7 ms·

As long as these company investments are proximate to cities and towns where partners can find fruitful employment in other companies, children have access to g

As long as these company investments are proximate to cities and towns where partners can find fruitful employment in other companies, children have access to good schools and activities and the various kinds of people required for life have easy access (medical, fire, cops, …). If the companies instead want a monoculture of single, childless workers it’s going to be (quite) unstable.

ta1243 4y ago
Having your employer as your landlord and the owner of the local shop shifts even more power to the employer. Maybe it would be acceptable with a very strong union. "Oh can't work this weekend, that's a shame, your rent review is due" Or of course the old "Oh no you can't drink alcohol here, we're a good company" favoured by company towns a century ago "Selling" a modern house can come with thousands of different obligations too. Imagine a HOA, but it's actually a company.
- smeej 4y ago
  The article specifies that the people are buying, not renting, the houses, and they're even subject to rules (probably an HOA) saying they cannot rent the homes to others. If they want to sell in the first 3 years, the company has an option to buy the house back for what it was sold for, and for four years after that, the company has right of first refusal to buy the house at market rate. This sounds like a fairly reasonable compromise to me, though it's far from the only model that would make sense.
  - ldhough 4y ago
    I've seen people say this a few times here but the article says: "a growing number of employers around the country have decided to build their own housing for workers, mostly for them to rent but sometimes to buy."
    - smeej 4y ago
      And if you read past the introduction, you'll find the article is about one specific instance, which is what people are talking about.
      - ldhough 4y ago
        I did read that but it seemed pretty clear that the comment thread and the comment you were responding to were not in fact discussing one specific instance, but rather the broader phenomenon: > these company investments ... > If the companies ... > Having your employer [not "having Cook"] as your landlord ... Although given that your comment was clearly about the case study I should have made clearer that my intent was to communicate that just because Cook isn't renting the houses that the parent commenter's concerns are still valid because more companies are.
- pc86 4y ago
  You're responding to things irrelevant to the article - the employers are not landlords, don't own shops. Nobody is renting anything. The company doesn't own anything.
  - ta1243 4y ago
    "So a growing number of employers around the country have decided to build their own housing for workers, mostly for them to rent but sometimes to buy. " Seems relevant to me
- bell-cot 4y ago
  > Or of course the old "Oh no you can't drink alcohol here, we're a good company" favoured by company towns a century ago A century ago, at least in America, we had Prohibition* - so "no booze" was the law, no matter how the company felt. *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat...
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  When I worked at Google, there was a group for people to advertise apartments to each other in SF. I think 20% of them were rentals owned by VPs/Directors or other high level employees. that seems like an even bigger conflict of interests. When you rent from a megacorp, there’s realistically a million levels of bureaucracy between “work weekends” and “rent review”. When you rent from your skip level manager… your landlord can be directly approving your raises AND rent rates. …might help with layoffs though.

ta1243 4y ago

Having your employer as your landlord and the owner of the local shop shifts even more power to the employer. Maybe it would be acceptable with a very strong union. "Oh can't work this weekend, that's a shame, your rent review is due" Or of course the old "Oh no you can't drink alcohol here, we're a good company" favoured by company towns a century ago "Selling" a modern house can come with thousands of different obligations too. Imagine a HOA, but it's actually a company.

smeej 4y ago
The article specifies that the people are buying, not renting, the houses, and they're even subject to rules (probably an HOA) saying they cannot rent the homes to others. If they want to sell in the first 3 years, the company has an option to buy the house back for what it was sold for, and for four years after that, the company has right of first refusal to buy the house at market rate. This sounds like a fairly reasonable compromise to me, though it's far from the only model that would make sense.
- ldhough 4y ago
  I've seen people say this a few times here but the article says: "a growing number of employers around the country have decided to build their own housing for workers, mostly for them to rent but sometimes to buy."
  - smeej 4y ago
    And if you read past the introduction, you'll find the article is about one specific instance, which is what people are talking about.
    - ldhough 4y ago
      I did read that but it seemed pretty clear that the comment thread and the comment you were responding to were not in fact discussing one specific instance, but rather the broader phenomenon: > these company investments ... > If the companies ... > Having your employer [not "having Cook"] as your landlord ... Although given that your comment was clearly about the case study I should have made clearer that my intent was to communicate that just because Cook isn't renting the houses that the parent commenter's concerns are still valid because more companies are.
pc86 4y ago
You're responding to things irrelevant to the article - the employers are not landlords, don't own shops. Nobody is renting anything. The company doesn't own anything.
- ta1243 4y ago
  "So a growing number of employers around the country have decided to build their own housing for workers, mostly for them to rent but sometimes to buy. " Seems relevant to me
bell-cot 4y ago
> Or of course the old "Oh no you can't drink alcohol here, we're a good company" favoured by company towns a century ago A century ago, at least in America, we had Prohibition* - so "no booze" was the law, no matter how the company felt. *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat...
vineyardmike 4y ago
When I worked at Google, there was a group for people to advertise apartments to each other in SF. I think 20% of them were rentals owned by VPs/Directors or other high level employees. that seems like an even bigger conflict of interests. When you rent from a megacorp, there’s realistically a million levels of bureaucracy between “work weekends” and “rent review”. When you rent from your skip level manager… your landlord can be directly approving your raises AND rent rates. …might help with layoffs though.