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

#261

Post by ocb » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:46 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #218

skolor wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've seen the reverse of this now. Everything I've seen has shown that newer generations are moving more into the cities, back to closer to their employers.

I've heard that my entire life. "The city is coming back". "Its not like ten years ago when the cities were dead" I'm in my 40s. Same message for the last four decades. Think about that, four times in a row, the city has always been dead a decade ago but now its returned, no really, this time its true. I'm told by elders that sloganeering about urban renewal and return began around 1955, about 5 years after the burbs…

Since 2010, population growth has either restarted in many cities that lost inhabitants for decades, or has accelerated for cities that never stopped growing. New York, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, D.C., Minneapolis, Miami, Philadelphia, Denver, and Chicago have all experienced this phenomenon, not to mention others, I'm sure. It's a huge trend.

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

#262

Post by tbirdz » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:47 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #59

hiou wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I see this as the same situation as shopping centers and big box retailers. The cost of renovation etc, is not low enough compared to the cost of building a new building in a better location for the current times. On top of that, the DC metro area is becoming very public transit oriented. Most employers consider good access via public transit an important feature when looking for office space. Being in an ou…

> On top of that, the DC metro area is becoming very public transit oriented. Most employers consider good access via public transit an important feature when looking for office space. While at the same time the Metro is going to hell.

I disagree. With the new funds coming in, improvements are being done on the metro constantly, they seem to be rebuilding tracks every weekend. On top of that, the new 7000 series train cars are a BIG step up from the old ones. I had a chance to ride in one the other day, and it addressed many of he problems of the older cars. Once the roll out of the 7000-series cars is complete and they take the old cars offline, there should be a big reduction in the amount of delays (which are mostly due to cars having issues).

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

#263

Post by JulianMorrison » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:48 PM UTC

Needs more vertical farms.

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

#264

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:51 PM UTC

Tiktaalik wrote: post #256

ryandrake wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the chief advantages of suburban life is cost. I don't like suburbia, but I deal with it because I'm not rich enough to live close to work. Sure, I have the additional cost of maintaining and fueling a vehicle[1], and the stress of a 2+ hour commute each way, but that's far outweighed by housing being 3X cheaper, and the decent public schools (I don't have to pay for private schooling for the kid). 1: which is…

I would not under estimate transportation costs. Metro Vancouver recently did a study comparing affordability combining both housing and transportation costs. Once transportation was considered, Vancouver City proper dropped to one of the 3 most affordable Metro Vancouver cities, whereas outlying suburbs rose to least affordable. The gap in transportation costs between the cheapest and most expensive areas was severa…

Might depend on the particular metro area. The cost difference between where I live, in the bumblefuck outer suburbs of the Bay Area, vs. a comparable (yet smaller) place closer to most usual tech businesses (either in SF or the Peninsula), is about $3-4K monthly. I've got cost/mile and cost/month records for my car(s) going back 15 years, including purchase price, insurance, fuel, and all maintenance, and it's not even close to $3K/month.

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

#265

Post by Spooky23 » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:52 PM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #207

ken-far wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. This quote is key: “I now say that brainy youngsters are trending urban and urbane, away from your grandfather’s office parks.” Real estate analysis is showing that for the first time since it's been measuring more people are looking for housing in denser, more urban environments than in the traditional suburbs. An enormous number of people, especially young people, are looking to avoid spending the…

>An enormous number of people, especially young people, are looking to avoid spending their lives in cars. Young people never wanted to spend their lives in cars. What's different with this generation is they don't seem to have much interest in forming families, so they move to the trendier areas and spend all their money instead of living in a cheaper area, commuting, and saving for a situation that would be good fo…

Yeah sure. The real story is that the younger kids have lousier paying jobs and items like cars are prohibitively expensive.

My dad had a loaded up Mustang that cost like $2500 in the late 60s, at 19 or 20, paid for by bartending. The equivalent car today is probably 2x-2.5x more in real terms.

The city is coming back because it's the undervalued and people are priced out of the newer suburbs. People end up reproducing, so the permanent underclass and garbage schools will probably send most of these folks to the older suburbs.

