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How Manhattan Became a Rich Ghost Town

theatlantic.com

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Re: How Manhattan Became a Rich Ghost Town

#31

Post by Agathos »

pavlov wrote: post #12
village-idiot wrote: post #4

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?

Sounds more like Luigi Zingales, who is about as far from Marx as you can get.

Re: How Manhattan Became a Rich Ghost Town

#32

Post by njn »

ardit33 wrote: post #18

I live in manhattan and I feel this story is a bit exaggerated, or at least I don't see the author's reality. (Him quoting a Real Estate firm, which is interested in activity, doesn't give credence to the data). 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 i…

Right, cause coffee is so hard to make yourself.

I guess I'll never understand the point of hipster coffee shops. I'm all for cozy cafes, but all the hipster style coffee places, like 9th st. espresso, are the opposite of that: more catering to the trendy, minimalist, i3-gaps ikea aesthetics of the mainstream of /r/unixporn.

Re: How Manhattan Became a Rich Ghost Town

#33

Post by djrogers »

Itaxpica wrote: post #21
roenxi wrote: post #3

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?

Landlords can take tax write-offs for empty properties, so they’re incentivized to sit on empty storefronts until the perfect long-term lease comes along rather than rent to a less ideal shorter-term tenant.

A tax write off is going to be worth, at best, ~35% of the value gained from actually leasing the property. That makes it considerably worse to hold on to.

Re: How Manhattan Became a Rich Ghost Town

#34

Post by blindwatchmaker »

ardit33 wrote: post #18

I live in manhattan and I feel this story is a bit exaggerated, or at least I don't see the author's reality. (Him quoting a Real Estate firm, which is interested in activity, doesn't give credence to the data). 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 i…

> 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.

Is that supposed to be a positive thing? Sounds pretty unstable and a terrible detriment to developing an actual neighbourhood.

Re: How Manhattan Became a Rich Ghost Town

#35

Post by huehehue »

ardit33 wrote: post #18

I live in manhattan and I feel this story is a bit exaggerated, or at least I don't see the author's reality. (Him quoting a Real Estate firm, which is interested in activity, doesn't give credence to the data). 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 i…

I've noticed a lot of nail salons, barber shops, cheap takeout places, and similar somehow managing to stay afloat despite being located in low-income areas with little foot traffic (in Manhattan). They're also usually empty.

Is there some common situation where store owners can enjoy extremely low rent? Or is it common for people to inherit commercial space? Or perhaps these places are changing owners behind the scenes.

*The author does claim these businesses thrive because "you won’t find their services on Amazon", but he's probably referring to the shops with customers.

Re: How Manhattan Became a Rich Ghost Town

#36

Post by sergius »

njn wrote: post #32
ardit33 wrote: post #18

I live in manhattan and I feel this story is a bit exaggerated, or at least I don't see the author's reality. (Him quoting a Real Estate firm, which is interested in activity, doesn't give credence to the data). 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 i…

Right, cause coffee is so hard to make yourself. I guess I'll never understand the point of hipster coffee shops. I'm all for cozy cafes, but all the hipster style coffee places, like 9th st. espresso, are the opposite of that: more catering to the trendy, minimalist, i3-gaps ikea aesthetics of the mainstream of /r/unixporn.

They provide a place to sit and use free WiFi...

Re: How Manhattan Became a Rich Ghost Town

#37

Post by djrogers »

qubax wrote: post #28
olivermarks wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are seeing the same pressures and bland out in San Francisco

I hear LA ( downtown ) is turning into manhattan as well. The earth is turning into a world of boring stale cookie cutter cities full of starbucks and mcdonalds.

LA’s downtown barely existed at all 20 years ago, and now it’s bustling and vibrant.

Re: How Manhattan Became a Rich Ghost Town

#38

Post by apineda »

village-idiot wrote: post #4

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…

Debt based capitalism. Print money and everything flips upside down.

Re: How Manhattan Became a Rich Ghost Town

#39

Post by addicted »

njn wrote: post #32
ardit33 wrote: post #18

I live in manhattan and I feel this story is a bit exaggerated, or at least I don't see the author's reality. (Him quoting a Real Estate firm, which is interested in activity, doesn't give credence to the data). 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 i…

Right, cause coffee is so hard to make yourself. I guess I'll never understand the point of hipster coffee shops. I'm all for cozy cafes, but all the hipster style coffee places, like 9th st. espresso, are the opposite of that: more catering to the trendy, minimalist, i3-gaps ikea aesthetics of the mainstream of /r/unixporn.

This was always the case. Coffee shops are more about hanging out and finding a casual environment to work than about the coffee.

You could replace the coffee with an hourly charge and it would probably have the same effect, except people are not really used to paying for a place to sit, so coffee becomes the way to extract the money.

At least that’s how I, as someone who doesn’t drink coffee but finds himself in coffee shops all the time, perceive it.

Re: How Manhattan Became a Rich Ghost Town

#40

Post by aylmao »

sarabande wrote: post #2

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…

A look at the financial district in NYC reveals this. During the day the place is very active, but during the night the whole thing dies out.
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