
Why Are America's Most Innovative Companies Still Stuck in 1950s Suburbia? - bootload
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/stuck-in-1950s-suburbia/
======
pesenti
Many of these buildings are in truly breathtaking locations... but
depressingly isolated. The most beautiful I have visited:

The John Deere HQ (featured in the article) is almost worth the trip to
Moline, IL
[https://www.google.com/search?q=Eero+Saarinen%E2%80%99s+proj...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Eero+Saarinen%E2%80%99s+project+for+the+John+Deere+World+Headquarters&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6uNKg2-XPAhUMcD4KHUhUAQMQsAQIOg&biw=1440&bih=799)

The IBM research center in Yorktown Heights is a section of a circle
[https://www.google.com/search?q=yorktown+heights+ibm&espv=2&...](https://www.google.com/search?q=yorktown+heights+ibm&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=799&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQ2t632-XPAhVCjz4KHRorDVIQ_AUICCgD&dpr=1)

The IBM research center in Almaden is in an amazing CA county park
[https://www.google.com/search?q=almaden+research+center&espv...](https://www.google.com/search?q=almaden+research+center&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=799&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmoPL13OXPAhUEdD4KHW2IAR8Q_AUICCgD)

~~~
hbosch
Don't forget the Andrew Lloyd Wright masterpiece that serves as the SC Johnson
HQ in scenic Racine Wisconsin:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=sc+johnson&client=safari&hl=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=sc+johnson&client=safari&hl=en-
us&prmd=nmiv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW7-Cd4-XPAhVMyVQKHavcBKsQ_AUICSgD&biw=414&bih=628#hl=en-
us&tbm=isch&q=sc+johnson+office)

~~~
CPLX
Indeed. A landmark of the Arts & Cats movement.

~~~
raverbashing
I think you mean Arts & Crafts but I like your version

~~~
CapitalistCartr
He's making an Andrew Lloyd Webber-Frank Lloyd Wright joke.

------
fromMars
I've happily relocated to suburbia since starting a family with small
children. As others have mentioned, I enjoy the open spaces, lack of crowds,
and lines when I want to go out and do something.

I consider cities like NY and SF to be great places to live if single but
basically untenable with a family except in certain circumstances.

There are some great cities like Seattle and Tokyo where I might be willing to
raise my family but in general I am glad that tech companies aren't in city
centers.

~~~
pesenti
I moved to NYC with my 4 young kids. NYC is a great place for kids as long as
you can afford the rent. We sold our cars, get most of what we need delivered,
and walk or bike pretty much everywhere. All the kids activities are at
walking distance and my oldest who is 12 is completely independent. I have no
idea why people think that cities are bad for kids (apart from the cost of
lodging).

~~~
wizardforhire
Fellow New Yorker here.

New York's a great town if you're not racist and only slightly classist.

Let's not forget why suburbs became popular in the first place. _cough_ cough
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight)

~~~
throwaway7312
If you've had the experience of being physically assaulted by random blacks
high on drugs, had other random blacks break into your car, and still others
accost you at night and ask probing questions designed to test how soft or
hard you are as a robbery target (not to mention been pickpocketed by other
blacks you tried being nice to), as I have, and you relocate yourself
somewhere there are not so many of these people, as my family has, does that
make you racist?

Genuinely asking, as I'm unclear how this term's defined these days.

As far as I'm aware, racism used to be defined as "believing one race is
superior to another."

However it seems most of its users use it now to mean "protecting oneself from
populations with, on average, markedly higher violent crime rates than other
populations." You're not supposed to do that - you're supposed to grin and
bear it.

For diversity.

Right?

~~~
fitchjo
According to Merriam-Webster[1], racism is defined as one of the following:

1\. a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and
capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a
particular race

2.a. a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and
designed to execute its principles

2.b. a political or social system founded on racism

3\. racial prejudice or discrimination

As far as your comment you are simply "protecting oneself from populations
with, on average, markedly higher violent crime rates than other populations,"
if that population is defined by race, you are being racist unless there is
some newly published study I have yet to hear about that "blacks love crime."

