8 ms·

Thomas Jefferson is to blame and not one mention of taxes? I would be really surprised that some research wouldn't find that many of these office parks are bui

by dade_ 11y ago

Thomas Jefferson is to blame and not one mention of taxes? I would be really surprised that some research wouldn'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't really a mystery.

api 11y ago
You can also blame subsidies and zoning laws. Free highway and road construction counted as a massive subsidy for sprawl, and zoning laws force sprawl in many cases by outright prohibiting the location of any place of business where people live or any mixed-use development. Excessive sprawl is not a result of pure free market activity. The 'burbs are heavily subsidized, legally encouraged, and heavily regulated. My personal hypothesis is that the 'burbs served (intentionally or not) as a massive post-WWII work project to employ vast numbers of people in construction and real estate. (Not necessarily a free market fundamentalist ideologue, but this is one thing you can't blame on them.) I do agree with the article to a point though. America certainly has a nostalgic preoccupation with agrarian and rural life that has been used to sell the faux-ruralism pastiche of suburbia. It's a contributing factor in that it makes these ridiculous wastelands marketable.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  I agree with part of your post, but not all of it. Subsidies and zoning laws? Definitely. Suburban land was cheap, automobiles and fuel were cheap, hence Suburbia. The post-war US economy was booming, so you had families with higher-than-now purchasing power. Are people moving to cities because fuel and automobiles are more expensive compared to stagnant incomes? In some cases. It probably also helps that people value their time more (commute time/distance to services and social venues) and that there are more opportunities for work in cities than suburban and rural areas. I am curious to see what happens with remote work; I see a big push happening right now, at least in the tech sector. Not everything can be done remotely, but if the advantages are truly great enough, companies will compete against each other to hire quality remote workers (who can live anywhere its convenient for them).
  - davidw 11y ago
    I think api's post is pretty accurate. This book has a lot more detail: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0078XGJXO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0078XGJXO&linkCode=as2&tag=dedasys-20&linkId=2I3Z3BRMFGIPRBKX http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0078XGJXO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=...
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      I wish Hacker News would strip out affiliate codes.
      - davidw 11y ago
        We're capitalists here, mostly, so people don't mind. People who are just here to spam get turfed out pretty quickly. I don't recommend stuff that I don't think is pertinent to a conversation.
        toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > We're capitalists here, mostly, so people don't mind. I have never thought [citation required] was more necessary than with this comment. We're technology professionals or enthusiasts primarily here.
        davidw 11y ago
        I didn't mean capitalists in terms of a job - I'm a tech guy too - but in terms of being ok with capitalism and making money.
        toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > but in terms of being ok with capitalism and making money. That's exactly what I mean as well. I'm a socialist looking to replace jobs with cheap renewable energy, software, and robotics automation. Definitely not a capitalist. To each their own.
- Semiapies 11y ago
  This concurs with the arguments a very liberal city planner once convinced me with. His preference for a solution, of course, was different government pressure on where people live and work, rather than my preference of less pressure, but he was convincing on the nature of the problem.
- acveilleux 11y ago
  Also as a way to racially and economically segregate the population. Office park connect to residential suburbs where little Johnny and Lisa can get good schools and other white upper middle-class friends to play with.
jonknee 11y ago
How does that explain that these low tax buildings are now being left empty in favor of options in the higher tax cities? If they were so desirable they wouldn't be sitting empty.
- fluidcruft 11y ago
  There are a lot of empty old buildings downtown, too. I don't remember seeing any comparative data in the article beyond that employers seem to be reducing space/employee (they are of course also reducing the number of employees). Of course it makes sense to contract toward the center, that has nothing to do with preferences, it's just economic geography 101. With respect to the particular building mentioned in the article, it is hardly surprising at all that the NIH is contracting its footprint given recent funding history. Edit: As mentioned by another commenter, it turns out the NIH didn't move things downtown. Instead, it's just opened a brand new campus that's even further away.
- at-fates-hands 11y ago
