14 ms·

This has an impact not just in rents for office buildings but the entire ecosystem of support businesses that sell to workers who come into city centre to work.

This has an impact not just in rents for office buildings but the entire ecosystem of support businesses that sell to workers who come into city centre to work. One example. Small organic food shop, that sold mostly to office workers and has seen a 70% drop in foot traffic. The same thing hits bars, cafes, restaurants, theatres and other venues. Those very things that make living near or in a city interesting for many people. In my case, precovid I thought a city centre apartment could be kinda nice, no commute, nice vibe and lots of access to amenities. But now much of that vibrant ecosystem is gone. Why would someone want to live in a converted office in such a setting? And if you house people who only have no other options - aren’t you just creating a type of ghetto?

DougN7 4y ago
Is this true? Won’t the businesses go where the people are? So more organic shops and cafes in the suburbs? Or if the office building is turned into housing, all the people would be back again, and not just from 9-5, so the businesses would follow, right?
PestoDiRucola 4y ago
> Those very things that make living near or in a city interesting for many people Most of the time, the types of bars and restaurants that rely on office workers as customers are not going to be the type of bars and restaurants you'd go in your free time when going out with friends.
yakak 4y ago
I know a few areas that were gentrified in earlier times and ended up with things more suited for residents of a certain class than commuters. I also know of other downtown locations that became terrible to live in because a grocery store was uneconomical use of space. I'd generally say that if they can fill it to a good density it can have a good local market compared to suburbs with poor density.
- betwixthewires 4y ago
  But how do you fill it to a good density when the cost to live there is higher and there's no need to live there to earn a living anymore?
  - yakak 4y ago
    People I knew in the conversion of industrial areas to unaffordable lofts did not have commuter jobs, maybe photographers, who combined their studio and home, etc, until they were priced out by trust fund children, possibly in disguise as boutique owners and entrepreneurs, then there are retirees looking for a certain feel and walkable community, etc. At each stage the surrounding retail and gastronomy changed towards something that could support higher floor cost.
  - mushbino 4y ago
    People, culture, and amenities attract people. Maybe lowering prices would help too. Artists, galleries, restaurants, theaters are all attracted by dense areas with prices that are attractive. Cities can also step up to help with incentives instead of completely leaving it up to the free market to sort out.
    - betwixthewires 4y ago
      But those people and culture and amenities are just other people, and when the core economic engine of the city is gone, those people leave too. Imagine you're a Jamaican halal chicken shop owner and your core business is professional office workers walking by on the way home from work and stopping in for a bite. When that office worker is no longer there because he can make the same salary and cut his expenses in half by moving 1000 miles away, you're going to go out of business. Maybe you move 1000 miles away also so that you can afford your rent. This is how the cascade happens. Theaters and museums and all those aren't why cities have a lot of people, those exist in cities because that's where the people are. when people become more spread out, those things will follow suit.
      - 4y ago
saiya-jin 4y ago
Must be some US thing with its more mobile and dynamic population, but I dont see any real change pre-covid vs post-covid in the city centre we live in (Geneva, Switzerland) or any other bigger cities we saw in past half year. Few moved out, few moved in, maybe rents adjusted a bit but I didnt check that. Same shops, bars restaurants opened, same entertainment going on.
- seadan83 4y ago
  Yes, it is an american thing of how cities were built and social factors. Cities here tend to have commercial districts where nobody lives and residential districts or suburbs and you have to drive between the two. The more European model where first floor is commercial and residential in top, it's a different story to have everyone working from home, no overnight ghost town in commercial districts.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
achow 4y ago
Agree. The place I work had diverse companies in a 'tech park' - Amazon, Google, and many others inside a gated office space, the total population of which could easily surpass 10K. We used to have a common and very vibrant food court, even though each company used to give free cafeteria food, employees used to walk to the common food court for variety - of both people and food. Also, since there was so much traffic of well paid, propensity to spend people, office park operation office used to arrange for paid fun stuff during lunch hours, which used to lend lot of colors to dreary office days. During Covid the food court vanished along with all fun activities (consequently all those people who used to run those). The company cafeteria obviously closed as well and even when it has started now, they are pale shadow of earlier operations (less staff, owners of food counters working as staff).
