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The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

247 点作者 chwolfe将近 10 年前

35 条评论

pmorici将近 10 年前
I think this article perhaps misses the real story. That being, office parks first built in 25+ years ago are reaching an age where their long term leases are expiring and they need to be renovated for the first time since being constructed to attract new tenants.<p>While it makes sense to renovate an old factory and turn it into trendy office space with exposed brick and vintage architectural details from decades past you have to wonder what the fate of more recently constructed buildings will be. It&#x27;s hard to see any situation where the 90&#x27;s office park building will ever be valued for it&#x27;s structural appeal to the extent that people will want to gut and remodel it instead of bulldozing.
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bunderbunder将近 10 年前
I think suburbia might be a victim of its own success.<p>As people moved out to more widely-dispersed communities, that caused commuting all the way downtown for work to be increasingly problematic. So of course that encouraged demand for business to also move out to the suburbs.<p>Eventually things got so dispersed that people had to start driving everywhere. Roads got congested. It became increasingly common for people to spend 1&#x2F;5 or more of their free time behind the wheel. Attempts to relieve the congestion inevitably require frequent road construction projects, which only increases everyone&#x27;s sense of frustration.<p>I think it&#x27;s pretty plain to see that nobody actually <i>likes</i> this state of affairs, and also that continuing the suburbanization trend would only continue to make it worse. Maybe there was a period back during the baby boom when the suburban lifestyle worked out really well (from a happiness perspective; let&#x27;s forget about the economic and environmental cost for the sake of argument) for the first people to adopt it, but it&#x27;s a lot harder to see the attraction now that the wide open spaces have become crowded with cars and parking lots.
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macNchz将近 10 年前
My girlfriend worked for a &#x27;beltway bandit&#x27; in Rockville Maryland for a while after college, exactly in the midst of the office parks described in this article. Everything about the environment of metro-DC suburban Maryland was absolutely repellent to me. Miles and miles of office parks, housing developments and strip malls, over and over and over.<p>I couldn&#x27;t stand the idea of having a daily routine of sitting in 8 lanes of traffic, finding a spot in a sea of parked cars and spending the day in a faceless office building, surrounded by other faceless office buildings yet entirely isolated in a corporate campus. I definitely see the appeal of suburbs for certain lifestyles, but I think that a suburban home with a commute into an urban office would be very preferable to working in an office park.<p>The only redeeming feature of my girlfriend&#x27;s office park workplace was that she, as a very junior employee, had a private office to herself. I&#x27;ve dealt with the frustration of a number of loud open offices at NYC tech companies, but I&#x27;d never give up a downtown office space explicitly for a private space in a giant soulless office building in the suburbs.
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dade_将近 10 年前
Thomas Jefferson is to blame and not one mention of taxes? I would be really surprised that some research wouldn&#x27;t find that many of these office parks are built outside of the borders of major cities to avoid paying taxes, or were provided incentives by neighbouring municipalities to build further out and pay lower tax. The lower cost is attractive and allows the company to operate in a big shiny building that immediately lends credibility to the company. Further, there is no mention of ample amounts of free parking. I think this article is very lacking, the for lease signs on suburban office parks across much of North America isn&#x27;t really a mystery.
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stephengillie将近 10 年前
&gt; <i>There are 71.5 million square feet of vacant office space in the Washington region, much of it piled in office parks.</i><p>&gt; <i>Last year, federal agencies vacated 7,315 buildings, abandoning 47 million square feet of office and warehouse space, Federal News Radio says.</i><p>So the amount of vacant space in the area tripled last year, going from 24 million SQFT to 71.5 million SQFT?<p>---<p>&gt; <i>Another 1 million square feet of office space will flow onto the market over the next seven years, as Marriott International moves out of its Bethesda office park</i><p>Where are these companies moving to? Are they moving out of these office parks and into city centers? This article only tells half of the story.<p>---<p>&gt; <i>With its space-hungry bureaucracies and contractors, Washington became a colossal hive of office parks, especially during years of government expansion — most recently the post-Sept. 11, 2001 period, when the military ramped up and the national-security apparatus spread along the Dulles Corridor.</i><p>&gt; <i>The U.S. government hasn’t signed any major leases this year, ... but it maintains 98 million square feet in the District alone (411 million if you throw in Maryland and Virginia).</i><p>Is the government portion of this solely from governmental contraction and shrinking of programs?
