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Facebook Envisions New Campus With Affordable Housing Units (sfgate.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
"In a few years, families could be living at Facebook," quips CNET. The Bay Area Newsgroup reports that Facebook is proposing a new campus with facilities open to the public "to address long-neglected community needs and to accommodate its burgeoning workforce." But the San Francisco Chronicle sees more than just new buildings. "Implicit in the tech company's announcement is Facebook's belief that it can solve some of the area's most pressing issues, including traffic congestion, demand for affordable housing and a lack of transit options. By opening the campus and some of its facilities to the public, Facebook is also heading off a common criticism lobbed at wealthy tech firms: that they move into cities, drive up the cost of living, displace area residents and then do little to give back."
Facebook will offer 15% of the housing -- about 225 units -- at "below market rates." They're also promising to invest tens of millions of dollars in improvements to nearby Highway 101 and to "catalyze regional transit investment," according to Facebook's vice president of global facilities and real estate. The Chronicle notes that the campus's open-to-the-public pharmacy and grocery store "would also solve the issue of a lack of food retailers in that part of the city, where the nearest large store is a Safeway 4 miles away -- a trip that can take up to 40 minutes during rush hour, according to Google Maps."
Facebook will offer 15% of the housing -- about 225 units -- at "below market rates." They're also promising to invest tens of millions of dollars in improvements to nearby Highway 101 and to "catalyze regional transit investment," according to Facebook's vice president of global facilities and real estate. The Chronicle notes that the campus's open-to-the-public pharmacy and grocery store "would also solve the issue of a lack of food retailers in that part of the city, where the nearest large store is a Safeway 4 miles away -- a trip that can take up to 40 minutes during rush hour, according to Google Maps."
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
The Brainiacs over at Facebook aren't smart enough to think of perhaps putting a new facility in a different town that isn't already congested.
Caution: Contents under pressure
This feels like what some companies already do in China, except there it tends to be more in the form of dormitories. At the same it could be an interesting idea for other companies, as a way of reducing commute times. One company that I am thinking about is Apple with their new mega campus.
One of the things that put some people off working for these large companies is spending two hours in traffic, instead of 10 minutes using less stressful transportation, such as foot, bicycle or bus/train. Not everyone needs or wants a house, but may be happy living in an apartment with services near by.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Then step up and use the same fix the last time this bug came up: Unionize.
Coding and programming has made its way into the skilled trade territory. You have 6-18 week hands on training. A skilled trade welder has as much overlap in knowledge and skill with a welding engineer as a 'boot camp coder' has with someone with a CS degree. Both skills are in high demand but the 'boot camp coders' are getting screwed because of their insistence that they are each special snow flakes and a trade union would hurt their earning potential but in reality everyone would be better off.
And no, that doesn't mean CS, CompE or EE degrees are going away either. It just means they're going to change what they're doing just like every other profession with a skilled trade portion has done since the beginning of time. In engineering you have Engineers, Engineering Techs/Technologists and on down. In medicine you have Doctors, PAs, Nurses, and Orderlys. Different skills, different knowledge, different training. But Nurses and Technologists, unlike 'bootcamp coders' are unionized.
It would also take care of the continuing education portion of the job market by putting training back in the hands of the union. I have friends in HVAC and pipefitting unions that get annual education. They are contracted out to companies that need HVAC and pipe fitting and live a pretty good blue collar life.
Or don't. Continue to get screwed by companies by thinking you're the one exception to the rule.
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I have worked with the population that needs housing subsidies. We need a LOT more affordable housing (or housing subsidies of one sort or another)--anybody who believes otherwise doesn't know the situation on the ground. While there are occasionally people taking advantage of the system or able to pull their weight and not, there are also a LOT of people who just have one medical problem or one bad month income-wise and it snowballs into destroying a big part of their life.
(E.g. you are deciding whether to pay the rent or the food bill, don't cover the rent on time, get evicted and now fail tenant background screening while your credit score plummets because of a money judgment, so you can't find a place again, and you hope to hell you have family or friends in the area, and in the meantime your time looking for a new place and assistance takes so much time that your work suffers along with your dignity. Nobody wants to be in that situation.)