[1] [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/racism)

~~~
EpicEng
Yeah, except that in reality, socioeconimc conditions are often tied closely
to race. That doesn't mean that e.g. blacks are inherently more likely to
commit crime than Asians, but certainly blacks are a more impoverished race in
general. That leads to higher crime rates, so it's certainly not racist to be
more fearful of that group of people in general, it's just a learned behavior
and a reflection of reality.

------
mc32
Two words: It's cheaper!

But seriously, it's cheaper and you get to build your own building if you
like, maybe bespoke, rather than lease someone else's building. It's not like
most US cities will not have a tortuous approval process and a long approval
process and unions, etc. to contend with and extra taxes...

What's the next question, why aren't companies building right next to the
Capitol? Maybe we should be like Paris and London and Tokyo and have
everything important, the important institutions, important buildings and
important people all living in one important city. Let's all move to DC and
concentrate everything!

On the other hand, we have the Packard building and numerous others in Detroit
or Phily.

~~~
jomamaxx
I'm not sure if that's it.

Google employees are worth much more per-capita than most bank employees - and
banks stay in the city - due to the networking (and prestige?) nature of the
industry.

I think it also has to do with isolation and creating culture.

Urban areas have a lot of distractions, and individuality is encouraged.

There is 'not that much to do' in Palo Alto, at least, compared to the city
... people live in pretty normal homes, doing pretty normal things in the
little time they have outside of work.

Also consider: how many truly innovative companies were ever created in the
city and grew to be quite large?

I mean - 'cost' would be a factor, but why is it almost never the case?

If you need 10K employees, you need a lot of 'regular folks' \- grinders, who
show up every day - and who aren't the fleeting, company-hopping, types.

Obviously it's just a thought.

A lot of great Universities seem to be out in nowhere-land as well. I think
there's something to be said for being out of the social centrifuge.

~~~
selectiveshift
>Also consider: how many truly innovative companies were ever created in the
city and grew to be quite large?

Amazon is one example.

~~~
mc32
Yet, when they need distribution centers --where do they go for real-estate?
Where do AMZN, GOOG, MSFT, etc., go for their DCs? That's right, not in
downtown.

~~~
selectiveshift
Of course they don't put them downtown. The logistics would be a nightmare
(especially for distribution centers).

~~~
mc32
You're right. My point is a lot of innovation goes into data centers (as well
as distribution centers) and necessarily it's not downtown.

~~~
user5994461
There was another topic on HN talking about these datacenters.

Less than 50 people work in a typical datacenters. All the R&D to make the
datacenter is done outside of it, in R&D centers.

------
unit91
Author's theory: the Big Guy moved the company HQ to the suburbs because he's
out to get you, especially if you aren't white.

My theory: the Big Guy moved out of downtown because land and taxes are
cheaper, many (most?) people enjoy seeing green as opposed to concrete, and
the commute is often (not always) better, since most people live in the
suburbs anyway. Couple that with an up-and-coming municipality willing to
subsidize the building and infrastructure and you've got quite a lot of cash
left in the budget. What do you do with it? Build an impressive structure,
with the perks and eye-candy to lure the talent you're hoping to hire and
retain.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Research shows that ~80% of the time that a company moves, it moves closer to
where the CEO lives.

Joel Garreau, Edge City

~~~
unit91
I'm not sure these cases are parallel, though. The article is discussing
"America's most innovative companies", meaning the behemoths: Apple, Bell,
IBM, etc. I haven't read the book, but from poking around on Amazon, it seems
to be discussing mostly small and midsize privately-owned businesses. In those
situations, I can absolutely see the whims of one person playing a much more
central role than in large companies with shareholders to answer to. After
all, most small businesses are started by people who (naturally) work near
their homes.

------
trjordan
This is a weird article. It assumes that this style is bad up front, then
mocks all the different ways in which it was defined as good. "People like
green spaces, how crazy is that?"

I like cities, but I also really enjoyed the couple of times I've worked at
parks like this. There's a lot to be said for a predictable commute and a
window full of green things. I've found that harder to come by when I work in
cities.

~~~
narrator
Yeah, it's seems like the author has a solution looking for a problem. These
companies have plenty of money. If their employees didn't like these suburban
campuses they would move to cities.

~~~
kristopolous
Or perhaps the best catches would never walk in for the interview because they
find it a synthetic asphyxiating saccharine fabrication, centered around an
automobile and isolation.