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roneesh将近 10 年前
Don&#x27;t try and ascribe a single reason here. Architecture, urban planning, the rise of the creative class, high-speed internet, remote work and America&#x27;s burgeoning reckoning with it&#x27;s awful racial history are all at play here. The life and death of an American city can have no single story, because a city is only a composite of American stories
Tiktaalik将近 10 年前
I&#x27;m curious amongst urbanite hackers here:<p>How many would turn down a job at Facebook, Google, Apple or any other company primarily due to their suburban office park nature?<p>Could you see yourself choosing a poorer quality job from an urban company over a better suburban company?<p>Right now I&#x27;m a 15 minute bike ride away from my downtown employer. It&#x27;d be pretty hard to convince me to give that up. I&#x27;ve done a 30 minute bus commute to the suburbs and that wasn&#x27;t very fun. I can&#x27;t imagine doing a 1 hour plus commute.
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swalsh将近 10 年前
My ideal would be a house on a lake, it would have a sufficient space for my son to play outside, and It would also have a high speed internet connection, which I could use to work etc.<p>Before there was telecommuting, there was commuting. What people with families ultimately want is more space. Grilling out, kids in the sandbox, etc. It&#x27;s all focused on spending time with kids.<p>Commuting enabled this &quot;country like lifestyle&quot;, while keeping the &quot;city benefits&quot; of a good job, and easy access to decent restaurants. As traffic grew though, the definition of commuting changed. This is where office parts came from, and it&#x27;s also where chain restaurants came from. Going downtown was not an option any more for shopping (parking!? argh). But there&#x27;s this mall just a mile up the road. Of course with a limited audience of families (the single people still saw the benefit of living in a city), with limited time and money. Chains are great answers.
Dirlewanger将近 10 年前
Nice article, but the jab at Jefferson is completely inane. Soooo many other nascent societal&#x2F;cultural forces at work in the 1800s&#x2F;early 1900s that coalesced into the suburban office park. Without knowing the context of the quote, it seems even Jefferson was off in directly equating corruption with the centerpiece of human civilization. It&#x27;s also a seemingly colloquial letter to a friend. I&#x27;m also probably reading too much into this now.
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Bostonian将近 10 年前
I see lots of suburb-bashing on this thread. Lots of people like having their own yards, where they can garden, have a barbecue, put a swimming pool, or simply have some space of their own. When you have little kids it&#x27;s a relief to have your own home and not have complaints from your neighbor downstairs that your kids are making too much noise.
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20years将近 10 年前
I would love to see stats on where these companies are moving to. Are many of them transitioning into remote teams? Did some go out of business? Are they moving elsewhere?<p>Does anyone have stats on this?<p>New business formations are on the decline (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.futurepundit.com&#x2F;archives&#x2F;009854.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.futurepundit.com&#x2F;archives&#x2F;009854.html</a>) and more businesses are closing shop each year than are forming (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;wonkblog&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2014&#x2F;05&#x2F;05&#x2F;u-s-businesses-are-being-destroyed-faster-than-theyre-being-created" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;wonkblog&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2014&#x2F;05&#x2F;05&#x2F;u...</a>).<p>Are these some of the reasons we are seeing vacant commercial buildings in a lot of areas?<p>&quot;I think, as with many other things, our younger folks are more inclined to be Metro-accessible and more urban&quot;<p>I do believe that to be true. I wonder if some of these can be turned into more modern co-working spaces that can be rented by the desk. Add a coffee shop, gym, etc into them and I think they would appeal to the younger generation, smaller service type businesses and start-ups. Just a thought.
