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Remote work is gutting downtowns

businessinsider.com

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Re: Remote work is gutting downtowns

#241

Post by dataexporter »

cyberpunk wrote: post #211
ar_lan wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in the Bay Area, I really can't afford to live close to my office. I have to drive to Palo Alto from San Jose (or take the train). Pre-pandemic, my drive averaged 1hr to the office, and 1.5hrs back. So, I'm wasting 2.5 hrs of my life every day... to do the same exact job I do from home (not to mention cost of gas/car maintenance). I also get more done at home, because I haven't reduced my hours any, but I don'…

I really love it how even on days where our team is in the office, if just one person can't make it (quite likely) then almost all the meetings are virtual anyway. Sitting in a room together with headphones in zoom meetings! Brilliant. :D

Some conference rooms have good video conferencing facilities, so no headphones in the same room though. But I get your point, it is a pain to commute all the way to be on zoom calls.

Re: Remote work is gutting downtowns

#242

Post by fundad »

Lastodon wrote: post #6

Good. Feel the "hand of the free market" at last throttling the antiquated obese market that is business property. As automation and communication improves, so should corporate policy restructure and reform into the most efficient system. Dragging people across the country every day and filling the air with burnt dinosaur just because the old people in power can't figure out how to adapt is pathetic. New management s…

The problem is the tax base shrinks but police budgets never do.

Re: Remote work is gutting downtowns

#243

Post by fundad »

polski-g wrote: post #198

Cities now compete for people, instead of corporations. This is a net positive. If cities want to do civilizational-destroying activities like not prosecuting shoplifting or eliminating cash bail, then they can suffer the consequences of not having any residential tax revenue.

In-person office jobs are a product and office space and restaurant lunches are accessories to that product. Demand is trending away from those products.

Cities are going to have to offer more than just expensive housing for boomers and brunchers. Cities need to be a place where anyone can afford a place to live and start a business and a family. Residential housing should not be left to the commercial sector.

Re: Remote work is gutting downtowns

#244

Post by lamontcg »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #227
lamontcg wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, the "initial viral load" is much smaller, giving your body more time to mount an effective defense. That's a myth from the early pandemic. Viral dose doesn't correlate with disease severity: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-11-relationship-viral-do...

But: the likelihood of becoming infected may rise with the size of that "dose." So a small dose might still prime the immune system even if you don't get sick.

> the likelihood of becoming infected may rise with the size of that "dose."

This is correct.

> So a small dose might still prime the immune system even if you don't get sick.

This does not follow.

If you don't get infected following a small dose, you'll have fought it off with your innane or intrinsic defenses. You won't generate any humoral immunity, form T-cells or B-cells or neutralizing antibodies and won't be any better off for the next round with the virus.

Re: Remote work is gutting downtowns

#245

Post by bryanlarsen »

mikeryan wrote: post #84
timinou wrote: post #5

Title slightly misleading... The article makes the point that downtowns are turning from office to social centres and the $453B figure is more of an investment in repurposing offices and rethinking urban spaces for that purpose. I welcome these changes... Yes we'll need to rethink our urbanism, but if anything this switch feels like a coming back of what our urban centers are supposed to provide us. Imagine parking s…

Not sure what you read there but the roughly $500B figure is a real loss in the commercial real-estate sector as leases some off the books. It’s a slow burn. There’s an additional expense to try to repurpose these building as residential but it’s a massive one that won’t come easily. You can’t just turn modern office buildings into residential building by reworking the interior. Most wouldn’t meet residential codes (…

It's easier to turn office buildings into luxury apartments than into affordable ones -- a single 3000 square foot apartment has more layout flexibility, fewer plumbing & parking requirements, fewer emergency exits than five 600 square foot ones, et cetera.

Advocates aren't going to be happy about 3000 square foot luxury apartments rather than affordable ones...

Re: Remote work is gutting downtowns

#246

Post by mantas »

woodruffw wrote: post #187
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teens live online now. Your youth experience is not the same as that of the youth today. It's generational snobbery to impose a previous generation's preferences on modern youth.

This isn't a response: "living online" is a cultural metaphor for increased use of technology, not a preference w/r/t suburban vs. other living situations. Last time I checked, teenagers still eat food and socialize in the physical world. It's not a huge reach to understand how suburbs stifle and constrain that (nor has that changed particularly in the last 20 years).

No food in suburbia?

Re: Remote work is gutting downtowns

#247

Post by 8bitsrule »

Barcelona has undertaken a re-working of it's central district. Good idea!

"Barcelona has launched an ambitious 10-year plan to reclaim the city’s streets from cars and cut down pollution with the creation of green spaces and public squares.

One in three streets in the heavily polluted central Eixample district – the 20th-century grid devised by the engineer Ildefons Cerdà – will become green zones under the scheme, giving priority to pedestrians and cyclists, and 21 public squares will be created at intersections...."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/11/barcelona-laun...

Re: Remote work is gutting downtowns

#248

Post by esperent »

mikeryan wrote: post #84
timinou wrote: post #5

Title slightly misleading... The article makes the point that downtowns are turning from office to social centres and the $453B figure is more of an investment in repurposing offices and rethinking urban spaces for that purpose. I welcome these changes... Yes we'll need to rethink our urbanism, but if anything this switch feels like a coming back of what our urban centers are supposed to provide us. Imagine parking s…

Not sure what you read there but the roughly $500B figure is a real loss in the commercial real-estate sector as leases some off the books. It’s a slow burn. There’s an additional expense to try to repurpose these building as residential but it’s a massive one that won’t come easily. You can’t just turn modern office buildings into residential building by reworking the interior. Most wouldn’t meet residential codes (…

If ever there was an industry that I feel zero sympathy for when I hear about them taking a loss, it's large scale real-estate, especially the ones who own large urban centres and turned them into grey wastelands of offices, parking, and shopping.

Re: Remote work is gutting downtowns

#249

Post by favflam »

tootie wrote: post #24
osigurdson wrote: post #7

So, what is the solution? Force everyone back into the pointless office at enormous cost to employees and employers just to keep the status quo for landlords. The bottom line is downtown is a place where people work with information. Since it is possible to work with information anywhere, this place isn't needed (and hasn't been for a long time). Downtown obsolete.

Convert offices to apartments to alleviate the housing supply shortage.

I bet Americans, especially those <30yrs old, will appreciate having a sub 600 USD a month apartment in a big city with no parking, shared kitchen, and share bathroom. Because the alternative is having a roommate and paying 1000 USD+.

Re: Remote work is gutting downtowns

#250

Post by jen20 »

rd wrote: post #192
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And nowhere for them to go by themselves? Living in the suburbs as a tween/teenager is death.

Honestly, incredibly untrue. Everyone adapts. I grew up in a suburb-y suburb (northern virginia) 4-5 years ago. You bike to the local community center with your friends, you drive once you're 15 back from school, to the movies, to the basketball court. The real benefit is in actually being in proper nature. My backyard had trees, and miles of walking trails, and ponds to fish in just a 5 minute walk from my front doo…

I grew up in a British suburb. One may not drive in the UK until 17, and the cost of insurance makes that basically impossible for all but the very wealthy. Even with that said they seem better than the suburbs where I live now in the US.

It was frankly so miserable I have resolved never to live in anything even remotely approaching a suburb again - in the UK I’d countenance the idea of living in a village with at least two pubs, but actually live in a city where I can walk to dozens of different events, bars etc every night if I want to and never see a situation where I would accept anything less.

The NYC suburbs are vastly different to suburbs in TX or CA, of course, and many are much more livable simply due to having a train to NYC.

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