The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town • Hacker News Board

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#91

Post by bunderbunder » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 5:24 PM UTC

fixxer wrote: post #82

bunderbunder wrote: post #26

I think suburbia might be a victim of its own success. As people moved out to more widely-dispersed communities, that caused commuting all the way downtown for work to be increasingly problematic. So of course that encouraged demand for business to also move out to the suburbs. Eventually things got so dispersed that people had to start driving everywhere. Roads got congested. It became increasingly common for people…

I live an hour outside of Chicago and mostly work from home; I'm in the city maybe 1 day per week. I fought moving out of the city for a while, but I have really come to love it, especially when it comes to raising kids. When I have to head into Chicago, I take the train. It is weird how quickly you can go from yuppie to suburbanite. My property taxes are high, but my overall cost (and quality) of living is better th…

Good point. I've grown rather used to seeing mostly-vacant floors in office buildings in the Loop.

I wonder if perhaps we're seeing the results of a shift to the service economy in addition to the shift back to the cities. If we need fewer people to manually perform clerical work in offices, and more people to run the restaurants that we increasingly eat at, then that's going to create a definite shift in demand for different kinds of commercial space.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#92

Post by colkassad » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 5:24 PM UTC

Dirlewanger wrote: post #11

Nice article, but the jab at Jefferson is completely inane. Soooo many other nascent societal/cultural forces at work in the 1800s/early 1900s that coalesced into the suburban office park. Without knowing the context of the quote, it seems even Jefferson was off in directly equating corruption with the centerpiece of human civilization. It's also a seemingly colloquial letter to a friend. I'm also probably reading to…

It's just a framing device for the article. Office parks are a very American thing so why not work in a founding father somehow. You could swap out the whole bit with a quote and vignette from the life and work of Henry Ford. Perhaps it could have been related to the lingering notion of Manifest Destiny. I could go on and on.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#93

Post by jamespitts » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 5:25 PM UTC

These emptying office parks presents an opportunity. Certainly the larger ones contain infrastructure that can be repurposed, and the asking prices is decreasing. In the next downturn, the cost of purchasing a park will go down even more.

Perhaps the larger parks can be repurposed into something akin to a village. Reformat the buildings into something more traditional, apartments on the upper floors, offices and stores in the bottom, etc. Add more buildings to create more continuity. Let people be creative, let the fabric emerge.

Now in any given area, each of these potential villages is quite isolated from another. Still, pedestrian connections can be forged and inter-village transportation arranged.

Over time, we can heal this anomaly.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#94

Post by swagv » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 5:25 PM UTC

The promise of traffic-free transportation to work briefly flourished and died. What's the point of putting up with the commuter hassle when you live in a box in the middle of Blandland. May as well live in a more urban environment and one with the infrastructure to offer realistic non-driving options for the same commuter hassles.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#95

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 5:27 PM UTC

fixxer wrote: post #82

bunderbunder wrote: post #26

I think suburbia might be a victim of its own success. As people moved out to more widely-dispersed communities, that caused commuting all the way downtown for work to be increasingly problematic. So of course that encouraged demand for business to also move out to the suburbs. Eventually things got so dispersed that people had to start driving everywhere. Roads got congested. It became increasingly common for people…

I live an hour outside of Chicago and mostly work from home; I'm in the city maybe 1 day per week. I fought moving out of the city for a while, but I have really come to love it, especially when it comes to raising kids. When I have to head into Chicago, I take the train. It is weird how quickly you can go from yuppie to suburbanite. My property taxes are high, but my overall cost (and quality) of living is better th…

[deleted]

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#96

Post by freehunter » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 5:27 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #54

bunderbunder wrote: post #26

I think suburbia might be a victim of its own success. As people moved out to more widely-dispersed communities, that caused commuting all the way downtown for work to be increasingly problematic. So of course that encouraged demand for business to also move out to the suburbs. Eventually things got so dispersed that people had to start driving everywhere. Roads got congested. It became increasingly common for people…

The Car was supposed to kill The Landlord by increasing the supply of adequate housing and driving residential land prices near zero. It didn't work, for the reasons you described. First, driving itself is very expensive, especially if you include parking the damn thing. Second, the few suburbs that are desirable at all (near major cities, good public schools) are often similar in price to city housing-- and NIMBY la…