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patmcguire将近 10 年前
Saw an article a while ago that about how one of the big retail&#x2F;office buildings in St Louis has emptied out almost completely, and now there&#x27;s just a tech incubator sitting on 12 abandoned floors:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.urbanreviewstl.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;07&#x2F;lots-of-entrepreneurship-happening-in-st-louis-railway-exchange-building&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.urbanreviewstl.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;07&#x2F;lots-of-entrepreneursh...</a><p>Never can build where there&#x27;s demand, though.
tosseraccount将近 10 年前
Then how come office vacancy rates are way down and rents way up?<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;2015&#x2F;04&#x2F;01&#x2F;property-usa-office-idUSL3N0WX5AU20150401" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;2015&#x2F;04&#x2F;01&#x2F;property-usa-offic...</a><p><i>U.S. office vacancy rate fell to 16.6 percent in the first quarter from 16.7 in the fourth, the lowest since the third quarter of 2009</i><p><i>Washington D.C. remained the tightest market, with a vacancy rate of 9.3 percent. New York followed at 9.6 percent.</i><p>What happened at 6116 Executive Blvd in Rockville, MD is that the big fat Federal client moved even farther outside the beltway to new digs in Gaithersburg, Maryland (to another, newer office complex.)<p>New place is one of those &quot;faux green&quot; buildings where everything like the light switches, blinds, faucets and toilets don&#x27;t work intuitively if they even work at all. They have to mow the roof so at least you can feel Eco-conscious as you flush 3 times.<p>Old place was close to Whole Foods and walkable to the metro(subway). New place is close to Subway(sandwich shop).<p>If the Washington Press wants to bemoan the old office space situation at NIH (National Institutes of Health), then they should ask about having NIH tear down the fortified walls they built around their beautiful Bethesda campus because of &quot;9-11 terrorist threats&quot;. The old NIH used to look like a friendly college campus. Now it looks like a gated community with TSA style security theater.
pappyo将近 10 年前
I see this as a buy low opportunity for those that could afford such a thing. Let me paint a picture of the future:<p>- In five to ten years, 20 and 30 somethings of today who have mostly flocked to metropolitan areas don&#x27;t leave when they are at the age of starting a family. The lack of space is still trumped by the a near zero commute and the cultural landscape that surrounds them.<p>- Right around that time, self-driving car services (Uber sans drivers) have started making serious headway in metropolitan areas. Traffic within the cities have drastically reduced due to less cars on the road and less need for parking. (So that cab ride across town that once took 35 minutes, now takes nine).<p>- With the reduction in traffic, corporations never changing urn to save a buck, and the next crop of 20 and 30 somethings that want to create their own identity, businesses start snatching up these industrial park cemetaries. More space, less money, room to grow. They no longer have to worry about employee parking. The commute out to the building is only 15 minutes (where it used to be a full hour +). AND YOU GET YOUR OWN OFFICE!!!!<p>In a sea of community work spaces, &quot;YOUR OWN OFFICE&quot; is the shiney fish.<p>- And of course, once one business successfully implements this strategy, the rest of sure to follow.<p>Brass tacks, these office parks are dying because of increasing traffic and fuel costs...and that&#x27;s really it. If we do wind up living in a world where people don&#x27;t own cars and the self-driving car startups of today eliminate tomorrow&#x27;s traffic, no doubt these cemeteries will see a second coming. If I had the funds, I&#x27;d wait for the industrial park real estate market to bottom and then start snatching up property.
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mschuster91将近 10 年前
Bit unrelated, but this website crashes Chrome on my Android phone, crashes the WebView inside my HN reader app, and brings my aged netbook to its knees. Oh, and my company MBP&#x27;s fans blast on full until I close the page.<p>What the fucking fuck is this thing doing with the RAM&#x2F;CPU of my system? For heaven&#x27;s sake, it&#x27;s a load of text with a couple of pictures.
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ChrisNorstrom将近 10 年前
I work at one. A nice one. Honestly it&#x27;s all because of the drive and location.<p>- Office parks are usually built away from people and this creates a &quot;long drive to work&quot;. Americans are tired of driving and traffic. Office parks are not usually built near busy residential areas, they&#x27;re built farther out on empty or industrial or rezoned land. No one is going to pay $30-75 million dollars to buy up 120-300 homes (average going price is $250,000 offered per every $190,000 home to get the owners out), then pay millions to bulldoze the homes, then pay millions to build the office park. No. They will go out in the middle of no-where and offer $5-10 million to a farmer and build on his land instead. It&#x27;s cheaper but this creates quite a drive.<p>I also used to work as a courier and I -&gt; HATED &lt;- industrial&#x2F;office park runs. They used up a ton of gas, a lot of cul de sacs, endless stop signs, and made me drive out in the middle of no-where. Most industrial&#x2F;office parks of them are like that. It can&#x27;t be helped due to regulations and zoning. Office parks aren&#x27;t as bad and usually closer to civilization.<p>- The cost, how does $7,000 a month sound for an office space smaller than a 2 bedroom house?<p>- The US recession shut down a lot of businesses in premium locations and this opens up opportunities for new tenants to replace them and start their business closer to their homes, instead of paying exuberant prices to rent space in an office park.<p>- They are soulless. Bland. Grey. Corporate. You will feel like a drone working in one. They do not allow the type of customization and construction that people take on when they own a building.<p>===== Office parks are great if... =====<p>- The city expands and engulfs the office park, surrounding it with residential areas, apartments, and hotels.<p>- They&#x27;re located near a highway AND near a residential area. This makes them accessible to both local residents and distant workers..