The best people out there can make money literally from anywhere, why the heck
would they go to some compound of industrialized personalization like that?

~~~
WWKong
Or perhaps some of the best people actually like living and working in the
suburbs? Maybe their lifestyle and situations are different from yours?

------
benou
This is not about "city = good, suburbs = bad". It is about "walled garden =
bad".

The point of the article is that all those campuses are isolated from the
local community, and it is not good because it does not help to develop better
infrastructure and it isolates people.

At the end of the article the author mentions 2 SV projects which actually do
things differently: Box HQ and Facebook HQ. In SV. Not in SF.

To give you a personal example, what surprised me moving from Europe to SV is
the bus service: public bus service is terrible in SV, and what is the answer
from big corp to help their employees to commute? Having their own shuttles
service... What usually happens in Europe is that the people, the corp, the
city, the county etc. interact to build a public bus system. It then allows
sharing between companies and benefits everyone. But in the case of those
gated communities they do not do that.

~~~
usrusr
The most basic message is not even that the isolation is bad, it is just that
any perceptions of these new campuses being innovative are greatly
exaggerated. It's startups turning into the IBMs of the next generation in
action, go have fun celebrating that.

------
crispyambulance
Well, that's a nice article. I have to say, however, that the vast majority of
tech companies aren't in 1950's suburbia, they're located in late 20th century
office parks: single story "flex space" buildings built on concrete slabs with
plentiful parking, a truck dock or two, drop ceilings with good HVAC and
fluorescent lighting over a sea of cubicles.

The stuff in the article would be known by realtors as "trophy buildings".
Some lucky folks get to work in one of those but most people even in the
innovative companies work in flex space in the exburbs. This architecture is
so boring that no one wants to even talk about it. Its just a place to show up
for work. In your car, of course.

Actual 1950's suburbia, these days, consists of charming inner-ring
"streetcar" suburbs. They would be classified by most folks today as
"walkable" upscale neighborhoods. Some outer suburban areas are now getting
the "new urbanist" treatment to make them more like streetcar suburbs, but
sadly these developments are NOT YET getting to the exburban office parks off
the highway exits.

------
yellowapple
"Why Are America's Most Innovative Companies Still Stuck in 1950s Suburbia?"

Hmm, maybe because some of us actually appreciate not being in some smog-
chocked urban hellhole? I mean, if I'm going to commute somewhere, I'd rather
commute to some place where there's actually, you know, grass and trees and
stuff.

I lived in one of those suburbias for quite a bit of my life. They're
perfectly fine places with plenty of room to stretch out and enjoy some air
that's actually fresh. Hell, some of them even have actual wildlife; fancy
that? But apparently the city-slickers are too good for that, what with their
fancy concrete and smoke and noise and light pollution.

I just _love_ the implication that everything that isn't a city center is
devoid of luxuries like clean water or smooth-flowing traffic. Yes, us
suburban and rural peasants are apparently stupid for believing that there's
an actual alternative to being stuck in yet another skyscraper between bouts
of fighting for elbow room on buses and trains (both of which exist even in
rural areas, let alone suburban, by the way; the article seems reluctant to
admit such amenities exist anywhere outside of the Big City™).

Yes, keep pretending that the city life is the only life worthwhile. More room
for me out here in the woods.

~~~
ryuker16
They dislike it because its boring and lacks entertainment.

Also having to drive long distances or having nothing within walking distance
sucks.

------
aub3bhat
In a stark contrast, I think is Google's 111 8th Ave Port authority NYC
building, its one of the best workplaces. All advantages of having a huge
building (Bigger area than new Apple spaceship campus), while still being in
an extremely vibrant and well connected neighborhood.

~~~
CydeWeys
I work in said building and love it. Absolutely a top notch office in a top
notch location. Unfortunately the historical circumstances of the building
(see video below) make it pretty much one of a kind; there simply aren't any
more buildings like this for other tech companies to use. And good luck trying
to build a new building of this scale.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVx59XOZtSA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVx59XOZtSA)

~~~
aub3bhat
I work on 12th floor in the same building:D

------
stevewilhelm
It's pretty damn nice run on open space trails before biking to work, have
your kids walk themselves to school, have time to coach a soccer practice on a
natural lawn pitch, BBQ dinner in the back yard where you grow many of the
ingredients, and then go to bed with the windows open.

All of this is possible if you work at the Apple, Google, FB, Intuit,
Microsoft, LinkedIn, etc. campuses.

