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Comment by Fuxy | Hacker News Reader

Stupid question but why don't big companies like Google and Apple just move the bulk of their office outside of San Francisco where there are no regulations and they could just build everything they need there.

If SF is being so hostile towards basically the driving engine of their local economy the best option is to relocate to a place where there are fewer restriction.

A build your own small city kind of situation. They can certainly afford it.

It's win-win Google gets their employes close to the office the employees get cheaper housing and if it's a large enough community you will be getting new people coming in opening shops and other stuff to take advantage of the demand.

The only one slightly worse off is SF with all the money leaving the place but it's not like they appreciate what they have now anyway.

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As noted in the article, Google is in Mountain View, Apple in Santa Clara, both suburban towns well outside SF. Both towns have strict development laws, also described in the article, that throttle development. Apple has proposed building a new HQ and Santa Clara may actually approve it, but that does nothing to increase housing.

There is no land with 100 miles of Silicon Valley where you could "build a town". Supposing they went the necessary distance (500 miles, or even more, into Nevada perhaps) how practical would it be to get 1000s of employees to relocate to live in a "company town" in the middle of nowhere?

Seems pretty practical to me instead of fighting with the locals to do basic things spending god knows how much money trying to approve things.

Plus once you do it you have all the room you need to expand build towers, create housing etc.

It doesn't even need to be something very complex at first just something quick and dirty to see if it's a valid solution.

I find it amazing that there's no large areas of land for sale withing a 100 miles of Silicon Valley.

As for as employee relocation is concerned don't they already have to relocate to SF and the surrounding suburbs to work there?

> As for as employee relocation is concerned don't they already have to relocate to SF and the surrounding suburbs to work there?

Yes, and they choose to live in San Francisco, with bars, members of both sexes, restaurants, museums, parks, baseball, etc...

How fun do you think this theoretical company town is going to be for someone in their 20s?

It's not a stupid question. The problem is twofold: Any place that's nearby is already too expensive to make the move worth it; and any place that's cheap enough to be worth it lacks either the coastal climate or proximity to civilization, or both. Or worse (or better, depending on your perspective), it's a place where the Coastal Commission won't let you build anyway.

So, in practice, you're asking "Why doesn't Google just pack up and move to Nevada or Kansas City?" Such a move would probably be highly disruptive to business (probably at least two months of lost productivity (even if you pay relocation consultants to handle everything) for all employees being moved, and you're talking about moving substantially all employees).

Also the majority of the people won't move. Even moving an office from the South Bay to the City will cause a lot of people to quit.

Source -- I work for a company that moved it's office from the South Bay to the City and a lot of people quit.

> Stupid question but why don't big companies like Google and Apple just move the bulk of their office outside of San Francisco where there are no regulations and they could just build everything they need there.

Because they've weighed all the options and decided that's not the best thing for their business.

This is what many people simply don't understand. Businesses are profit-maximizers and it simply makes economic sense for them to be located in the Bay Area.

One may not like the cost of housing, and businesses may have to pay employees more to live in the Bay Area, but overall the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

It's already happening. You don't need to build a new city. You just open a satellite office in a place like Boulder or Austin. Your young, single employees would never live there in a million years, but once they marry and have kids they'll be lining up to relo there for the cheap housing, good schools, and lower cost of living.

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