astrocyte将近 10 年前
All of this works in cycles. There once was a time when people were flocking to the suburbs. Now, it is fashionable to live in the city. This too will pass when people (a generation maybe) comes to understand the little value obtained from all the chaos and activity.<p>What are people chasing? Technology has made it easier to be in touch and socialize w&#x2F; people beyond physical geography. Transportation is getting better. Yet, people are centered on cramming into cities. The concrete jungle... Living among all the action but having no time to enjoy it because you&#x27;re too busy busting your ass to pay for the insane cost of the &#x27;privilege&#x27;.<p>I used to live in Mountain View, CA and knew more about San Francisco and the cool things than most of my friends who lived in the city. Many times, I could get to places in the city faster than friends living in it.<p>What&#x27;s the allure? When I think of California, I think of the beautiful outdoors and geography... Not cramming into a concrete jungle.<p>Hey look, I live in the city. I don&#x27;t have a car. I pay a company to clean my place. I pay a company to do my laundry. There is no parking available for friends visiting me. I can&#x27;t host anything at my place because its so small. I have to do all of my get together events &#x27;out&#x27;.<p>The city generally provides the illusion that you are part of something that&#x27;s bigger than you really are. Young people haven&#x27;t formed a clear definition of this. So, they flock to the city which provides it in &#x27;instant&#x27; form. This changes when a generation after realizes the cons of one thing and seeks out the pros in another. Or, when you get older and wiser.<p>As the saying goes, a smart investor is selling when everyone is buying and buying when everyone is selling. With all of the distractions of technology around me, I desire peace and quiet when i am at home. When I want noise and chaos, I go to the city. The big thing is, I have a choice in the matter and live by the beat of my own drum.<p>When you are young, you have no sense of this &#x27;beat&#x27;. The city provides a steady one. Will the youth be able to maintain affordability of the city? How long will this cycle last?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;resilienceeconomics.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;03&#x2F;40-year.gif" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;resilienceeconomics.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;03&#x2F;40-y...</a><p>Arcade Fire - Album (The Suburbs) 2010<p>Choice song (Suburban war)
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jamespitts将近 10 年前
These emptying office parks presents an opportunity. Certainly the larger ones contain infrastructure that can be repurposed, and the asking prices is decreasing. In the next downturn, the cost of purchasing a park will go down even more.<p>Perhaps the larger parks can be repurposed into something akin to a village. Reformat the buildings into something more traditional, apartments on the upper floors, offices and stores in the bottom, etc. Add more buildings to create more continuity. Let people be creative, let the fabric emerge.<p>Now in any given area, each of these potential villages is quite isolated from another. Still, pedestrian connections can be forged and inter-village transportation arranged.<p>Over time, we can heal this anomaly.
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akgerber将近 10 年前
The building featured here seems like a false example of blight, since it&#x27;s in an area that&#x27;s seeing major redevelopment. The same is true of the mall alongside it, which has been reckoned as a &#x27;dead mall&#x27; in other articles, but only because it&#x27;s being rebuilt into a urban neighborhood: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;b256ec319b64095c3d1d-e19f06f73efdb5028989d1916204cd71.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com&#x2F;71885_1426520209_White-Flint-Mall-Redevelopment-large.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;b256ec319b64095c3d1d-e19f06f73efdb5028989d1916204cd7...</a><p>I would guess that the owners of the office buildings in question here are warehousing it until the area becomes more desirable.
Scuds将近 10 年前
The only walkable food options in an office park might be a cafeteria, which I find to be depressing, more often than not.<p>The only option is to get in your car and drive somewhere, just like everyone else does, which means the lunch rush is just more sitting in traffic.
forthwall将近 10 年前
Even Silicon Valley has these abandoned SOPs, just look at South San Jose. Most of these offices have been vacant for years.