- alexalx666 4y ago
  It's kind of shocking to read the phrase "vibrant food court". If this was the bar before COVID it can only get better.
  - sverhagen 4y ago
    You can think of the generic food courts in the typical US mall, but there are also plenty more boutique food malls around.
  - bin_bash 4y ago
    Read up on Singapore’s hawker centres for an idea of what’s possible with food courts
    - gumby 4y ago
      Those are the result of forced ghettoization of the street vendors. When I was a kid (mid 60s/early 70s) the place was a lot less regimented and there were street vendors everywhere. There was much greater variety of food (and hygiene). Cleaning that up homogenized things — which I want to believe was an accidental side effect, though one can never be sure.
  - 4y ago
2-718-281-828 4y ago
Half agree. We need to rethink the concept of city. If we don't do that we'll end up with ghettos. But if we do and implement the transformation then we'll develop something more desirable than conglomerate of various businesses. A center of a town can very well be vibrant and inspiring without most businesses if the resulting free real estate is repurposed by galleries, theaters, restaurants, parks etc. But we won't in the near term. This will just start to happen after all other options have crumbled and one option will still be to just hold empty housing and real estate for the purpose of mere speculation. I'm pessimistic.
tarsinge 4y ago
These vibrant ecosystems flourished where people spent most of their day. It could be a huge win if they finally migrate to residential neighborhoods, where people will now be more present.
- occamrazor 4y ago
  Residential neighborhoods don’t have the same peak density. In central business districts every street has shops, in residential ones it wouldn’t be sustainable.
  - bratbag 4y ago
    The reduced density is still enough to support mini-hubs. In Europe they are common and have been flourishing again even as cities flounder. Pre pandemic my local town center in the London commuter belt was in a death spiral. Now its expanding.
  - throw827474737 4y ago
    Hmm, comparing flourishing residential neighborhoods in Berlin like Kreuzberg (not every but enough streets have small shops, Cafes, Restaurants, all vibrant and positively living from sunrise to sunset and beyond, enjoyably walkable with a lot of green) vs the more purer City-center office regions like Mitte where you have shops that noone needs (yeah yeah sure someone wants to buy at Dolce Gabbana, biased not me) which just feel awkward beyond usual business hours I find this generally not true.. atmosphere is much more desirable here, and its better for the "small shops" vs Starbucks&McDonaldses also.. Sure, if you think only of residential one family house areas (but which true city centers have those) or poorer skyscraper suburbs that is true, but another story?!
  - Tade0 4y ago
    Of course they would and they are. I grew up in a district which has 150k inhabitants and an effective population density of 4.6k people per square kilometre (11.8k people per sq mile) and it was much like a city within a city, with all the shops, services etc. Everything within walking distance. It even has somewhat of a regional identity and a political movement which capitalizes on that. To this day I see it as the sweet spot of population density - it's dense enough for the things you mentioned, but at the same time doesn't feel crammed.
dougmwne 4y ago
I have always found that office-heavy areas of a city were pretty lame in comparison to denser residential. It does not seem like a big loss to me. Office centers tend to have some sandwich/salad lunch places that close at 4pm, some stuffy overly corporate happy hour bars, some dry cleaning places, some convenience stores and fast food spots. Dense residential area tend to have the full range of services, more interesting restaurants and bars, more fun, more interesting. If people are spending more of their day there, I would expect a flourishing of these kinds of business. At the end of the day, some storefront owners will need to move to other areas to take advantage of changes in demand. Cities are very dynamic things. They are constantly changing and renewing themselves. Neighborhoods come up and go down. There is no stopping it.
- beardedwizard 4y ago
  These characteristics are not true for most large cities. San Francisco for example suffers none of this.
  - lmeyerov 4y ago
    The financial district, esp north of market, and south going towards embarcadero (Google, ...), is basically exactly this.
  - dougmwne 4y ago
    Yeah, I used to work on Market Street and SF is exactly like this.
    - beardedwizard 4y ago
      So a single block represents the entire city? What about the thousands of other businesses that remain open and within walking distance?
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  Time to retrofit some of these office buildings into apartment complexes.
hp48fan 4y ago
Thats also a reflection of the way american cities are laid out, with large physical separations between where you work and where you live. Im glad to live in America, but the way cities are laid out elsewhere makes more sense.

