Allison Arieff in a New York Times blog post looks at why maybe Facebook should’ve moved to downtown San Jose or something instead of just expanding their big isolated suburban campus:
There may be a place to get a latte there but there is no Third Place, those accessible anchors of community life like bars, farmer’s markets or barber shops that help foster civic engagement and interaction with both regulars and new faces. Yes, it’s stating the obvious, but Facebook workers interact with other Facebook workers. There’s next to nil outside influence to be found on a corporate campus. Indeed, many tech employees (Facebook’s and others) have observed that many of their most meaningful encounters occur not at work but while waiting on city streets for the now-ubiquitous corporate shuttles from San Francisco that take them south to Silicon Valley.
(Emphasis ours.) Yep, cities are the bomb! You’re welcome, Facebook!
SHHHHHHH……. WE DON’T WANT THEM TO MOVE HERE.
Too late, my dear hipster.
I guess those guys are suburban goons that like the suburbs so much and clogging up the streets/highway are fine with them. They should have moved to Downtown San Jose and concentrate all the growth downtown for the sake of the whole region to clean up the air and reduce congestions. They could simply walk to work from their downtown apartments. Their campus could’ve been state of art by Gehry. Wow, that sounds better than NY! But NO, they’re so suburban minded guys who have absolutely no taste once so ever and so bland!