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norea-armozel将近 10 年前
It&#x27;s articles like these that make me wonder if the current paradigm of centralized production in general is a fluke. Before the industrial revolution there were a handful of cities that were big and mostly for political (cities where the sovereign reigned) or economic reasons (trading). But now, we seem to be overbuilding because that&#x27;s what we&#x27;re use to. The suburbs are just an extension of the same phenomenon where the ability to subsidize transportation costs via centralization of production has made this possible. Obviously, the steadily rising price of oil is slowing the growth, but in many ways if the societies before the industrial revolution could have kept the same inventions of production at the local level perhaps things wouldn&#x27;t be as disjointed as they are. Imagine smaller towns and cities with the same tools of production, but not to the current scale as we experience. Only a handful of modern situations would warrant a big foot print (datacenters and certain factories come to mind), but those would exist in the regions and cities that make economic sense. Today, it just seems like everyone wants to go Stalinist&#x2F;Soviet big with everything.
cestes将近 10 年前
Hah! I had a gig in that building (6116 Executive) when I was a consultant... writing billing systems for a phone company right after the Bell breakup.
chromium73将近 10 年前
I apologize for a bit of a rambling response here - this article struck a chord with me.<p>I hardly think there is a universal trend away from the suburbs. Its a matter of personal preference. Washington DC is highly unique however in the sense that one can easily commute from the suburbs into <i>most</i> parts of the city with a minimal drive to the Metro station. So you can have it both ways with a house&#x2F;yard and an urban lifestyle when you need it. Old office parks out in MD are unnecessary, particularly because more of DC is safe than 5-10 years ago. My wife worked on U Street and I worked in Gallery Place, two areas you wouldn&#x27;t be caught dead in 10-15 years ago.<p>But... not all cities unfortunately offer this type of luxury. Having grown up and lived in NYC for almost 30 years, I see people wrestling with the following:<p>1) People want to &quot;escape&quot; the city either because costs are prohibitively high for a reasonable amount of square footage or simply to have the chance to decompress away from the people&#x2F;activity&#x2F;etc. As for costs, you only really begin to save when you get further and further away from the city, and your commute becomes soul-sucking. Parents of my friends growing up spent 3 hours in a car each day to be able to provide a good day in a safe community. That is a death sentence literally and psychically. If costs are less of an issue but you don&#x27;t like the city, the added commute just makes you less productive. NJ Transit&#x2F;LIRR are not quite at the point where people can be fully productive and extend the workday.<p>2)People who love the city and never want to leave: to make this possible, you have to prioritize the energy and conveniences of the city over your own personal comfort except in a few rare circumstances.<p>I hope these unnecessary offices parks are replaced by more modern co-working spaces in smaller cities that provide employees optionality. NYC and SF are bursting at the seams and the sprawl will just continue.
jonknee将近 10 年前
A little more about Marriott&#x27;s move:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;digger&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2015&#x2F;03&#x2F;01&#x2F;marriott-ceo-we-will-move-our-headquarters&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;digger&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2015&#x2F;03&#x2F;01&#x2F;marr...</a><p>&gt; “I think it’s essential we be accessible to Metro and that limits the options. I think as with many other things our younger folks are more inclined to be Metro-accessible and more urban. That doesn’t necessarily mean we will move to downtown Washington, but we will move someplace.”<p>Sounds like the trick is to try and get a sweetheart incentive package by a town that is close to the Metro.
matt_s将近 10 年前
I wonder if any of the real estate owners have considered applying for a dual-zone - residential and commerical. Then rehab the building into part offices for smaller businesses and apartments of some kind.<p>If you get enough of these clustered together then you start to have little urban-like communities instead of miles of office parks. Sprinkle in restaurants, dry cleaner, gym, etc. and you might attract enough tenants to turn it around. Better than being vacant.
JosephHatfield将近 10 年前
Those buildings may be practically abandoned, but the new Pike &amp; Rose development only two blocks away appears to be doing quite nicely, and work has already begun on a new development project near what used to be White Flint mall. I live right on the edge of this area, and it seems far from being a ghost town.
michaelvkpdx将近 10 年前
The Valley will be the next great ghost town. 30 years from now, most of the current offices in SJ, Mountain View, and Palo Alto will be abandoned because people will be sick of the suburban lifestyle.<p>Plus earthquakes.<p>I&#x27;m looking forward to random shots of wildlife from the marshes infesting FB&#x27;s abandoned old Sun campus in 2050.
