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

#171

Post by astrodust » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 8:21 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #155

astrodust wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Oh, it does, but those traditional jobs, doctor, factory worker, they're harder and harder to get. The bulk of the jobs are less dependent on those factors.

What's left? The sorts of jobs where a personal office is a luxury that few companies are willing to pay for. You get a desk, at best, and a laptop.

Still, as difficult as it is to purchase office space in some markets, it's not impossible. You just need to make do with less. No on-site parking, no gigantic health-club facility or cafeteria.

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

#172

Post by kps » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 8:22 PM UTC

astrodust wrote: post #66

dade_ wrote: post #5

Thomas Jefferson is to blame and not one mention of taxes? I would be really surprised that some research wouldn't find that many of these office parks are built outside of the borders of major cities to avoid paying taxes, or were provided incentives by neighbouring municipalities to build further out and pay lower tax. The lower cost is attractive and allows the company to operate in a big shiny building that immed…

Nobody cares about free parking unless they have a car. Nobody cares about having a 'big shiny building' as credibility often comes from having things like a solid product, or capital in the bank. The 1960s are over. Nobody cares about your crappy office tower in the middle of nowhere. The ones that did are retired.

  > Nobody cares about having a 'big shiny building'

Apple does.

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

#173

Post by rayiner » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 8:23 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #106

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…

Perhaps the problem is less suburbia, more "hyperbia." Mid century planners focused heavily on recreating mini-cities to feed expansion from a central core. Everything you'd need (hospitals, schools, etc) should be within the city limits. Reston, VA is a great example of this. Much of the workforce holds jobs elsewhere but the suburb is a community unto itself. One doesn't need to live in DC or make a long commute fo…

The problem with places like Reston is that if you're a typical two-worker couple there is little chance you're both going to find work in the same suburb. And if that doesn't happen, you're stuck commuting between suburbs, which is usually the worst possible scenario (and a major reason why traffic in the DC metro is worse than in bigger cities). Better to have bedroom cities with stores and shops and shuttle everyone into the core city via regional rail.

Reston would be a great bedroom city if DC had proper regional rail. Standing room only in the Silver line for 45 minutes sucks compared to regional express trains in places like Chicago or NYC.

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

#174

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 8:25 PM UTC

ssalazar wrote: post #127

toomuchtodo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're capitalists here, mostly, so people don't mind. I have never thought [citation required] was more necessary than with this comment. We're technology professionals or enthusiasts primarily here.

Y Combinator embodies the very definition of capitalism, and they host this site. While the community seems more diverse than that, its fair to say there is a capitalist bent.

> Y Combinator embodies the very definition of capitalism

Y Combinator also donates to efficient non-profits in the tech space, no strings attached. That's not traditionally capitalistic.

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

#175

Post by sosuke » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 8:26 PM UTC

enjo wrote: post #126

joshyeager wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'd argue that for most, living in a suburb is in fact the worst of both worlds. You are neither rural nor city. You have none of the benefits and many of the drawbacks. For me my decision to live in the city is one of safety (driving cars is dangerous) and time. When I lived in the burbs I spent something like 30-40 full days a year sitting in my car. That's 10% of each year in my car. That's just not a trade I'm wi…

Funny you mention safety in the city, I often hear about moving to the burbs for safe neighborhoods with sidewalks.

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

#176

Post by keithpeter » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 8:28 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #162

MindTooth wrote: post #41

Crashes Safari on my iPhone 6 Plus (iOS 9.0). But have experienced it on more site recently. Is it all the JavaScript libraries? Sad when I wanted to read it..

Same for Chrome on Android and on an old-ish netbook. Doesn't anyone test their websites with hardware below $2K?!

Oddly enough, this page was gobbling up around 900Mb of RAM under Firefox 39.0 on Linux on a laptop with 1Gb. Firefox quit. Reloading with noscript active allowed the page to load but I was seeing something like 650Mb of RAM which is a record!

What has the page got in it?

(I resorted to elinks in a terminal to be able to read the text until I installed noscript).

EDIT: Swapped another Gb of RAM in and still crashes Firefox with noscript disabled. Can read with noscript on.

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

#177

Post by termain » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 8:29 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #71

pmorici wrote: post #30

I think this article perhaps misses the real story. That being, office parks first built in 25+ years ago are reaching an age where their long term leases are expiring and they need to be renovated for the first time since being constructed to attract new tenants. While it makes sense to renovate an old factory and turn it into trendy office space with exposed brick and vintage architectural details from decades past…

One common occurrence where I live is that county and cities are buying up the old office parks and even strip malls to convert them into government buildings. Most are ideally located as well as being offered up for sale cheaply. Seen even a few charitable organizations buy up parts of a strip mall for the cheap space by square foot. Besides the age a lot of REITs cashed out awhile ago and I am not sure the market i…

Medical malls, too, perhaps?

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

#178

Post by sosuke » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 8:29 PM UTC

LordKano wrote: post #158

mixmastamyk wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I can sympathize, Austin TX is built upon a giant rock of limestone which extremely difficult to develop into. All of our mass transit options that have come up connect to no-where.

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

#179

Post by Bostonian » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 8:30 PM UTC

I see lots of suburb-bashing on this thread. Lots of people like having their own yards, where they can garden, have a barbecue, put a swimming pool, or simply have some space of their own. When you have little kids it's a relief to have your own home and not have complaints from your neighbor downstairs that your kids are making too much noise.

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

#180

Post by ChrisNorstrom » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 8:30 PM UTC

I work at one. A nice one. Honestly it's all because of the drive and location.

- Office parks are usually built away from people and this creates a "long drive to work". Americans are tired of driving and traffic. Office parks are not usually built near busy residential areas, they're built farther out on empty or industrial or rezoned land. No one is going to pay $30-75 million dollars to buy up 120-300 homes (average going price is $250,000 offered per every $190,000 home to get the owners out), then pay millions to bulldoze the homes, then pay millions to build the office park. No. They will go out in the middle of no-where and offer $5-10 million to a farmer and build on his land instead. It's cheaper but this creates quite a drive.

I also used to work as a courier and I -> HATED - The cost, how does $7,000 a month sound for an office space smaller than a 2 bedroom house?

- The US recession shut down a lot of businesses in premium locations and this opens up opportunities for new tenants to replace them and start their business closer to their homes, instead of paying exuberant prices to rent space in an office park.

- They are soulless. Bland. Grey. Corporate. You will feel like a drone working in one. They do not allow the type of customization and construction that people take on when they own a building.

===== Office parks are great if... =====

- The city expands and engulfs the office park, surrounding it with residential areas, apartments, and hotels.

- They're located near a highway AND near a residential area. This makes them accessible to both local residents and distant workers..