~~~
astrange
I can't see how you can do this in the South Bay unless you already had $2
million to buy the house with the yard. If you do, why did you move here
instead of early retiring?

~~~
eitally
You can have all this for <$1m house if you don't care much about the
condition of the house. $1.25m will get you something you're happy to call
home. Not many parts of the country let you go to bed with the windows open
pretty much year 'round.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Of course, the flip side of that argument is that in many nice parts of the
country, $200k will get you something you're _very_ happy to call home and you
can spend a lot less than the leftover $1M blowing heated or cooled air into
your open windows for the parts of the year it's not nice out!

------
mzw_mzw
Eyerolling politicized nonsense. So what if they are out in the suburbs? This
weird, near-religious attitude about where people live gives off a really bad
odor. Not to mention "isolated from the communities they impact"? What? People
in the suburbs of Silicon Valley don't use iPhones? John Deere needs to be
located downtown so it can relate to, uh... farmers? It's nuts.

The casual accusation of racism ("harder to maintain an all-white workforce!")
is really just the icing on the cake. That entire website should be deleted
and "Hunter Oatman-Stanford" (what a name!) should give up writing in shame,
retreat to a monastery and think long and hard about where it all went wrong.

~~~
mc32
>The casual accusation of racism ("harder to maintain an all-white
workforce!") is really just the icing on the cake

The thing is, the phenomenon is pretty much world-wide, thus easy to
prove/disprove. You see it in Mexico, in France, in Germany in Japan. Some of
these places don't have the dreaded "Other" to dread, so they cannot have that
motivation, unless the author thinks many, more or less homogenous places, are
acting preemptively against a possible future Other.

~~~
wizardforhire
Racism is what classism becomes. In America the two are confounded. People
hate other people for a lot of reasons. All you're proving is that there is a
lot of hate in this world.

~~~
mc32
So we're going in circles?

The author ascribes it to racism not "people hate each other". However, I
think racism is a facile explanation to trot out [perhaps even socially
expected].

Also, I don't have to hate to not want to live next to you, nor do I have to
hate my family if I don't want to live next to them.

------
chiph
Research Triangle Park in Raleigh-Durham was designed along these lines. It's
very tranquil, but difficult to go anywhere for lunch as the drive just takes
too long. Which might have been part of the master plan all along...

~~~
bunderbunder
Part of the reason I refused to relocate to Raleigh is that the office was so
isolated.

It wasn't just getting food, though that was certainly a hassle whenever I was
visiting that office. It was also the infeasibility of finding a place to live
that would leave me with less than an hour total time spent in the car per
day. Let alone a location that would let me walk or take a bus to work, which
is my _strong_ preference. I'm in a dense city now, and my total commute is
admittedly longer than an hour, but half of it is walking and the other half
is reading a book or knitting, so it hardly ever feels like a waste of time.

~~~
foobarian
I ruled out RTP because of the 4hr round-trip to the ocean. Too bad, the sea
shore there is beautiful.

[Edit: clarified round trip.]

~~~
GiorgioG
4 hour drive to the ocean? Does your car have a 30mph speed limiter? Raleigh
to Wrightsville Beach is 2 Hours, 1 min according to Google Maps.

~~~
mirekrusin
So 4h per day drive, unless you sleep under the desk.

------
Tiktaalik
As the revitalization of American cities continues at what point do these
campuses become white elephants for these tech companies in the Valley?

If urban centres continue to gain in popularity I could imagine suburban
companies needing to open urban satellite offices to be able to retain talent
that is reluctant to change their urban lifestyle or waste a significant
portion of their day in a commute.

Many of my friends have gone to work at such places, but did so grudgingly. If
they had had an urban alternative they'd have taken it. Others have chosen not
to pursue job opportunities that would have necessitated long commutes.

~~~
massysett
Marriott is headquartered in a DC suburb and they have explicitly said they
need to move to a more urban location to attract millennials.

~~~
mason240
As soon those millennials have kids they will be heading back out to where
they can live with a house and yard.

