MegJun 17, 2023

God it's depressing that people believe this is the true nature of downtowns:

"Without commuting office workers, the office buildings go empty, they become worth a fraction of their cost, and retail cannot survive."

From https://innovationnation.blog/p/its-companies-fault-we-dont-want

Cities predate commutes. The hollowed out core that triples in population, swelled to bursting with bored and unhappy suburbanites during work hours, is a modern abomination made possible by cars and structural racism.

What's killing downtowns is that we spent so long on this awful vision of work and spent half a century strangling inner city infrastructure to subsidize incredibly expensive suburban lifestyles.

Want to make downtowns viable again? Convert dead office space to apartments and schools and colleges and other spaces people can work *and* live in.

Good luck with your rezoning applications though.

It's Companies' Fault we don't want to Return to the Office

It wasn't appealing to begin with

Innovation Nation
Show threadRussell Neches
@megmac Another problem is that a large fraction of iconic and expensive office buildings CANNOT be turned into living space due to their geometry. If the distance from the stairs/elevators to the windows is too long, then even large units would be dark, sad shafts of depressing awfulness and most small units would be entirely windowless. They are horrible to work in too, of course. The only solution is to write down and demolish about a trillion dollars worth of real estate.
Jun 18, 2023 at 10:12amWeb