Mark Zuckerberg, Meet George Pullman
Facebook Inc.’s sprawling campus in Menlo Park, Calif., is so full of cushy perks that some employees may never want to go home. Soon, they’ll have that option.
The social network said this week it is working with a local developer to build a $120 million, 394-unit housing community within walking distance of its offices. Called Anton Menlo, the 630,000 square-foot rental property will include everything from a sports bar to a doggy day care.
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One of Facebook’s corporate goals is to take care of as many aspects of its employees lives as possible. They don’t have to worry about transportation—there’s a bus for that. Laundry and dry cleaning? Check. Hairstylists, woodworking classes, bike maintenance. Check.
Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice:
Pullman, Illinois, was built on a little over four thousand acres of land along Lake Calumet just south of Chicago…The town was founded in 1880 and substantially completed, according to a single unified design, within two years. [George] Pullman…didn’t just put up factories and dormitories, as had been done in Lowell, Massachusetts, some fifty years earlier. He built private homes, row houses, and tenements for some seven to eight thousand people, shops and offices (in an elaborate arcade) schools, stables, playgrounds, a market, a hotel, a library , a theater, even a church: in short, a model town, a planned community.
And every bit of it belonged to him.
Back to the future.