  I would also add why big corporations are staring to build NEW multi-million dollar campuses instead of renovating a lot of these office parks. I live in Minnesota and United Health Care has done both. they've bought newer buildings that were vacated and just built a huge (72 acres) campus on the outskirts of the city: http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/print-edition/2011/09/02/uhg-to-create-72-acre-campus.html http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/print-edition/2011/09/... Cargill several years ago built a huge new campus at an abandoned Super Value production plant: http://www.opus-group.com/OurWork/Excelsior-Crossings http://www.opus-group.com/OurWork/Excelsior-Crossings Also, I've seen older 1970's corporate buildings demolished and there's an area in a nearby suburb where they're trying to rejuvenate the area where nearly all the buildings are empty with a $500 million project plan: Demolition: http://hillcrestdevelopment.com/pentagon-park-south-tower-demolition/ http://hillcrestdevelopment.com/pentagon-park-south-tower-de... Renovation of area buildings: http://hillcrestdevelopment.com/renovation/pentagon-park/ http://hillcrestdevelopment.com/renovation/pentagon-park/ Redevelopment Plan: http://www.startribune.com/edina-aims-at-a-signature-project-at-pentagon-park/262251471/ http://www.startribune.com/edina-aims-at-a-signature-project...
- 11y ago
jbooth 11y ago
"I would be really surprised that some research wouldn't find that many of these office parks are built outside of the borders of major cities to avoid paying taxes" If you were gonna throw out a spitball estimate for the 3 numbers: 1) Tax impact in city vs burbs 2) Cost of land / lease in city vs burbs 3) Company payroll/benefits What would you guess the ratio of #1 to #2 + #3 is?
- _dps 11y ago
  Their total value is irrelevant; what matters is the ROI you get from increasing or reducing each of them. I submit that taxes offer the lowest ROI of the three from the perspective of most businesses (but I admit that paying taxes to be in a good location can deliver ROI). So as a business manager you ask: what do we lose by exiting this tax jurisdiction and what do we gain? And most importantly, what's the ROI? If my margins are tiny (say, most retail and restaurants) then saving 2% of my budget per year on taxes can mean the difference between a 4% and 6% ROI if the other factors remain equal. That may sound like a small difference but it is not: it is as large as the spread between equities and bonds at most points in time (so if I'm only going to make 4% why be in business at all?) Why not just fire all my employees, use my budget to buy Walmart corp bonds, get 4%/year, and not have any management headaches or employer liabilities? As economists say, most decisions are made "on the margin"; so the total amount that goes into tax is not as relevant as how much can be gained or lost by shaving off tax liability vs other kinds of costs.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
astrodust 11y ago
Nobody cares about free parking unless they have a car. Nobody cares about having a 'big shiny building' as credibility often comes from having things like a solid product, or capital in the bank. The 1960s are over. Nobody cares about your crappy office tower in the middle of nowhere. The ones that did are retired.
- raverbashing 11y ago
  However, fitting the amount of people you need when you're successful is a problem with town offices (especially in Europe) Suburban office parks may have a lot of issues but it's where you can have lots of space for cheap (and sometimes you need this)
  - astrodust 11y ago
    I think a lot of people would rather work in a busy, noisy coffee shop than commute to or live in the suburbs to enjoy lots of cheap office space. The entire social structure that produced these towers, a well-paid, conservative, culturally unambitious middle class, is imploding. Now you have Millenials who value living and working closer to interesting coffee shops, restaurants, clubs, and bars than living in Nowhereville which has a Denny's, a Subway and a Dunkin Donuts as the only options. Plus they're so deep in student debt that buying a suburban house or leasing a car is not an option. They're stuck living in a cheap apartment that's typically in an urban area and living a more thrifty lifestyle. What little money they have goes towards entertainment and social activities. I'd rather work in a condemned office in the right location than some suburban hellhole where I had to drive a minimum of a half hour to and from work. At least the office in the right location could be renovated and spruced up. The suburban office will always be in the wrong spot.
    - raverbashing 11y ago
      I'm not disagreeing with you, but being able to work in a noisy coffee shop is an entitlement that not all are able to This is only possible for "knowledge workers". - You can't do this, for example, if you're a doctor/nurse - You can't do this if your job has a high level of secrecy required (that is, no peering eyes) - You can't do that if you require special equipment to do your job (think lab or shop). You can't take your big screen Mac with your fancy Wacom tablet there as well Also most work requires a collaboration level that's still not supported by infrastructure. It is possible but the companies haven't adapted Not to mention, remote work gets old. Quickly