------
ams6110
Maybe most people prefer suburbia? I know I do.

~~~
slyall
Most people prefer a mansion, a giant salary, etc. But doesn't mean they get
it.

The problem is that if you want to be at the interesting end of IT you
probably need to be somewhere with a decent population (1m+ , maybe closer to
3m+) to have multiple employer options. You might also want to be in a largish
place for cultural options (rock concerts, professional sports teams, varied
cuisine, minority hobbies, whatever).

Trouble is that big places have various combinations of traffic, high house
prices, long commutes etc. So suddenly the nice house in the suburbs you can
afford is a 60 minute drive to work and on the weekend you spend all day in
your car driving the kids (until aged 16) from place to place.

------
ryhamz
"The exodus was triggered, in part, by inroads the labor movement was making
among blue-collar employees in cities"

There are definitely places that want to give employees less leverage by being
the only employer in the area, at least for their given field.

e.g. If you don't like your job at Epic in Wisconsin, you're more likely to be
looking at relocation.

Meanwhile, I have contacts 10 minutes down the street by foot.

~~~
WalterBright
> There are definitely places that want to give employees less leverage by
> being the only employer in the area, at least for their given field.

I'd like to see the evidence for this determining a business location.

~~~
Spooky23
It was a key part of IBM's business model. Mainframes in Poughkeepsie and
Binghamton, NY, semiconductors in Fishkill & Burlington, AS/400 in Minnesota,
x86 in RTP.

~~~
WalterBright
Can I ask for some more direct evidence - like an interview with a decision
maker, some memos, sworn testimony, a copy of an official IBM strategy paper,
a history of IBM by a respected historian?

Sorry for being a bit demanding here, but I hear an awful lot of things about
business that are accepted wisdom, but upon digging deeper find there is no
basis in fact for them.

~~~
nickpsecurity
The evidence up to the point was that, for cost cutting and knowledge sharing,
it's better for people to be closer together with consolidation of common
stuff. Spooky just pointed out they had teams for each of their markets in
different locations. That's unusually isolated and just by what area they
compete in. Why would they go out of their way to do that?

I'm also interested in seeing more specific evidence but initial data suggest
IBM avoided obvious, cost-effective choice for isolating teams by market
segment in expensive ways. That already looks bad somehow.

~~~
WalterBright
> That already looks bad somehow.

It's a big leap to go from suspecting nefarious motives to "definitely". It
could be anything from lower cost of land and living expenses to executives
thought it would be a good place to raise kids. Or it could be that IBM
thought it would try a "Skunk Works" type operation that was deliberately cut
off from the rest of the company - a setup made famous by Kelly Johnson at
Lockheed.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Anything is possible. So what did your research on IBM's reasoning tell you?

~~~
WalterBright
Generally, when someone makes a claim of something to be true, it's up to them
to be able to defend it with evidence. It's not incumbent on others to
research it for them. For example, if I posted here "someone made a car that
runs on water!", people would legitimately expect me to provide a cite.

Besides, one can't prove a negative. If you research cars that run on water,
and don't find any, that doesn't prove that they don't exist. I could just say
you didn't look in the right place, and you should try harder.

------
bluedino
How many options would Apple have to get 3 million sq ft in a city in the Bay
Area? The majority of employees are going to commute anyway so why not just
have them go to a suburb?

~~~
Johnny555
By locating in a suburban area, they are forcing almost all employees to drive
(or take commuter shuttles). But if they moved to an urban area, many
employees could find housing nearby, and many more could find good transit
options.

As it is, they're located is a mostly low density suburban area 5 miles from
the nearest commuter rail station.

~~~
closeparen
>many employees could find housing nearby

If they were willing to absorb a 50-100% increase in housing costs or
downgrade their living spaces (giving up things like "going for walks at night
without getting stabbed"), maybe. Living close to an urban office is an
extreme luxury good that'll give any mainstream luxury car a run for its
money.

>good transit options

The Bay Area has some of the best transit options in the country, and they are
to stand with one arm over your head and one arm on your backpack, pressed up
against hundreds of strangers, and just try to keep your balance and avoid eye
contact while the bus or train lurches around for 30+ minutes. After walking
or riding your bike for ~20.

I like driving, so maybe I'm just having trouble empathizing with people who
feel forced to do it, but is a ~10 minute drive to a suburban office park
_really_ as miserable to you as the ~50 minute BART commute from Berkeley to
SF?

If I had a suburban employer with a giant free parking lot (i.e. letting me
live _anywhere_ ) moving to a downtown office in a hot real estate market
without at _least_ a 2x salary increase, I'd quit in a heartbeat.