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

#266

Post by ghaff » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:55 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #212

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…

>old factory and turn it into trendy office space with exposed brick and vintage architectural details That's not why we renovate factories. We renovate them because they are in a location we desire (big city centers). The suburbs are a cultural and transportation wasteland for the most part and have nothing but cheap land. Its just unpleasant real estate. Sadly, a lot of smaller companies migrated out to the suburbs…

>Sadly, a lot of smaller companies migrated out to the suburbs because the CEO could simply make a call to move the business closer to his house.

Perhaps. But it's probably also where most of the employees lived. If you're talking the 80s, for example, very few of my co-workers lived in Boston/Cambridge and commuted out to our offices on 495 about an hour away. I'm quite confident that, had there been a vote to move the company offices into the city, the answer would have been a resounding no.

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

#267

Post by tsotha » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:58 PM UTC

pjlegato wrote: post #251

tsotha wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>An enormous number of people, especially young people, are looking to avoid spending their lives in cars. Young people never wanted to spend their lives in cars. What's different with this generation is they don't seem to have much interest in forming families, so they move to the trendier areas and spend all their money instead of living in a cheaper area, commuting, and saving for a situation that would be good fo…

> Young people never wanted to spend their lives in cars. Actually, many of them did. Talk to some old people in the US suburbs about what life was like when they were young in the '50s and '60s. Most grew up in a dense city and then voluntarily left it for the suburbs. Most of them thought spending their life in a car was great -- certainly way better than having to take the bus or the train. It was a sign of succes…

>Most of them thought spending their life in a car was great -- certainly way better than having to take the bus or the train. It was a sign of success.

You're overstating that quite a bit. Sure, driving for twenty minutes beats taking public transportation. But sitting in stop and go traffic for a couple hours every day is awful and people always realized it.

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

#268

Post by joeldg » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

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…

I work in tech and a larger office needs fiber these days, it is a cost consideration when looking for new offices. Many of these older buildings are not wired correctly and would require expensive renovation to get them where they need to be.

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

#269

Post by toomuchtodo » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 12:07 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #239

toomuchtodo wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing wrong with low density areas if the homes are sustainable and transportation is electrified.

Sure, you can minimize global harm from pollution etc., but locally even something as simple as a house cat can have large scale impacts. Further, people want large changes like dams to reduce flooding, drainage etc. Aesthetically, it might seem more natural than asphalt, but lawns are a long way from ‘nature’. Realistically to have anything close to 'nature' assuming zero farming you’re looking at ~1 person per squa…

> Aesthetically, it might seem more natural than asphalt, but lawns are a long way from ‘nature’. Realistically to have anything close to 'nature' assuming zero farming you’re looking at ~1 person per square mile if that.

Not sure I terribly agree with your person per square mile argument. Yes, lawns are a terrible waste (footnote: did you know that lawns trace back to medievel times? How much land you could afford to grow lawn on was a measure of wealth) and should be heavily disincentivized. But at the same time, if my house is zero net energy (solar power, solar thermal for water, tight envelope), and the transportation of myself and the goods I acquire are provided via renewable energy (electric cars/trucks powered by clean renewables), there isn't a strong argument against rural living.

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

#270

Post by tsotha » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 12:11 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #265

tsotha wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>An enormous number of people, especially young people, are looking to avoid spending their lives in cars. Young people never wanted to spend their lives in cars. What's different with this generation is they don't seem to have much interest in forming families, so they move to the trendier areas and spend all their money instead of living in a cheaper area, commuting, and saving for a situation that would be good fo…

Yeah sure. The real story is that the younger kids have lousier paying jobs and items like cars are prohibitively expensive. My dad had a loaded up Mustang that cost like $2500 in the late 60s, at 19 or 20, paid for by bartending. The equivalent car today is probably 2x-2.5x more in real terms. The city is coming back because it's the undervalued and people are priced out of the newer suburbs. People end up reproduci…

I remember paying over a dollar a minute in the '80s for a phone call to my sister in the same state. Air fare was crazy expensive compared to today, as was anything electronic.

Some things have gotten more expensive, and other things have gotten cheaper. Overall it's a wash. If it seems like life is more expensive it's because people buy a lot of things today that we didn't have back then. Things you don't really need, like cable TV and $5 coffee.