by dade_ 11y ago

api 11y ago

You can also blame subsidies and zoning laws. Free highway and road construction counted as a massive subsidy for sprawl, and zoning laws force sprawl in many cases by outright prohibiting the location of any place of business where people live or any mixed-use development. Excessive sprawl is not a result of pure free market activity. The 'burbs are heavily subsidized, legally encouraged, and heavily regulated. My personal hypothesis is that the 'burbs served (intentionally or not) as a massive post-WWII work project to employ vast numbers of people in construction and real estate. (Not necessarily a free market fundamentalist ideologue, but this is one thing you can't blame on them.) I do agree with the article to a point though. America certainly has a nostalgic preoccupation with agrarian and rural life that has been used to sell the faux-ruralism pastiche of suburbia. It's a contributing factor in that it makes these ridiculous wastelands marketable.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
I agree with part of your post, but not all of it. Subsidies and zoning laws? Definitely. Suburban land was cheap, automobiles and fuel were cheap, hence Suburbia. The post-war US economy was booming, so you had families with higher-than-now purchasing power. Are people moving to cities because fuel and automobiles are more expensive compared to stagnant incomes? In some cases. It probably also helps that people value their time more (commute time/distance to services and social venues) and that there are more opportunities for work in cities than suburban and rural areas. I am curious to see what happens with remote work; I see a big push happening right now, at least in the tech sector. Not everything can be done remotely, but if the advantages are truly great enough, companies will compete against each other to hire quality remote workers (who can live anywhere its convenient for them).
- davidw 11y ago
  I think api's post is pretty accurate. This book has a lot more detail: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0078XGJXO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0078XGJXO&linkCode=as2&tag=dedasys-20&linkId=2I3Z3BRMFGIPRBKX http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0078XGJXO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=...
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    I wish Hacker News would strip out affiliate codes.
    - davidw 11y ago
      We're capitalists here, mostly, so people don't mind. People who are just here to spam get turfed out pretty quickly. I don't recommend stuff that I don't think is pertinent to a conversation.
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > We're capitalists here, mostly, so people don't mind. I have never thought [citation required] was more necessary than with this comment. We're technology professionals or enthusiasts primarily here.
        davidw 11y ago
        I didn't mean capitalists in terms of a job - I'm a tech guy too - but in terms of being ok with capitalism and making money.
        toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > but in terms of being ok with capitalism and making money. That's exactly what I mean as well. I'm a socialist looking to replace jobs with cheap renewable energy, software, and robotics automation. Definitely not a capitalist. To each their own.
Semiapies 11y ago
This concurs with the arguments a very liberal city planner once convinced me with. His preference for a solution, of course, was different government pressure on where people live and work, rather than my preference of less pressure, but he was convincing on the nature of the problem.
acveilleux 11y ago
Also as a way to racially and economically segregate the population. Office park connect to residential suburbs where little Johnny and Lisa can get good schools and other white upper middle-class friends to play with.

jonknee 11y ago

How does that explain that these low tax buildings are now being left empty in favor of options in the higher tax cities? If they were so desirable they wouldn't be sitting empty.

fluidcruft 11y ago
There are a lot of empty old buildings downtown, too. I don't remember seeing any comparative data in the article beyond that employers seem to be reducing space/employee (they are of course also reducing the number of employees). Of course it makes sense to contract toward the center, that has nothing to do with preferences, it's just economic geography 101. With respect to the particular building mentioned in the article, it is hardly surprising at all that the NIH is contracting its footprint given recent funding history. Edit: As mentioned by another commenter, it turns out the NIH didn't move things downtown. Instead, it's just opened a brand new campus that's even further away.
at-fates-hands 11y ago
I would also add why big corporations are staring to build NEW multi-million dollar campuses instead of renovating a lot of these office parks. I live in Minnesota and United Health Care has done both. they've bought newer buildings that were vacated and just built a huge (72 acres) campus on the outskirts of the city: http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/print-edition/2011/09/02/uhg-to-create-72-acre-campus.html http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/print-edition/2011/09/... Cargill several years ago built a huge new campus at an abandoned Super Value production plant: http://www.opus-group.com/OurWork/Excelsior-Crossings http://www.opus-group.com/OurWork/Excelsior-Crossings Also, I've seen older 1970's corporate buildings demolished and there's an area in a nearby suburb where they're trying to rejuvenate the area where nearly all the buildings are empty with a $500 million project plan: Demolition: http://hillcrestdevelopment.com/pentagon-park-south-tower-demolition/ http://hillcrestdevelopment.com/pentagon-park-south-tower-de... Renovation of area buildings: http://hillcrestdevelopment.com/renovation/pentagon-park/ http://hillcrestdevelopment.com/renovation/pentagon-park/ Redevelopment Plan: http://www.startribune.com/edina-aims-at-a-signature-project-at-pentagon-park/262251471/ http://www.startribune.com/edina-aims-at-a-signature-project...
11y ago

