11–20 of 153 posts
Eventually the tourists will stop coming, because there are other parts of town with more atmosphere. Businesses will start moving out to other parts of town because of the cost of rent and lack of customers (due to no residents or tourists), and eventually the "city center" will defacto move. The only people who will lose out are the people who used it to park their money!
I actually think that we no longer live in a capitalistic system. A lot of firms continue to behave in ways that capitalism should punish, but doesn’t. My current running theory is that our economy is more based around rent extraction, largely from land and companies that wield effective monopolies or oligopolies, rather than competition. This explains why we keep seeing things that make no sense from a capitalist po…
Is there some legal issue at play here that the article isn't drawing attention to? Why is it a better idea to leave a property vacant than to have a short-term tenant?
Put another way, any business that only wants a very short term lease is probably not a business you want to lease to.
I actually think that we no longer live in a capitalistic system. A lot of firms continue to behave in ways that capitalism should punish, but doesn’t. My current running theory is that our economy is more based around rent extraction, largely from land and companies that wield effective monopolies or oligopolies, rather than competition. This explains why we keep seeing things that make no sense from a capitalist po…
Sounds like you're discovering Marx independently?
I’m also heavily informed by the Anarchist Sociologist David Graeber’s book of “Bullshit Jobs, a Theory”. He points out that a significant percentage of jobs—he estimated 40%—don’t even serve an economic purpose, let alone a moral or social one. This is something that capitalism in theory should not allow, which is why I think we’re trending to somewhere else.
Here's my opinion on what will happen on a longer time scale: Eventually the tourists will stop coming, because there are other parts of town with more atmosphere. Businesses will start moving out to other parts of town because of the cost of rent and lack of customers (due to no residents or tourists), and eventually the "city center" will defacto move. The only people who will lose out are the people who used it to…
Obviously the key NYC tourist targets aren't moving, but anecdotally I am seeing an uptick of tourists in my 'hood. For what it's worth.
It seems to me like in big cities, as this article describes what eventually will happen is the rich will buy up the property because nobody else can afford it, service workers won't be able to actually live within a reasonable distance in order to work there, and the city will exist mainly for 1) wealthy professionals, 2) people who use real estate to park their money, and 3) tourists. Regular working-class folk dis…
Anecdotally, that doesn't really seem to be the problem with New York and definitely not the problem the article is talking about. Ground-level stores don't seem to be suffering from staffing issues, largely because in New York it's not uncommon to work in Manhattan but live in Staten Island or Jersey. Instead, ground-level stores seem to be disappearing because commercial lease agreements are just insanely expensive…
It seems to me like in big cities, as this article describes what eventually will happen is the rich will buy up the property because nobody else can afford it, service workers won't be able to actually live within a reasonable distance in order to work there, and the city will exist mainly for 1) wealthy professionals, 2) people who use real estate to park their money, and 3) tourists. Regular working-class folk dis…
The turnaround of restaurants and bars here is amazingly fast. When one fails, another one springs up. The same street will have very different storefronts each year. I once asked a restaurant owner, on how is this possible. He told me: Rent is expensive, and if you open a restaurant that is not doing well (attracting the clientele to afford staying afloat), is it much better to shut it down otherwise it becomes a huge money pit. What often happens is this: One person signs a long term lease for some kind of business (retail, food, whatever). The business is not doing well, he decided to shut it down and sub-lease the space. (this is easier when the market rates have risen). The second guy does give a try to his dream bar/restaurant/retail. If it doesn't work, he is forced to shut it down as well, rinse and repeat until you have a business that has the right winning formula and sticks around. This is 'creative destruction' on steroids.
What I have seen in manhattan since I moved here in 2013: More hipster style coffee shops. More pizza places. Less "cheap" retail, and more luxury good stores.
So, he is right, that cheap retail is generally pushed out because of the amazon effect, but in the other hand things like "thrift / second hand clothes" stores, are doing well.
What is replacing those 'cheap' stores is generally things in the food business: Cupcake stores, Ice Scream Parlors, Yogurt bars, and yes nail saloons as well.
But my success story (at least for my part), are coffee places. Birch Coffee, Tobby's Estate, Greggory's Coffee, etc.... all started in NYC, and they are striving and opening in countless locations.
Manhattan now is just a place where people from the outer boroughs, nj, connecticut, etc come to work and then go home.
For a city that pretends to "never sleep", it is just a dead city at night.
Queens, brooklyn, etc is more lively and other cities around the world like prague, barcelona, seoul, tokyo, osaka, etc are far more vibrant.
Manhattan is just a hellhole now for the world's wealthy and annoying tourists who are too stupid to realize that sbarro's isn't real ny pizza and all the worthless trinkets they buy are trash. But at least there is a bank every other corner.
The sad part is manhattan is a blueprint other cities love to copy so in 10 or 20 years, most cities around the world will be boring tourist traps like manhattan.
Is there some legal issue at play here that the article isn't drawing attention to? Why is it a better idea to leave a property vacant than to have a short-term tenant?
I've just made some numbers up now but last time I went through renting and buying decisions, this is what it kind felt like.