Spot on. I live in a suburban town that is unique for my metro area in that it has a nice thriving downtown, great schools, 10 minutes from the downtown exit on the freeway, and really great quality of life. I have friends who want to move here and there are developers champing at the bit right to take some polluted and therefore useless and undeveloped property and clean it up to turn it into some nice condos.. it got shut down in a public vote. New houses haven't been built in the city in about 20 years, and the ones that are here are starting to show their age. The city has been in a boom, but that cycle is going to end if we don't get fresh money and new houses. The developers are moving further up the main artery to other, smaller towns, which leads to more congestion on the main roads. It used to be that the traffic started at my town, now it's starting at the next town up. But everyone is worried that their house value will go down if there is more availability. They don't realize the value will go down if the property becomes undesirable as well.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#97

Post by davidw » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 5:28 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #27

davidw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think api's post is pretty accurate. This book has a lot more detail: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0078XGJXO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=...

I wish Hacker News would strip out affiliate codes.

We're capitalists here, mostly, so people don't mind. People who are just here to spam get turfed out pretty quickly. I don't recommend stuff that I don't think is pertinent to a conversation.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#98

Post by Tiktaalik » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

joshyeager wrote: post #87

Tiktaalik wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure anyone really loves suburbia, but once in place, car oriented development has a way of being self sustaining. This "Cycle of automobile dependency" image shows it pretty well. http://imgur.com/Y9vxbNN Only recently, with huge effort and many setbacks, are we starting to see cities break out of car oriented development and this endless suburban sprawl creating loop. I'm a bit concerned that the advent of…

I love suburbia. Living in a city is stressful and crowded. I'd like to live in a rural environment, but then I'd have to drive a very long way to get to work, stores, and entertainment. Living in a quiet suburb gives me the best of both worlds. It's only a 10 minute drive to the downtown library, good restaurants, and other fun stuff. Since I picked a job that's located near my suburb, my commute is also short and a…

You're doing it right by living close to your work. Suburbs work well when they're really just small complete cities. Nothing wrong with that.

What I was thinking when I when I wrote "I'm not sure anyone loves suburbia" was that I'm not sure anyone loves that big suburban commute to the city. If that's eliminated, or mitigated by excellent transit connections (ie. pre-automobile street car suburbs), then a lot of negatives go away.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#99

Post by fixxer » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #91

fixxer wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live an hour outside of Chicago and mostly work from home; I'm in the city maybe 1 day per week. I fought moving out of the city for a while, but I have really come to love it, especially when it comes to raising kids. When I have to head into Chicago, I take the train. It is weird how quickly you can go from yuppie to suburbanite. My property taxes are high, but my overall cost (and quality) of living is better th…

Good point. I've grown rather used to seeing mostly-vacant floors in office buildings in the Loop. I wonder if perhaps we're seeing the results of a shift to the service economy in addition to the shift back to the cities. If we need fewer people to manually perform clerical work in offices, and more people to run the restaurants that we increasingly eat at, then that's going to create a definite shift in demand for…

> different kinds of commercial space.

And different uses for existing space. I'm not a big believer in any economic theory, but I see supply-side drivers abound. Case in point, there are so many vacant ex-Dominick's you can rent/buy for a song.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#100

Post by untog » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 5:30 PM UTC

astrocyte wrote: post #56

untog wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I think of California, I think of the beautiful outdoors and geography... Which an office park isn't, either. Of course the outdoors and mountains are very attractive but they're not a viable workplace. While many of your city complaints are valid, it's not as if the suburbs solves all of them. "There is no parking available for friends visiting me." Sure, and if you live in the suburbs there is plenty of parkin…

Taking the bay area as an example, living further towards south bay allows me to shoot out to the outdoors much quicker than being in the city. Office park? When I'm at work, I want to be focused on my work .. Not distracted by the noise of a city. As for the city, when I want to go there and enjoy something in particular, that's what I do. You can list off every music venue, club, restaurant, cultural event, park ev…

The noise/chaos is attractive when you're young and have not found your own sound. When you have, the city becomes a lot less attractive. More interestingly, the city doesn't necessarily help you find yourself any faster.

Absolutes like this don't really help. That may be true for you, but it isn't for all of us.