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Comment by pen2l | Hacker News Reader

I've been thinking about this lately.

Why doesn't Google or Facebook just pack up one day and go to... say, Detroit? Buy a shitload of property there, and tell all their workers that in the course of the next 5 years they want to have presence in two places: this new place in Detroit, and the old place in the Valley. Whoever wants to stay in the valley can stay... and whoever wants to move to Detroit can come move to Detroit. Same pay.

It would win a lot of good will... and it makes sense. The engineers making $150k will actually live what living on $150k is supposed to feel like. It'll jumpstart the hell out of Detroit... etc. etc. Not necessarily Detroit (I just chose to say Detroit because property there is so much down the shit that you can buy a sizable portion of the city for a good few million).

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There is a long history of Company Towns in the United States. At their peak in the first half of the 1900's, about 3% of the population lived in one.

At the time, it was seen by the industrialists as a way to raise their workers into the middle class. "Paternalism was considered by many nineteenth-century businessmen as a moral responsibility, or often a religious obligation, which would advance society whilst furthering their own business interests. Accordingly, the company town offered a unique opportunity to achieve such ends."

"Although economically successful, company towns sometimes failed politically due to a lack of elected officials and municipally owned services. Accordingly, workers often had no say in local affairs and therefore, felt dictated. Ultimately, this political climate caused resentment amongst workers and resulted in many residents eventually losing long-term affection for their towns."

Perhaps it is time for a new company town concept being pushed by one of the big tech firms. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, or Google might be able to pull it off. It could also be a test bed for their new technologies.

[*] Quoted paragraphs lifted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

1) Facebook or Google already have offices in Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin and other lower-priced locales.

2) The moving scenario works great for single people with no attachments, less so for married people with non-Facebook and non-Google spouses, even less so for such married people living in a school district they like.

3) Even with a single non-attached engineer, how many are company men dreaming about retiring from the same company they work for nowadays? How many are just using Facebook/Google as springboard for their "next step", be it a switch to another large company, fast-growing startup or doing your own startup?

4) If you're not independently wealthy, you want to hedge your bets. Being let go of an engineering job in the Valley is probably less onerous than being laid off from software engineering field in Detroit, as far as job searches, networking, and sacrifices one has to make.

Because money alone isn't enough; you need good schools, roads, and other public services.

Which follow when you send in the money. Not because throwing more cash at something is a magic fix, but because people that are capable of earning more money won't accept less.

Yes, but for the typical sort of talent that Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. want to hire, you need those things first.

Also, while those companies could start a long-term investment in an area, it's not something that could be done in a year or two, and ultimately they could only influence the process.

You need relatively successful leadership in that community to start to ensure those things happen -- the money alone isn't enough.

Do you mean Portland? It's a short flight from SF, in the same timezone, and has a huge software culture.

But even Portlanders are now complaining about the tech industry taking over and driving up rent.

Because the Bay Area has a lot more attractions than tech jobs.

One reason is because Detroit has 24x7 winter -- in the Bay Area it's a 4 hour drive to winter so you only experience it when (and if) you want to.

Well, Google and Facebook are both extremely profitable, so the wages they are paying their employees aren't hurting them at all.

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