~~~
DannyBee
"The Bay Area has some of the best transit options in the country, "

[citation needed].

It really doesn't. In fact, it notoriously has pretty much the most
underdeveloped public transit options of any major city in the US.

(and while folks disagree on #1, i don't think anyone would disagree it's in
the top 5 worst)

In DC, i could easily get to work pretty much anywhere in the city in roughly
the same time or less i could by driving.

In NY, ditto.

In the bay area, it would probably be 2x the drive time, and a serious pain in
the ass (and that's saying a lot, given how bad the drive times are) ]

~~~
closeparen
These two.

I agree the Bay Area has some of the loudest advocates for better transit, but
it doesn't appear that it actually _gets_ better than this except in Manhattan
(and Europe).

[0] [https://smartasset.com/mortgage/best-cities-for-public-
trans...](https://smartasset.com/mortgage/best-cities-for-public-
transportation)

[1] [https://www.redfin.com/blog/2015/12/transit-
score-2016.html](https://www.redfin.com/blog/2015/12/transit-score-2016.html)

~~~
DannyBee
I'm not sure i agree with either methodology (The one in #1 is just, IMHO,
strange), but i'll agree that you have proved somebody believes it :)

------
jeffdavis
In a city, there's so much out of your control. You have to fight the
government and the city residents and who knows what kind of obstacles you may
face.

If the rent is cheap, then great, you have a lot of employees close by. If
not, you have just made life for them more difficult and given them a longer
commute by fighting their way into the city. All because nobody in the city
wants to build more residential.

If it works out and the city actually wants you there, then great. But I am
not surprised Apple didn't want to try their luck in SF.

------
zxcvvcxz
> Why Are America's Most Innovative Companies Still Stuck in 1950s Suburbia?

> Stuck

This already implies a negative connotation of "1950s suburbia". Like we ought
to move on, just cause.

What about the flip-side of this question: what is it about a 1950s suburbia
that helps America's Most Innovative Companies? I'll offer some ideas. Maybe
it's a lot more stable socially, so there's most local community trust and
engagement, and more mental energy to devote to one's work. Families are
stable and know and support each other, e.g. community caregiving
responsibilities for children. As well, there's less distracting "events"
going on than in a typical city. And so more mental thought and energy can go
into work.

As well, it's cheaper to not be in a crammed urban center. This also helps
play into a certain level of "mental safety" if you will that enables one to
focus more on their work - what else are you gonna focus on?

------
irrational
Nike is located 8 miles from downtown Portland in the suburbs of Beaverton.
The light rail line runs from downtown to a forest near the campus so those
who want to live in a urban environment can do so. One of the benefits to Nike
is they can expand their campus more readily in a suburban environment. They
recently bought up all the land around their campus and are building a bunch
of new buildings. It would have been difficult to do that in an urban
environment. But, unlike the suburbs described in the article, the area around
the Nike campus is not middle-class white, but tends to be lower-class
hispanic. You have to go about 3 miles north or south of campus to get to the
middle-class neighborhoods. The farther you go to the east or west of the
campus the lower income you get until you hit the agricultural land to the
west or get closer to portland to the east.

~~~
mjevans
A major Intel's RnD facility is also in the area, further west (It's in the
next city over) a bit north of that line. At least at the time I lived in the
area the stops that would service them weren't well connected to it. There may
have been some buses, but if I'd had to make that commute I'd have taken a
bike on to the rail system with me.

------
dpitkin
GE just moved HQ into the city of Boston, article seems to be cherry picking
through history and unfairly picking on Apple, HP was pretty innovative and
started in the suburbs. The interstate system and WW2 as a source of
innovation seem to be also overlooked in the time period examined.

