Like the old saying goes, "A new headquarters with lot of parking spaces leads to corporate bankruptcy, as night follows day". Everyone knows this. Apple's only chance for surviving was to have transformed Cupertino from a sprawling suburb into a walkable urban village. But they blew it.

A successful corporation would have taken all of Cupertino's houses (but not their garages!) and squeezed them all closer together. So last century to have not done that.

I'm going to go get a Samsung Android phone because their offices don't have all that parking. Samsung actually built they're own city-state, looking forward to when there is no government or any kind of organization except your employer. Samsung Digital City is a *real* spaceship. You can be born there, live, work for Samsung, marry a Samsung coworker, raise a family of future Samsung employees, and then die right there, without ever setting foot outside.

What were we talking about again?

Classic Charles. A friend of mine is doing some of the engineering and architecture for the trees going in at the site, and the campus itself will be pretty cool. I'm not sure what this "corporate architecture" thing he's talking about is.

Are there any good examples of that will help us feel the weight of this apparent loss?

Anyway, especially compared to what surrounds it, the Apple campus is going to be a big step up.

That Cupertino is ugly and unwalkable isn't Apple's fault either. I'm sure they'd finance construction of 13,000 housing units in a hot second if Cupertino would let them. And I can hardly blame Charles for preferring the city.

You should be spending more time outraged at stuff like this, as it's what is going to kill the South Bay if anything is: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-c…

P.S. Welcome to San Francisco. Need restaurant or bar recs?

Charles, the story you linked to states that "Apple was required by Cupertino city law to provide ample parking when building its new headquarters." That story in turn links to a City of Cupertino webpage detailing parking requirements.

Care to explain why you elected to omit this fact from your rant?

Cupertino sucks. If Apple had any interest in courting talent beyond coasting on "just being Apple", they'd recognize that young people hate the suburbs. Apple Park should have been Apple tower, and it should have been in SF

Isn't the important question whether the employees like it?

@6

Yes, but finding that out would require our Charles to pick up a telephone and make a lot of phone calls, some of which wouldn't be returned immediately.

He's just not cut out for that kind of work, the poor thing.

@5 Yeah okay, dude.

Good article, Charles.
Ignore the assholes.

"It looks pleasant to spend my working hours inside that giant ring", said no one.

Reports do indicate that many Apple employees dislike the new headquarters, mostly because management has decided that employees below the VP level will work at long shared tables rather than having their own offices (as they mostly did previously) or even cubicles.