Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg new solution may stop rising housing costs, people moving to cities for jobs

Mark Zuckerberg hopes of leveraging augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) in the new decade to let people be present anywhere they want to be without being physically there. “Instead of having devices that take us away from the people around us, the next platform will help us be more present with each other and will help the technology get out of the way,” Zuckerberg said in his new year Facebook post on Friday. This hinted towards Facebook building a new AR/VR platform for people to be virtually able to reach anywhere where technology allows.

The ability to be present in a place without actually being there will, in fact, help resolve social issues currently such as rising housing costs and inequality of opportunity by geography. Telepresence via AR/VR could help people to work remotely and also solve the problem of affordable housing in densely populated cities. “Today, many people feel like they have to move to cities because that’s where the jobs are. But there isn’t enough housing in many cities, so housing costs are skyrocketing while the quality of living is decreasing. Imagine if you could live anywhere you chose and access any job anywhere else,” Zuckerberg wrote. Even as it looks like a scene from a sci-fi movie, Facebook head believed this should be closer to becoming reality by 2030 “if we deliver on what we’re building.”