Many people want to live in cities, including remote workers. They like being in a lively place. If anything, they leave big cities because rents are incredibly high.
Remote work’s toll on cities
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Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#32Some cities, perhaps. I live in a large (for the Midwest) city in the heartland and previously, being a software engineer around here topped out at ~150k if you had 25 years of experience. (This was literally quoted to me by our most “illustrious” local company, which is just a big government/bigco contracting place). I got very lucky in finding a highly unusual job paying >>> median wage (but still very light compar…
I am planning on living on a farming locale like yours. Being a software professional what is your internet connectivity like ? If wanted to run a fiber how much would that cost ?
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love more concentrated neighborhoods like I’ve seen in many places across Europe many other places across Europe dont have this or most people arent conveniently located but my point is that this doesn't seem to be an option at all in the US, unless you are in a nice development within one or two cities. not an option in the suburbs anywhere to my knowledge.
That's correct. US zoning laws have banned the construction of dense urban neighborhoods and required car-centric suburban neighborhood plans since about World War II. Mandatory density limits and setbacks and numbers of parking spaces and square feet per occupant and other zoning regulations make it illegal to build anything other than low density suburbs. Many people still want to live in a dense, walkable neighbor…
> US zoning laws...
That's an incredibly broad statement since most zoning is handled on the state, county or city level. There are plenty of places in the US where someone could build an equivalent SF or NYC and yet they don't.
> The few prewar walkable cities that still function such as New York and San Francisco are very expensive as a result.
You seem to be drawing a causal link here, walkable leads to desirable and expensive. Yet, as I mentioned before, not only is it possible to build walkable cities in many states, there are plenty of other walkable cities that aren't expensive or desirable.
I suspect that SF and NYC being the both historic and a hub of two giant economic engines of the US, the tech and financial sectors respectively, has a lot more to do with the pricing of those areas than their walkability.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#34> cities must let developers convert office buildings into housing This is an Activist piece - not an Analysis piece. You cannot trust facts reported in an article that's advocating change. It cherry picks a number of facts in order to further the arguments.
> convert office buildings into housing
Can't be done. Office buildings of significant size are not engineered for 24/7 human occupation. The sewer will be inadequate. The water will be inadequate. Retrofitting this would be spectacularly expensive, if it's even possible, as mechanical and plumbing chases are sized for the original design requirements and are difficult (if not impossible) to alter. It may be possible to do if residents were willing to use shared bathrooms, but they will not be.
HVAC is not sized for 24/7 habitation either. Neither are electrical requirements. Stoves produce a lot of unaccounted for BTUs. They require larger electrical service. The electrical service has to be metered individually, which requires quite a lot of space.
Also, when some natural disaster hits and the city loses power? You can't go home. Your home is 50 floors up. Nobody is walking that. The elevators are sized according to different rules than residency, so there are not enough of them, and they won't all be on a generator anyway.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#35Nah. It will become living spaces rather than office spaces. Especially for people who love the density of city living.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#36Another headline: Remote work to invigorate America’s smaller communities
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#37Some cities, perhaps. I live in a large (for the Midwest) city in the heartland and previously, being a software engineer around here topped out at ~150k if you had 25 years of experience. (This was literally quoted to me by our most “illustrious” local company, which is just a big government/bigco contracting place). I got very lucky in finding a highly unusual job paying >>> median wage (but still very light compar…
I'm both excited for you and worried that over the medium to long term, companies will adjust the pay down to match people's locales and such salaries will be lower over time from more competition. But as I said, excited for you as it currently stands :-)
The real concern is that companies that are 100% remote will pick Romaina and not Iowa.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#38The first time I heard this prediction was in 1994 when the city of Atlanta told workers to stay at home and work remotely over the internet to relieve congestion during the Olympics. Still waiting.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#39Remote work has the potential to make neighborhoods more dynamic. With more people at home, there's more demand for nearby coffee shops, entertainment, food options. I prefer the decentralized neighborhood approach to the hub and spoke model where you commute to a big city from the boring suburbs.
Then you run into local zoning. I for one would love more mixed zoning in neighborhoods on city boundaries, but too many entrenched interests at the moment
I live in the UK and local shops, restaurants are ubuiquitous. Is that really something that is actively legislated against in the US?
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#40Mh, allow me a question; let's say almost all offices would be abandoned and converted to residential buildings: who will reside there?
Modern cities have economy of scale as main reason to exists. Most western word is evolved toward tertiary sector, most cities have experienced such trend more than the rest of the country. Cities still have some social purposes of course, being many means meet more people to select as friends, partner, have some services that are unlikely in the countryside etc but the main raison d'être was economy of scale.
Without offices who need much of restaurants, health-related services, shopping malls etc? Here (EU) it's a not-that-recent trend that large malls, supermarket etc disappear or suffer and get split in more smaller instances spread in the territory BUT even if we do so WHO will reside in cities?
Who want to live in an apartment instead of a home to WFH anyway, also counting the fact that many services will closed in cities due to lack of office workers?