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Facebook is Building a Real Community in California To Test Whether People Love Tech Companies Enough To Live in Them (nytimes.com)
In Menlo Park, Calif., Facebook is building a real community and testing the proposition: Do people love tech companies so much they will live inside them? From a report: Willow Village will be wedged between the Menlo Park neighborhood of Belle Haven and the city of East Palo Alto, both heavily Hispanic communities that are among Silicon Valley's poorest. Facebook is planning 1,500 apartments, and has agreed with Menlo Park to offer 225 of them at below-market rates. The most likely tenants of the full-price units are Facebook employees, who already receive a five-figure bonus if they live near the office.
The community will have eight acres of parks, plazas and bike-pedestrian paths open to the public. Facebook wants to revitalize the railway running alongside the property and will finish next year a pedestrian bridge over the expressway. The bridge will provide access to the trail that rings San Francisco Bay, a boon for birders and bikers. Mr. Tenanes, Facebook's vice president for real estate, contemplates the audacity of building a city.
The community will have eight acres of parks, plazas and bike-pedestrian paths open to the public. Facebook wants to revitalize the railway running alongside the property and will finish next year a pedestrian bridge over the expressway. The bridge will provide access to the trail that rings San Francisco Bay, a boon for birders and bikers. Mr. Tenanes, Facebook's vice president for real estate, contemplates the audacity of building a city.
...we don't trust you to run a virtual community, so why the hell would any of us want to live in a REAL community under your control?
company store days are comeing back and the irs can hold a big tax bill over your head as well for the real cost of your free housing. so jay you better be ready for the 80-90 hour work week.
Seriously - anyone who takes below-market housing from Facebook of all companies should expect a double-dose of data collection.
Invest a little money into poor communities buying up properties tax free .. of course no one living there now can actually afford them
Make new apartments and condo's reinvigorating a blight, tax free
Keep it on the books for 10 years, pricing all the poor people out, until its full of hipsters and yuppies, then sell for a massive profit and still not pay taxes on it
http://dof.ca.gov/Forecasting/...
The federal tax bill passed at the end of December 2017 allows the Governor to designate eligible census tracts as Opportunity Zones. Investments made by individuals through special funds in these zones would be allowed to defer or eliminate federal taxes on capital gains.
So, live in a community which falls under the control of a company which is able to monitor and judge you based on what you do, say, visit, watch, associate with, and has the right to terminate you at will for violating whatever unspoken values they enforce? And is essentially run by teenagers who suddenly got rich, powerful, and more responsibility than they knew how to handle?
Wait, and it comes with a 15% discount on their products? Sounds great!
Let's all contemplate the ramifications of this statement for a moment.