Real lawyers write in C++
If Facebook does this it would have to be highly regulated to protect people. If my company did this, I would not accept the housing. Can I get my annual raise? Sorry, rent control means we can't raise housing costs as much as we'd like so no raise. I quit! You are also homeless. I'm fired? You are also homeless. Here is my letter of resignation, effective in two weeks as expected. You are homeless as of right now, but good luck to you.
Considering there is no regulation and no discussion of such, this won't end up well for people in that housing. It's not like we have not seen this same scenario play out in the past right? I'm sure this Utopia will work out, really..
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Company towns? What? We're going back to 1917?
No you insensitive clod! This is novel and unique because Facebook is doing it. History Schmistory...
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Affordable housing is easy - live somewhere you can afford.
Quit asking the taxpayers to give you welfare in the form of a housing subsidy.
You may hate Mr. Zuckerberg for all you want,
I don't hate Mr. Zuckerberg; I'm just not interested in the product he sells . . . or, more astutely stated, I have no interest in becoming his product. He can sell all the used ball-bearing Rigid Fidget Digits he wants for all I care.
but as a president he most likely would be 100 times or a 1000 times better for the USA, and the rest of the world.
. . . and you are basing that metric on . . . whatever you happened to be vaping at the time of posting? I could imagine Mr Zuckerberg resurrecting the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), since not using Facebook is an Un-American Activity. By not using Facebook a person is "evading essential state security surveillance", and must have something grimy underneath his fingernails . . . kinda sorta like "Criminal Drug Evasion" in THX-1138.
After all he speaks more than one language
For folks of limited intellectual faculties, learning a second language merely guarantees that they can say the same stupid things in Yet Another Language. A major systemic failure in US education policy was the misguided notion that sending *everyone* to college would make everyone smarter. What really happened was the adulteration of college degrees and an explosion of costs.
and visited more countries than Mr. Trump.
So I guess you'll be supporting Justin Bieber for President, since he has given concerts in even more countries that the Zuck has visited! The amazing thing about American folks like Zuckerberg, is that they can visit so many other countries in the world . . . and still not realize that not every country in the world is just like it is in the US.
"We are here in Heidelberg, Germany! Where is the Applebees!? Where is the Applebees!? Kenneth, Kenneth . . . what is the frequency!?"
Usually, at this time, the Joseph de Maistre retinue would manifest itself here, and state that with Mr. Trump, the Americans got the government that they deserve. However, your comments have convinced me that with Mr. Trump, the whole world has gotten the US government that it deserves.
"The World is My Oyster!" -- William Shakespeare
"The World is My Dumpster!" -- Donald Trump
And for you family loving americans
American? . . . Ain't that you?
he actually has a family and not half a dozen divorces.
Ah, yes . . . Charles Manson also has a family . . . so he would be your other choice for president, since "family values" seems to be your Shtick. Or maybe your beloved Kardashians . . . they are also very "family oriented".
Unfortunately, the most horrific atrocities committed by humanity, against humanity had "family oriented" at their Hearts of Darkness. One of my personal favorites: Margot Honnecker, "the Wicked Witch of the East":
Margot Honecker was widely known as the "Purple Witch" for her tinted hair and hardline Stalinist views, and was described as "the most hated person" in East Germany next to Stasi chief Erich Mielke by former Bundestag president Wolfgang Thierse. She was responsible for the enactment of the "Uniform Socialist Education System" in 1965 and mandatory military training in schools to prepare pupils for a future war with the west. She was alleged to have been responsible for the regime's forced adoption of children of jailed dissidents or people who attempted to desert from GDR, and she is considered to have "left a cruel legacy of separated families." She also established prison-like institutions for children, including a camp at Torgau known as "Margot's concentration camp."
The fine Christian folks in Kansas bomb abortion clinics . . . to protect, "family values" . . . as do the bearded guys with rags on their heads who clamor on board intercontinental flig
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!