DougN7 4y ago

Is this true? Won’t the businesses go where the people are? So more organic shops and cafes in the suburbs? Or if the office building is turned into housing, all the people would be back again, and not just from 9-5, so the businesses would follow, right?

PestoDiRucola 4y ago

> Those very things that make living near or in a city interesting for many people Most of the time, the types of bars and restaurants that rely on office workers as customers are not going to be the type of bars and restaurants you'd go in your free time when going out with friends.

yakak 4y ago

I know a few areas that were gentrified in earlier times and ended up with things more suited for residents of a certain class than commuters. I also know of other downtown locations that became terrible to live in because a grocery store was uneconomical use of space. I'd generally say that if they can fill it to a good density it can have a good local market compared to suburbs with poor density.

betwixthewires 4y ago
But how do you fill it to a good density when the cost to live there is higher and there's no need to live there to earn a living anymore?
- yakak 4y ago
  People I knew in the conversion of industrial areas to unaffordable lofts did not have commuter jobs, maybe photographers, who combined their studio and home, etc, until they were priced out by trust fund children, possibly in disguise as boutique owners and entrepreneurs, then there are retirees looking for a certain feel and walkable community, etc. At each stage the surrounding retail and gastronomy changed towards something that could support higher floor cost.
- mushbino 4y ago
  People, culture, and amenities attract people. Maybe lowering prices would help too. Artists, galleries, restaurants, theaters are all attracted by dense areas with prices that are attractive. Cities can also step up to help with incentives instead of completely leaving it up to the free market to sort out.
  - betwixthewires 4y ago
    But those people and culture and amenities are just other people, and when the core economic engine of the city is gone, those people leave too. Imagine you're a Jamaican halal chicken shop owner and your core business is professional office workers walking by on the way home from work and stopping in for a bite. When that office worker is no longer there because he can make the same salary and cut his expenses in half by moving 1000 miles away, you're going to go out of business. Maybe you move 1000 miles away also so that you can afford your rent. This is how the cascade happens. Theaters and museums and all those aren't why cities have a lot of people, those exist in cities because that's where the people are. when people become more spread out, those things will follow suit.
    - 4y ago

saiya-jin 4y ago

Must be some US thing with its more mobile and dynamic population, but I dont see any real change pre-covid vs post-covid in the city centre we live in (Geneva, Switzerland) or any other bigger cities we saw in past half year. Few moved out, few moved in, maybe rents adjusted a bit but I didnt check that. Same shops, bars restaurants opened, same entertainment going on.

seadan83 4y ago
Yes, it is an american thing of how cities were built and social factors. Cities here tend to have commercial districts where nobody lives and residential districts or suburbs and you have to drive between the two. The more European model where first floor is commercial and residential in top, it's a different story to have everyone working from home, no overnight ghost town in commercial districts.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

achow 4y ago

Agree. The place I work had diverse companies in a 'tech park' - Amazon, Google, and many others inside a gated office space, the total population of which could easily surpass 10K. We used to have a common and very vibrant food court, even though each company used to give free cafeteria food, employees used to walk to the common food court for variety - of both people and food. Also, since there was so much traffic of well paid, propensity to spend people, office park operation office used to arrange for paid fun stuff during lunch hours, which used to lend lot of colors to dreary office days. During Covid the food court vanished along with all fun activities (consequently all those people who used to run those). The company cafeteria obviously closed as well and even when it has started now, they are pale shadow of earlier operations (less staff, owners of food counters working as staff).

