I am reminded of a HBR study showing headquarters of major firms all tended to move closer to the home of the CEO even if that impacted retention - will have to find the reference.
I am reminded of Motorola (oh, how the mighty have fallen) years ago, when they decided to open up manufacturing plants in Libertyville and Harvard IL.
What were the deciding criteria?
Communities with good amenities (parks, schools, etc.)? Nope, middle of farm-ville Illinois. Nothing wrong with that, I'm from a small town.
Good access to existing talent? Nope. Far away from Chicago and the other tech employers in the region.
Easy access to transportation (planes, trains, automobiles)? Nope. Way off the highways.
Close proximity to the CEO's house? Yup.
As a side note, how is reddit on "asynchronous working" (if that's what remote working is called these days). How would the board have felt about the move if Reddit was more ready for being location-agnostic?
Edit: it seems I misunderstood your comment (and probably the geography of SF.) So if I understand it Reddit already was remote-friendly but both CEO and board wanted to have everyone in same office (which office being the point of contention). May I ask why you were going the "unusual" route of from remote to centralised - is Melissa Mayer right?
Edit: William Whyte in collected articles (Exoding Metropolis). Noted downthread as in a Joel Spolsky article. I am always late to the party :-)
Cf http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EsvEFIamv3oC&pg=PA38&lpg=...