Everywhere in the Bay Area has a severe housing shortage. Even with $150k+ salaries, there are very limited housing options available on the peninsula.

The Bay Area's land-use policies are directly responsible for the absurdly high housing costs and terrible road congestion. Too many jobs are in office parks, too many houses are in far-flung and low-density areas.

If Facebook can build 1000 apartment homes that would allow their employees to walk to work, they stand to benefit in huge ways. If that development can help subsidize 200 apartment homes for people who have been displaced by the skewed housing market, all the better.

At least that's how I read their motivations.

There’s a housing crisis and employees are affected. If they want more people to work at Menlo Park, they need to address it.

I don't know about Facebook, but Google is under pressure to reduce traffic from employee commutes. There's a cap on traffic in North Bayshore, and if some employees walk to work, there's less traffic.

I imagine Facebook has similar considerations. Housing and traffic are major issues in Silicon Valley.

because "they're likely to be attractive to employees who want to live within walking distance.", which is good for retention and recruitment.

Plus, the types of companies we're talking about have wads of cash that they're not returning to shareholders (yet). Real estate investments could provide better returns than a a number of other financial instruments. Win-win. :)