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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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This - so much. If my company grows I don't really see how we can _afford_ taking a much bigger office as large office spaces are really expensive in city centers to being with - not to mention supply isn't exactly great.

Building your own office is so much cheaper if you do it where real estate is cheap and you have a very good bargaining spot where you can actually barter for lower taxes.

I'm still not sure what happens in an office that couldn't be done online.

not all jobs are tech jobs.

I'm in IT, give me a year and 35k and everyone in the office at my clients wouldn't have to come to work. A big part is control. During hurricane sandy they made the office workers sit in a unlit office for a week just beacuse.

The offices I've been in have desktops, printers, fax machines and phones. So the question remains..

That doesn't explain silicon valley; suburban living with big city (and rather worse than 'big city outside of California') zoning; I bet it's way harder to build something in mountain view than it is to do the same in Seattle, even without the cost differentials. And god help you if you want something over three stories in Mountain View. I'm not going to say it's impossible, but my understanding is that it's extremely difficult

There are rather severe height restrictions in Mountain View because of Moffett Airfield. Despite this, there are Google buildings in the area that are at least 4-5 stories. It doesn't have much to do with NIMBYs (although I'm sure if the airfield was removed, the height restrictions would stay because of them).

Sure, but downtown mountain view has only one tower, while startups are now crowding out cafes and bookstores on Castro st.

The one tower shows that it isn't a hard limit but a preference.

Now nimby is a word with negative connotations. I am not saying this is bad, just that the people of mountain view have chosen to limit high density development in ways I personally disagree with.

If I can say it in a neutral way, California in general seems to value and privilege long term residents over newer residents, in ways that other states don't seem to.

The root, I think, is that California is a very desirable place to live, and the Malthusian view of growth, which most Californians hold means they don't want to just build until everyone who wants to live here can.

If you hold growth to be undesirable, you are left with fewer choices to distribute the privilege of living here. Rather than completely distributing this limited resource through money, California has a bunch of mechanisms that push the costs on to people immigrating here. (I believe that those who move are merely collateral damage, from that viewpoint.)

Now personally, I disagree because I like density and growth, but my point is that you can construct arguments from the other side that are also made in good faith.

My other point is the controversy is largely over the desirability of growth and density.

(Another interesting point is that I am told by locals that the one tower near Castro was vacant for quite some time)

The East Bay, also part of SV, is not as problematic with their zoning.

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.

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

Amazon is one example.

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.

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

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.

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.

To be fair, the discussion is about corporate offices and not DCs. Amazon may build DCs out of town for servers but they build skyscrapers downtown for people.

Sure - but it's rare.

Think about all the big companies you know.

None of them - except banks/insurance are really in the city.

Look at Twitter, they almost got there, now dwindling.

I've worked at a few startups, and visited a zillion.

Though Goog/FB do have a cool/trendy vibe ... I can't help but feel that most of them wouldn't fit city life very well.

I knew some Engs. in the Valley - super smart dudes who never heard of ISIS. I mean, man. They don't even watch the news. Work -> kids -> geeky projects -> riding. That's it. I don't blame them at all ... But I really do think that the culture out in the burbs is more amenable to 'Empire Building' and getting loyal, normal, predictable folks.

BTW - banks have a lot of job hoppers - because their career paths are so formalized, it's not a big deal for people to hope from one building to the next. Some of the systems are identical, if not entirely the cultures. And many forms of banking are intensely social, which is not like tech.

I also think most banking types tend to be 'upper urban' type people - or at least aspire to that. Tech people are more low key about things.

Anyhow, just my observation.

There is a lot to digest there...

Banks can be in the 'burbs, but when most were incorporated, it was beneficial to be next to the exchanges and to government (both the fed office and the feds, etc.) but some have moved to Raleigh or RTP... And, for some a big skyscraper = prestige.

>There is 'not that much to do' in Palo Alto

For people without kids this makes a difference --it makes a difference to the newly independent, the ones in fraternities and sororities, they want to continue their partying. For people with kids, even if they live in the city, most nights are spent at home -unless they are one of those "power" people who must "rub elbows".

>how many truly innovative companies were ever created in the city

I think that's just a coincidence. As you point out, lots of universities are in the burbs (Cheap land for a nice campus and dorms) and a nice place to start on your idea with your mates/pals/etc.

In addition, till recently, companies had to "build things" physical things and it's easier to build those things where there was land. There is a reason Toyota isn't in the center of Tokyo. But nowadays where the product is non-physical, we do see some innovative companies begin in expensive cities.

>A lot of great Universities seem to be out in nowhere-land as well

True, but there is the exception of Boston.

>True, but there is the exception of Boston.

Or NYU, Columbia, University of Chicago, UCLA, King's College, London School of Economics, the Sorbonne

> isolation and creating culture

Pick one. "culture" develops when different ideas meet. Unless you mean corporate cargo-culting and echo chambers.

Is it? I thought dents in many parts of SV exceed rents in SF.

It's possible. But if you need big space, you're better off in the burbs. Also, lots of your workforce in SV live in the burbs, close to a million along Hwy 101 from Daily City to Santa Clara. And you have another good amount from Milpitas up to San Leandro along I880. So, it's not like people are slogging from SF or SJ to far-out suburbs.

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