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Animats将近 10 年前
US manufacturing employment peaked in 1977. When do we hit &quot;peak office&quot;? With all this IT technology, office employment ought to start declining at some point.
MindTooth将近 10 年前
Crashes Safari on my iPhone 6 Plus (iOS 9.0). But have experienced it on more site recently. Is it all the JavaScript libraries?<p>Sad when I wanted to read it..
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cletus将近 10 年前
So I have an anecdote here.<p>I work for Google in the New York office. For those of you that don&#x27;t know, several years ago Google bought the former Port Authority building in Chelsea for ~$1.9B. It is I believe the second largest office building in Manhattan by square footage of usable area.<p>Google&#x27;s presence here has steadily grown in the almost 5 years I&#x27;ve been here at least tripling in size. I live in the area and honestly it&#x27;s amazing. Having no commute of any kind (unless you count a 5 minute walk a commute) is life-changing. Being in a dynamic, interesting area is a gift.<p>For those that want more suburban lifestyles, there are a plethora of options &lt;1 hour from the office in Long Island, New Jersey and Westchester. Most people I know who are married and do this have just one car since public transit is sufficient to get to and from work (only a madman would choose to drive into Manhattan).<p>Contrast this with our headquarters in Mountain View. Actually, it&#x27;s not even accurate to say that anymore as it now encompasses some of Sunnyvale and I believe we have or will have a presence in Redwood City and other places.<p>All of this is essentially low-to-medium density office parks surrounded by a sea of parking space.<p>Some commute in on Google buses. Those who want a more urban lifestyle life in SF and spend as many as 3 hours a day <i>or more</i> on the bus for the privilege.<p>Living near campus is expensive and, well, boring. There are no cheap options. Compare this to NYC where you could buy a cheap (&lt;$200k) apartment in say Jackson Heights or Sunnyside (in Queens) and be 30-40 minutes from the office.<p>Because there are thousands of people in the NYC office, certain things become possible. You get a wider range of cafes (there are more in MTV but they&#x27;re far more spread apart). Certain social activities can thrive within the office that seem to falter in MTV due to the much lower density.<p>So it&#x27;s actually an amazing office to work in and honestly I&#x27;d probably have to kill myself if I were forced to relocate to MTV (well OK, maybe I&#x27;d just quit...).<p>My point here though is that office parks are a depressing and unsatisfying experience for any company or employee. They&#x27;re not desirable in any way, even the high end tech campuses of Silicon Valley are just glorified office parks when it comes down to it.<p>Honestly I don&#x27;t know how any in the Valley does it. Maybe it&#x27;s different if you get to work in SF but even then you have to contend with finding and paying for a place in SF. And if you need a bigger place (eg you have a family) then you just don&#x27;t have the options you do in NYC.<p>As for the lower end of office parks, technology has to be a factor here. With the ever-cheapening cost of bandwidth it becomes even easier to chase ever-cheaper real estate with ever-more-mobile low-paid office jobs doesn&#x27;t it?
nickbauman将近 10 年前
One of the worst working experiences I&#x27;ve had in recent years was working in a first ring suburb in one of those office parks. Everything was falling apart. Even the nicer parts of the building had a strong &quot;faux-opulence&quot; feel. The firm was a publicly traded tech company. About a year after I left their biggest customer left and eventually they were delisted. Coincidence?
bingobob将近 10 年前
anyone else notice this page is 12MB because the two thumbnails images are 6MB each
JulianMorrison将近 10 年前
Needs more vertical farms.
michaelochurch将近 10 年前
On Silicon Valley:<p><i>Yet Facebook, Apple and Google — companies that brag about their forward thinking — are trying to reinvent this template of the past. They have commissioned high-profile architects to design versions of the ultimate office park in Silicon Valley, an hour-plus shuttle ride from San Francisco. [...] They will be movable, lightweight structures instead of blocky concrete buildings. Anything to attract brilliant minds and assure employees that they’re living in the future, not a glorified version of the past.</i>