Facebook is planning to found a city in the Silicon Valley

After spending seventeen years expanding its internet presence, becoming in the meantime one of the most powerful companies in the world, Facebook will start expanding into urban planning: the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg has announced the upcoming foundation of Willow Village, a community that will be located near the headquarters of Menlo Park, in Silicon Valley. The site will be developed on a 59-acre area and will be developed by Facebook in collaboration with Signature Development Group and will include, along with 1729 apartments, supermarkets, restaurants, shops and a 193-room hotel, also bike paths and an elevated park similar to Manhattan's High Line as well as a building of over 166 thousand square meters that includes a huge glass dome. 

After the original draft of the project, some residents of the nearby areas had complained that the new village founded by Facebook would worsen the viability and raise house prices, and that is why, in a subsequent project that should be approved in the coming weeks by the town hall of Menlo Park, the space dedicated to offices has been reduced by 30% and 200 housing units have been added along with open services even to non-residents such as supermarkets, pharmacies and a town square. Facebook's project is part of a larger movement by tech giants to create livable communities in California: recently Google obtained approval from San Jose City Hall to proceed with the construction of Downtown West, a city within the city 80 acres and equipped with 4000 homes.