alexalx666 4y ago
It's kind of shocking to read the phrase "vibrant food court". If this was the bar before COVID it can only get better.
- sverhagen 4y ago
  You can think of the generic food courts in the typical US mall, but there are also plenty more boutique food malls around.
- bin_bash 4y ago
  Read up on Singapore’s hawker centres for an idea of what’s possible with food courts
  - gumby 4y ago
    Those are the result of forced ghettoization of the street vendors. When I was a kid (mid 60s/early 70s) the place was a lot less regimented and there were street vendors everywhere. There was much greater variety of food (and hygiene). Cleaning that up homogenized things — which I want to believe was an accidental side effect, though one can never be sure.
- 4y ago

2-718-281-828 4y ago

Half agree. We need to rethink the concept of city. If we don't do that we'll end up with ghettos. But if we do and implement the transformation then we'll develop something more desirable than conglomerate of various businesses. A center of a town can very well be vibrant and inspiring without most businesses if the resulting free real estate is repurposed by galleries, theaters, restaurants, parks etc. But we won't in the near term. This will just start to happen after all other options have crumbled and one option will still be to just hold empty housing and real estate for the purpose of mere speculation. I'm pessimistic.

tarsinge 4y ago

These vibrant ecosystems flourished where people spent most of their day. It could be a huge win if they finally migrate to residential neighborhoods, where people will now be more present.

occamrazor 4y ago
Residential neighborhoods don’t have the same peak density. In central business districts every street has shops, in residential ones it wouldn’t be sustainable.
- bratbag 4y ago
  The reduced density is still enough to support mini-hubs. In Europe they are common and have been flourishing again even as cities flounder. Pre pandemic my local town center in the London commuter belt was in a death spiral. Now its expanding.
- throw827474737 4y ago
  Hmm, comparing flourishing residential neighborhoods in Berlin like Kreuzberg (not every but enough streets have small shops, Cafes, Restaurants, all vibrant and positively living from sunrise to sunset and beyond, enjoyably walkable with a lot of green) vs the more purer City-center office regions like Mitte where you have shops that noone needs (yeah yeah sure someone wants to buy at Dolce Gabbana, biased not me) which just feel awkward beyond usual business hours I find this generally not true.. atmosphere is much more desirable here, and its better for the "small shops" vs Starbucks&McDonaldses also.. Sure, if you think only of residential one family house areas (but which true city centers have those) or poorer skyscraper suburbs that is true, but another story?!
- Tade0 4y ago
  Of course they would and they are. I grew up in a district which has 150k inhabitants and an effective population density of 4.6k people per square kilometre (11.8k people per sq mile) and it was much like a city within a city, with all the shops, services etc. Everything within walking distance. It even has somewhat of a regional identity and a political movement which capitalizes on that. To this day I see it as the sweet spot of population density - it's dense enough for the things you mentioned, but at the same time doesn't feel crammed.

dougmwne 4y ago

I have always found that office-heavy areas of a city were pretty lame in comparison to denser residential. It does not seem like a big loss to me. Office centers tend to have some sandwich/salad lunch places that close at 4pm, some stuffy overly corporate happy hour bars, some dry cleaning places, some convenience stores and fast food spots. Dense residential area tend to have the full range of services, more interesting restaurants and bars, more fun, more interesting. If people are spending more of their day there, I would expect a flourishing of these kinds of business. At the end of the day, some storefront owners will need to move to other areas to take advantage of changes in demand. Cities are very dynamic things. They are constantly changing and renewing themselves. Neighborhoods come up and go down. There is no stopping it.

beardedwizard 4y ago
These characteristics are not true for most large cities. San Francisco for example suffers none of this.
- lmeyerov 4y ago
  The financial district, esp north of market, and south going towards embarcadero (Google, ...), is basically exactly this.
- dougmwne 4y ago
  Yeah, I used to work on Market Street and SF is exactly like this.
  - beardedwizard 4y ago
    So a single block represents the entire city? What about the thousands of other businesses that remain open and within walking distance?
908B64B197 4y ago
Time to retrofit some of these office buildings into apartment complexes.

hp48fan 4y ago

Thats also a reflection of the way american cities are laid out, with large physical separations between where you work and where you live. Im glad to live in America, but the way cities are laid out elsewhere makes more sense.