hometown

When I was a teenager growing up in West LA, a friend of mine from a different part of the city derisively called my neighborhood "Scooter-Ville" because it was so "wholesome." He'd look out of my big bedroom window to see the neighborhood kids riding their Razor scooters up my empty block, around the cul-de-sacs, over and down the circular driveways.

Now, a different sort of scooter has come to town: "Bird" electric scooters.

Bird is a new transportation company that places un-docked electric scooters around a city. Users can unlock them with the touch of an app and use them to travel short distances at 15 mph. It's one of a host of new dockless transportation companies — along with LimeBike, Jump, and others — bringing easy-to-use, non-car transit options to cities across the country. It's also one of the more recent technology companies to call Santa Monica its home base and effectively its beta testing ground.  Read more...