SAN FRANCISCO—San Francisco and Boston are both seeing a significant upsurge in city location, yet their suburbs are also bursting with energy. That is according to panelists at the recent Worktech14 West Coast conference here.

Google, Facebook and Apple are building supersized presence in the suburbs, while also having outputs in the city, said panelists. Boston and Cambridge, for example, are bursting with small firms, yet the suburbs still house major campuses.

London, speakers said, is a growing presence for firms but Cambridge grows at an even faster rate. “Cornell's new STEM campus in Manhattan is an outpost (although a significant one) of the main rural based campus.”

Speakers at the event included: Steve Monaco, head of global real estate and workplace services at Motorola Mobility; Prarthana Johnson, senior design manager of Microsoft; Ford Fish, SVP of real estate at Salesforce.com; Gervais Tompkin, principle at Gensler; Philip Ross,futurologist & CEO of UNGROUP; Lori Gee, VP of applied insight at Herman Miller Inc.; Michael Joroff, senior lecturer at MIT Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning; and Kristine Woolsey, behavioural strategist at CarrierJohnson + CULTURE among others.

According to speakers, suburbs will continue to be viable when they complement what goes on in their core cities, when the campuses become more lively and mixed use, and when they house a major anchor/magnet company or university”.

Woolsey noted that “40% of all Americans between 18 and 36 prefer an urban setting. Despite a higher state tax base the biggest biotech companies, who need the smartest people, choose to locate in San Diego, Boston, and San Francisco. They have to go where the talent wants to live.”

Primo Orpilla, principal and cofounder of Studio O+A said that “Urban core expansion is definitely where the demographics are taking us. The young workforce is very city-oriented and as responsible energy use becomes more and more of a priority long commutes by car and big energy consuming suburban homes are going to be less relevant to the world we live in. That said, I don't think suburban corporate campuses are going away. My guess is that suburban towns will increasingly develop a kind of village culture that will be more self-contained and less dependent on the large cities nearby. Some people still like a yard. Some people still like a mall.  A well-designed campus can be an attractive place to work.”

As GlobeSt.com previously reported prior to the event, when asked what were the main challenges facing corporate occupiers today, speaker Bryant Rice, founder and principal of Equal C, said that “Differentiation is the most elusive of characteristics. How do corporations communicate the relative value of participation, as a client, partner or employee to their respective markets, how do they align with brand to create a meaningful experience to all their stakeholders?”

We the question was also posed to speaker Michael Joroff, senior lecturer of the MIT Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, he described the challenges as “finding the right balance between use value (how space supports work practice) and financial value (how much it costs); understanding the corporate culture that supports business success; and recognizing that the business model and the product/service are the keys to success; support such as the workplace is instrumental.”