jbooth 11y ago

"I would be really surprised that some research wouldn't find that many of these office parks are built outside of the borders of major cities to avoid paying taxes" If you were gonna throw out a spitball estimate for the 3 numbers: 1) Tax impact in city vs burbs 2) Cost of land / lease in city vs burbs 3) Company payroll/benefits What would you guess the ratio of #1 to #2 + #3 is?

_dps 11y ago
Their total value is irrelevant; what matters is the ROI you get from increasing or reducing each of them. I submit that taxes offer the lowest ROI of the three from the perspective of most businesses (but I admit that paying taxes to be in a good location can deliver ROI). So as a business manager you ask: what do we lose by exiting this tax jurisdiction and what do we gain? And most importantly, what's the ROI? If my margins are tiny (say, most retail and restaurants) then saving 2% of my budget per year on taxes can mean the difference between a 4% and 6% ROI if the other factors remain equal. That may sound like a small difference but it is not: it is as large as the spread between equities and bonds at most points in time (so if I'm only going to make 4% why be in business at all?) Why not just fire all my employees, use my budget to buy Walmart corp bonds, get 4%/year, and not have any management headaches or employer liabilities? As economists say, most decisions are made "on the margin"; so the total amount that goes into tax is not as relevant as how much can be gained or lost by shaving off tax liability vs other kinds of costs.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

astrodust 11y ago

Nobody cares about free parking unless they have a car. Nobody cares about having a 'big shiny building' as credibility often comes from having things like a solid product, or capital in the bank. The 1960s are over. Nobody cares about your crappy office tower in the middle of nowhere. The ones that did are retired.

raverbashing 11y ago
However, fitting the amount of people you need when you're successful is a problem with town offices (especially in Europe) Suburban office parks may have a lot of issues but it's where you can have lots of space for cheap (and sometimes you need this)
- astrodust 11y ago
  I think a lot of people would rather work in a busy, noisy coffee shop than commute to or live in the suburbs to enjoy lots of cheap office space. The entire social structure that produced these towers, a well-paid, conservative, culturally unambitious middle class, is imploding. Now you have Millenials who value living and working closer to interesting coffee shops, restaurants, clubs, and bars than living in Nowhereville which has a Denny's, a Subway and a Dunkin Donuts as the only options. Plus they're so deep in student debt that buying a suburban house or leasing a car is not an option. They're stuck living in a cheap apartment that's typically in an urban area and living a more thrifty lifestyle. What little money they have goes towards entertainment and social activities. I'd rather work in a condemned office in the right location than some suburban hellhole where I had to drive a minimum of a half hour to and from work. At least the office in the right location could be renovated and spruced up. The suburban office will always be in the wrong spot.
  - raverbashing 11y ago
    I'm not disagreeing with you, but being able to work in a noisy coffee shop is an entitlement that not all are able to This is only possible for "knowledge workers". - You can't do this, for example, if you're a doctor/nurse - You can't do this if your job has a high level of secrecy required (that is, no peering eyes) - You can't do that if you require special equipment to do your job (think lab or shop). You can't take your big screen Mac with your fancy Wacom tablet there as well Also most work requires a collaboration level that's still not supported by infrastructure. It is possible but the companies haven't adapted Not to mention, remote work gets old. Quickly