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The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

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

#151

Post by normloman »

jamespitts wrote: post #93

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 stor…

This is the right answer. Instead of letting suburbs rot, we select some for renovation and reuse. With a little work, we can make suburbs more walkable, bikeable, and environmentally friendly.

A book on the subject: http://www.sprawlrepair.com/index.html

Great Illustrations: http://inhabitat.com/urban-sprawl-repair-kit-offers-simple-p...

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

#152

Post by bluthru »

astrocyte wrote: post #64
ddispaltro wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Side note, living in a concentrated city is better for the environment since there's less human sprawl.

Actually it isn't (several studies have highlighted this). The reason why a lot of cities aren't better for the environment is that the insane cost force many people out to the cities edge who then have to commute in... negating a good deal of the concentration benefits. Further, cities can wreak havoc on health due to the concentration of pollution, noise, etc ... Increase mental health issues due to stress/etc. Hum…

Your data must be from the industrial revolution.

We have decades of data from dense European cities that indicate better health and quality of life. Also just look at the health of rural people versus urban people in the US--the obesity crisis ain't happening in cities.

>The reason why a lot of cities aren't better for the environment is that the insane cost force many people out to the cities edge who then have to commute in

That's not urbanization. Urbanization is where people live densely, removing the need for so much driving. Half of a suburban family's energy use is devoted to driving.

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

#153

Post by anthony_romeo »

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 wonder how much of this is related to the increase of two-income households coupled with overall wage stagnation? I mean, if a family only has one breadwinner, and work is in the suburbs, it becomes trivial to find a location close to work. But it's harder for a family to live on one income now. If both spouses want to work or need to work to get by (and I'm not talking about a small part-time job on the side), it is plausibly more difficult for both to find substantial work in the same suburb, depending on their industry, demand, and so forth. Such people may only find work in distant suburbs, causing a long commute for one or to live in a place in between to share the commute time.

I'm not claiming this is the cause of frustration, or even a significant factor. Just a thought I had.

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

#154

Post by ashark »

biomcgary wrote: post #117
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…

I think changes in reproduction (and expectations to reproduce) may be driving a lot of the shift. Millenials have a relatively low birth rate compared to the Gen Xers at the same age, due, perhaps, to the economic situation. If you are not raising kids, you have a lot more free time and energy to pour into other things.

You also don't care about being in a good school district if you don't have and don't plan to soon have kids.

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

#155

Post by raverbashing »

astrodust wrote: post #148
raverbashing wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, fitting the amount of people you need when you're successful is a problem with town offices (especially in Europe) Suburban office parks may have a lot of issues but it's where you can have lots of space for cheap (and sometimes you need this)

I think a lot of people would rather work in a busy, noisy coffee shop than commute to or live in the suburbs to enjoy lots of cheap office space. The entire social structure that produced these towers, a well-paid, conservative, culturally unambitious middle class, is imploding. Now you have Millenials who value living and working closer to interesting coffee shops, restaurants, clubs, and bars than living in Nowher…

I'm not disagreeing with you, but being able to work in a noisy coffee shop is an entitlement that not all are able to

This is only possible for "knowledge workers".

- You can't do this, for example, if you're a doctor/nurse

- You can't do this if your job has a high level of secrecy required (that is, no peering eyes)

- You can't do that if you require special equipment to do your job (think lab or shop). You can't take your big screen Mac with your fancy Wacom tablet there as well

Also most work requires a collaboration level that's still not supported by infrastructure. It is possible but the companies haven't adapted

Not to mention, remote work gets old. Quickly

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

#156

Post by bunderbunder »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #133
fixxer wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

While those ex-Dominicks buildings are for lease ("rent/buy for a song"), I have yet to see anyone acquire them at their old Bartlett, Schaumburg, or Algonquin locations.

Head up to Milwaukee and you'll see plenty of old Kohl's supermarkets that have all been sitting vacant ever since the chain shut down over a decade ago.

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

#157

Post by romaniv »

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…

Rally? I always thought of large cities as victims of their own success. You get some good businesses going, they attract more people, they attract more businesses... and then you get overpopulation, air pollution, traffic jams and high prices. And difficulty of finding affordable housing.

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

#158

Post by LordKano »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #141
LordKano wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure anyone really loves suburbia I would guess that has a lot to do with how one defines the term. I love living outside of the city. I wouldn't have it any other way. When I'm ready to retire, I plan to move even further away from the city. I grew up in the suburbs. I am raising my children in the suburbs. I detest going into the city. The traffic, the parking, the population density and the crammed nature…

> The traffic, the parking, That's the result of a poorly planned city, not intrinsic to cities. If you've been to Europe, or even NYC, you might have experienced the freedom of jumping on a train to downtown and back, with enough exercise to keep you healthy.

Freedom isn't the word that I would associate with being bound by train schedules and routes.

Old cities, like NYC or London were established before the existence of the automobile. It makes sense that they were designed to move large numbers of people without automobiles. I don't live near such a city.

The geography of my area prevents the kind of mass transit system that exists in NYC.

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

#159

Post by hodwik »

jonknee wrote: post #123
hodwik wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beltway has a vacancy rate of 17.1%, within the city it's 12.3%. Not that different, especially when you consider that DC has an artificially low vacancy rate due to height restrictions. And anyway, Montgomery County, MD, is an unusual case. There was a lot of speculative building going on there due to rumors that the city of DC was going to put in a subway line through the country (going back to 2003). That drea…

I would call a 40% difference in vacancy quite significant.

40% of a small number is still a small number. Lightening strikes 100% more men than women.

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

#160

Post by mschuster91 »

Bit unrelated, but this website crashes Chrome on my Android phone, crashes the WebView inside my HN reader app, and brings my aged netbook to its knees. Oh, and my company MBP's fans blast on full until I close the page.

What the fucking fuck is this thing doing with the RAM/CPU of my system? For heaven's sake, it's a load of text with a couple of pictures.

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