~~~
devonkim
As HP's ability to innovate in technology (as opposed to business operations
and cost-cutting) waned, it primarily put engineers in lower cost of living
areas like Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina. This pattern is consistent with
almost all has-been tech employers that steadily transition more into
traditional sales-driven cultures. Conversely, just because you start moving
your company back towards a major metro area with more talent doesn't
necessarily mean that they'll start an upward trend either.

------
mindcrime
The interesting thing to me, about this article, are the subtle undercurrents
which are never really stated, but rather seem to be assumed. And they're part
of a narrative that seems to be gaining steam, but which doesn't seem to be
objectively true in any general sense.

1\. Suburbs are bad.

2\. Everyone should live and work downtown in/near an urban core.

3\. Cars are evil; no one should drive to work.

4\. Offices _need_ to be in converted warehouses, with exposed ducting and
beams and what-not, and have "character".

I personally think all of those things can be true, some of the time, but I
don't think any of them are true all of the time. And I think they're all
getting undue weight vis-a-vis the prevailing zeitgeist.

------
filereaper
IBM has many campuses like these, frankly I really like them.

They isolate you from the hustle and bustle of city life, the parks nearby are
a nice retreat during the day. Less traffic on the commute uptown.

Also cubicles, love them, can concentrate on the hard stuff.

Its not glorious stuff but highly effective, guess I'm in the wrong century.

------
CaliforniaKarl
Here's a close-to-home example: the Stanford Research Park. It meets (in my
opinion) the isolation requirement, but here's why I find it interesting: On a
map, the area has amazing transit accessibility. But, almost all of that
transit is commute-time-only express routes. There is very little integration
between the research park and the surrounding communities.

Maybe it's not on such a grand scale as the examples from the article, but
things like this are closer than you think.

~~~
randycupertino
Where is the Stanford Research park? My girlfriend works on Stanford campus
and she complains about feeling isolated- she says it's like working on Mars.
She works on Galvez and parks at the Stock Farm lot. But no running out on her
lunch break to do errands- once you're on campus you're effectively trapped
there.

~~~
travem
> Where is the Stanford Research park?

Check out
[http://stanfordresearchpark.com/explore](http://stanfordresearchpark.com/explore)

There are a bunch of companies located here including parc, VMware, nest, SAP,
Tesla, HPE, etc.

------
deanCommie
Amazon isn't: [http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/amazons-
south-...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/amazons-south-lake-
union-turf-do-you-recognize-this-place/)

------
tgarma1234
It took decades to construct the images of "success". I know that whenever I
am associated with one of these awesome brands in a super sterile corporate
location I feel like I have made it.

Even though I hate admitting that.

~~~
trgn
I get it, it gets to me too. It's too bad that the current aesthetic of
success is so dumb and infantile though. The aesthetic of success of 14th
century Venice was totally badass. Or 16th century Antwerp. Or 19th century
Budapest. How is it that a place so enormously wealthy like SV looks so
disposable.

------
slackstation
For centers of innovation and insight into the future, startups collectively
shoot themselves in the foot by centering on some of the most expensive real
estate in the world.

It'd be far more logical for VCs to pick a far more livable, affordable area
so that their investments could go further, last longer and have a higher
chance of success.

VC firms are really just high risk money lenders that have a seat on the
boards of the companies they lend to. One could take a dystopian view that VC
firms like the super high burn rate that having a startup in the Bay Area
entails because the high costs makes companies more dependant on round after
round of capital thus giving higher and higher percentages to the VC firms of
the companies that do eventually make it. That's a little dark, even for me.

More likely, we've made this hellscape of $4k 1bdrm apartments because VC
firms are comfortable in their big, well appreciating homes in choice parts of
the Silicon Valley and the greater Bay Area and they don't want to drive very
far to meet with the companies in their portfolio. This and other factors
(NIMBYism) creates the situation to this day.

If VCs were brave and smart, they would try and find a longer term solution to
the problem. Find a city nearby that has significantly lower cost of living.
I'm actually looking forward to the VC bubble bursting again so that companies
would be forced to get scrappy again and start solving this problem
themselves.

If I were founding or running a startup today, I would in a location that 1hr
or two away from the major startup centers in a place where my workers
wouldn't have to spend 50%+ of their salaries making NIMBY owners richer.

------
kkoomi
Reminds me of a quote by Alfred North Whitehead:

"Man's best thinking is done either by persons living in the country or in
small communities, or else by those who, having had such environment in early
life, enrich their experience by life in cities; for what is wanted is contact
with the elemental processes of nature during those years of youth when the
mind is being formed." \- Alfred North Whitehead, source 'Dialogues of Alfred
North Whitehead'

~~~
ryuker16
UsA cities used to be dirty and over polluted hence the utter dislike some
writers had for cities.

