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Remote work’s toll on cities

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Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#181

Post by candiodari »

courgette wrote: post #80
avalys wrote: post #53

These conversations are kind of like the airplane on the treadmill problem, where there are (approximately) two orthogonal sets of assumptions/preferences that lead to obvious but incompatible conclusions, and people end up yelling at each other over the conclusions without realizing the difference is just the underlying assumptions. Personally - I don't want to live in a city, or a town, or even a neighborhood. I do…

I don't find suburbs boring. I find them soul-less. I grew up in rural France. Small village have shops, bars, services like post-office, hair-dresser and whatnot. It's not a dichotomy between things and absence of things. Suburbs would be fine in my own personal book if they were offering basic services and a sense of comunauty.( not in warehouse operated by large chain, but by people living there and earning a live…

> I grew up in rural France. Small village have shops, bars, services like post-office, hair-dresser and whatnot. It's not a dichotomy between things and absence of things.

Ah, comparing France of 30 years ago with US today. Reality: France has changed. I mean, this model hasn't totally died, but it's in it's last spasms.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#182

Post by cozzyd »

x0x0 wrote: post #170
snowwrestler wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building infrastructure is scoped for maximum occupancy at a point-in-time, not over time. And maximum occupancy is typically denser in an office than residential. Put another way, what matters is the maximum volume the electrical, sewer, HVAC, elevators, emergency power, etc can handle. If it is scoped to handle 1,000 people for 8 hours of a day, it will do just fine for 300 people 24 hours per day. > Also, when som…

Nobody is saying residential buildings don't exist. The claim -- which all the experts seem to back -- is you can't convert large office buildings to residential. For some of the reasons parent says, plus more importantly, you only have a habitable outer shell or donut given light requirements. And it's extremely expensive to take water and sewer, which are all located in the core, and distribute them out to each fut…

It depends. Smaller scale prewar office buildings work pretty well (I live in one). 80's postmodern towers not so much. At least here (downtown Chicago), it's mostly prewar office buildings that are obsolete for modern office use and are being converted to residential and hotel.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#183

Post by woodruffw »

thegginthesky wrote: post #76
mistrial9 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

humorous way to say it, since architects and their cousins, urban planners, have had vast and creative ideas for decades, while local government, real estate sales and their colleagues, real estate lending have crushed their hopes with coffee each day. source: professional urban planning office in California

Yeah, GP has no idea what they are talking about. I lived with urban planners and architects for 20 years, read books about zoning, about the effects of urbanization on aquifers and rivers, about the differences between cities that grew organically like São Paulo or Mexico City vs cities that were bulldozed to fit a central plan like NYC. Never ONCE in my life I had read contemporary literature or heard a urban plann…

I agree with your comment, but: I don't think NYC was bulldozed to fit a central plan. The city's (really, just Manhattan's) street plan was developed in 1807 and finalized in 1811[1], at a time when most of the island was still wetlands and marsh.

(That's not to praise the Commissioners' plan, per se, but only to observe that no dense city was bulldozed to enact it.)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioners%27_Plan_of_1811

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#184

Post by scythe »

bart_spoon wrote: post #166
SoftTalker wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people still want to live in a dense, walkable neighborhood I believe this is not true. Some people want this, yes, and it may be that they are overrepresented here or tend to form bubbles so that they think this view is predominant. If a majority of people wanted it, it would happen due to the majority electing people to their local governments that support it.

This assumes there is a strong link between government policy and the way constituents vote, which there is increasing cause to doubt, particularly at the local level.

More importantly, it assumes you can vote on the result of a policy, when in reality you can at best vote on the policy. For example, you can elect politicians who promise to lower gas prices, but in practice, their influence is limited. A more relevant example is that people may want to vote themselves lower housing prices, but who vote to restrict development in ways that ultimately increases the cost of housing.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#185

Post by marstall »

koheripbal wrote: post #22

> 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.

welcome to ... language itself?

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#186

Post by marstall »

deltarholamda wrote: post #34
koheripbal wrote: post #22

> 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…

What about all the industrial lofts that were converted into residences beginning in the 80s? Not every commercial building is a skyscraper.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#187

Post by woodruffw »

kkfx wrote: post #98
cozzyd wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people live in service-devoid suburbs. Services follow density of people.

Ok, good. So what's the purpose of converting former office buildings in residential one? Workers who left them surely do not came back in them to reside, they left and choose new homes more apt to the WFH purposes, something not easy to find in a dense city. Where you have plenty of space to develop renewables in a dense city? Where the home garage to recharge your car? Where the place to get larger and larger packa…

One possible purpose is demand shift: lots of (relatively affluent) people want to live in cities, and are currently inflating rents in neighborhoods that otherwise would be more affordable.

(In general, it's incorrect to assume that WFH implies a desire to flee to suburbia, particularly in dense cultural hub cities: people often seek employment in these cities because they want to live there, not the other way around.)

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#188

Post by dublinben »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #117
courgette wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find suburbs boring. I find them soul-less. I grew up in rural France. Small village have shops, bars, services like post-office, hair-dresser and whatnot. It's not a dichotomy between things and absence of things. Suburbs would be fine in my own personal book if they were offering basic services and a sense of comunauty.( not in warehouse operated by large chain, but by people living there and earning a live…

Cities may have a soul but they lack a heart (and a brain too). From 2018 through 2020, the NCVS found that the violent-crime rate in urban areas was between 29 percent and 42 percent higher than the rate in rural areas The property-crime rate in urban areas was nearly twice as high in 2021 as in suburban areas (157.5 to 86.8 victimizations per 1,000 households) https://www.city-journal.org/violent-crime-in-cities-on…

Crime is just one of many quality of life factors. Mortality rates are significantly worse in rural areas than urban areas, and the gap is widening.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-in-rural-a...

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#189

Post by marstall »

akmarinov wrote: post #36

Another headline: Remote work to invigorate America’s smaller communities

yes! In my state, there are dozens of small former industrial towns, often in beautiful natural settings, and/or on excellent transport arteries.

They have space convertible to offices aplenty, revitalizable downtowns, cheap housing. I myself just made the move from the bustling capital city to a wonderful city of 17,000. I bought a large Victorian house for half of what my tiny city house was worth. I can walk to the library, movie theatre, restaurants, cafes. Nature is all around. There is an Amtrak Station. I could go on!

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#190

Post by SoftTalker »

bart_spoon wrote: post #166
SoftTalker wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people still want to live in a dense, walkable neighborhood I believe this is not true. Some people want this, yes, and it may be that they are overrepresented here or tend to form bubbles so that they think this view is predominant. If a majority of people wanted it, it would happen due to the majority electing people to their local governments that support it.

This assumes there is a strong link between government policy and the way constituents vote, which there is increasing cause to doubt, particularly at the local level.

It seems to me that it's the best we can do. How else are you going to change anything?

I can support candidates who campaign on allowing mixed-use in their zoning policy. Or I can support candidates who support keeping business, industrial, and residential areas separated. It seems that most people (not all) support the latter.

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