Not to mention blacks, jews, and Irish.....

------
turar
It takes time for these shifts to play out, but I'd say the reverse is already
happening. For a couple of examples that the article provided (Apple, Google),
one can find a lot more examples of opposite -- stalwart companies moving back
to the city core:

[http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-company-moves-
subu...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-company-moves-suburbs-to-
city-20160615-htmlstory.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/business/economy/why-
corpo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/business/economy/why-corporate-
america-is-leaving-the-suburbs-for-the-city.html)

[http://www.downtowndenver.com/homepage/moving-day-why-
more-c...](http://www.downtowndenver.com/homepage/moving-day-why-more-
companies-are-committing-to-downtown-denver)

[http://www.governing.com/topics/urban/gov-urban-downtown-
eco...](http://www.governing.com/topics/urban/gov-urban-downtown-economic-
development.html)

------
greglindahl
IBM Watson's HQ is Aster Place, in the East Village of NYC. Many other
companies have opened offices more "downtown" than their existing offices. I
can cherry-pick data as well as the next person...

~~~
TillE
It's not "cherry picking". Basically all of Silicon Valley is suburban.

~~~
greglindahl
Yeah, so how do you square that with the fast-growing startup culture in San
Francisco? Not to mention Palantir clustering in downtown Palo Alto...

~~~
st3v3r
Startups are not big companies, which is what the article was largely talking
about.

~~~
greglindahl
... numerous bigger companies followed the startups into SOMA, and some of the
startups have grown big already.

------
int_19h
Microsoft campus is in the middle of very stereotypical suburbia, and it's
lovely, and a non-insubstantial factor my continued employment there. In
contrast, I would turn down pretty much any place in Seattle proper, after
having some experience working in downtown Vancouver.

At the same time, I know many people that do prefer to work in a middle of a
city.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Different strokes for different folks and
all that.

Perhaps the author should make fewer assumptions about what other people do
and don't like?

------
cossatot
I'd work in the suburbs for that sweet bowl desk.

------
Balgair
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Bauhaus_to_Our_House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Bauhaus_to_Our_House)

Good read, and I'd love an update some day. I think that the only thing that
has changed is that we sometimes use pink/red bricks now in these large
glass/steel boxes.

------
rbc
It reads like it might be mostly a summary of the Louise Mozingo book
mentioned at the beginning of the article. I haven't read the book, so I can't
be sure about that. Mozingo is cited a number of times. It also seems to take
a very pro-density position. I suppose high density will benefit some
industries more than others.

------
mathattack
There are alternatives. Palantir taking multiple buildings in Palo Alto is
one. They're getting a lot of heat from the locals for it. City building isn't
a great option either. Is the answer mass-telecommuting?

------
MustardTiger
Is that site satire or not? I honestly can't even tell any more.

~~~
chillwaves
No.

------
kylec
I have a theory: the people who love open offices are the same people who love
living and working in a city. It feels like the same sort of debate, just on a
different scale.

------
losteverything
I bet some of these buildings have some very rare / famous art.

I recall the original one-of-a-kind American flags in the executive offices of
the AT&T basking ridge NJ.

------
ArkyBeagle
Is it because that's the way Walt Disney did it?

------
friendlygrammar
You can tell that a bunch of people only upvoted because of the title and
never read the article because the article itself is trash.

~~~
mjevans
It took me a good while to read it because it is rather information sparse
(lots of puffery and filler content).

It's also setup with more of a story to the situation that shows a biased view
of 'how we got here'.

I wonder if that 'storytelling' is something readers expect / prefer in
general or if it's a crutch that is commonly used by in depth reporters who
should instead be primarily presenting information with a great depth.

------
hogrammer
Adobe, which is doing very well, moved its HQ to downtown San Jose. Google now
resides in the suburban industrial park Adobe used to inhabit.

