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This is just the beginning of a wider shift that will destabilize domestic economies worldwide, particularly in well developed nations, if the trend continues.

This is just the beginning of a wider shift that will destabilize domestic economies worldwide, particularly in well developed nations, if the trend continues. It's not just urban office buildings. It starts there, then it leads to deurbanization, increased populations in less urban areas, a more flat population distribution. Why live in a city unless your job requires it? All the other perks of a city only really apply if you actually need to be there to sustain yourself. It will lead to several big cities filing bankruptcy, most service businesses in dense cities going broke, city services unable to continue to function. Information workers are the core of a city's economy, all service oriented businesses cater to them. Once they're gone, the service workers go too, it's a cascading process of the collapse of big cities. When they said the internet was going to revolutionize humanity they weren't kidding around. Overall it will be a good thing, but the process will be very painful.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
> Why live in a city unless your job requires it? Huge variety of shops in walkable proximity, great public transport network, vibrant cultural life, plenty of opportunities to socialise. Why would you want to live outside of a city?
- blhack 4y ago
  >vibrant cultural life It's so funny that you say this. From my perspective the vibrant cultural life happens outside of the city. In the city everything is permitted and controlled. If you want interesting stuff, you have to get out of the city for it!
- betwixthewires 4y ago
  I do live outside of a city, and I do it for the lack of traffic, less crime, lower cost of living, being surrounded by the natural outdoors, and less stressful culture. But you missed my point. All those perks of living in a city are great, if you need to be there to earn what you earn. without that, the high cost of living simply isn't justified. Even if people want to be there, they'll make financial and economic decisions. And once those people start leaving, all those shops and bars and bodegas and what not that cater to them will go belly up. Then their owners and employees will leave. There goes your vibrant cultural life and opportunities to socialize. The flip side is that you'll find more of those things in less densely populated areas as this shakes out, and cost of living will rise as well outside of cities, but not by nearly as much, because the diaspora will be spread out.
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    > But you missed my point. All those perks of living in a city are great, if you need to be there to earn what you earn. without that, the high cost of living simply isn't justified. I am not missing anything. I just deeply disagree. City life is enjoyable in and of itself. I don’t live there because I have to for my work. I live there because I find it inherently better than living somewhere else. If I was living in a normal city and not the capital of my country, it would not even be more expensive than living in the countryside. It would probably actually be cheaper. Gas is expensive here and our cities are built like proper cities. I think you are projecting your value on the situation and conclude that cities are doomed. Personally I think we are just going to witness a shift away from cities where life is expensive towards cheaper cities.
    - betwixthewires 4y ago
      That's a part of it too, moving to smaller cities, but that's still a massive economic reshuffling. I think you're grossly overestimating the number of people that live in cities for reasons other than economic opportunity. That is the entire value proposition of a city, that was the driver that led to urbanization in most countries as they developed. You might be willing to pay 3x as much in rent for the same pay because you like the local chicken place, but I doubt most of your neighbors would make the same choice as you when given the opportunity to reduce cost without reducing income. And when those people leave, all those perks of city life go with them.
      - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
        > That is the entire value proposition of a city … 3x as much in rent for the same pay because you like the local chicken place We are going in circle. Economic opportunities are clearly not the entire value proposition of a city. It’s a very convenient way of living. It’s not about a chicken place. It’s about walking your children to school, being able to go to conferences, to see plays or attend a concert. It’s also just nice to not need a car. It’s very advantageous to just live close to others. I don’t know where you get your 3x from by the way. An average city rent here is only 20% to 30% more expensive than living in the countryside. We are not talking about San Francisco.
88840-8855 4y ago
I disagree. Living in a city is way better than living on the countryside. - access to a large airport to go on regular holidays easily - better health care coverage, more doctors, more specialists - cultural access - more diversity and more colorful services and products - better public transportation
- betwixthewires 4y ago
  I have access to a small airport that's an hour flight to a large one. The logistics of going somewhere for leisure are only marginally more difficult for me, and even easier since I don't have to navigate a small city within a city with a million people in it and traffic to get there and all that. And for the most part I have plenty of leisure around me, I don't have to fly anywhere to see wide open spaces for example. Health care is a special exception for me since I live under an hour from a couple of big hospitals and I live in a state with a lot of hospitals all over the place. But all that really shows is that such a system can be made without heavily concentrated population centers. That perk is a result of how things are now, not how they have to be. Cultural access... I see this mentioned alongside diversity and what not, do you mean brown people? If I were right and there were a large deurbanization trend, wouldn't it follow that the diversity would go with the diaspora, since the diversity is just people? Public transportation is largely a solution to problems created by cities. You don't really need a public transportation system in a less densely populated area.
  - 88840-8855 4y ago
    I am talking about niche hobbie stores, d&d clubs, anime conventions, gay clubs (that are enjoyable as a hetero, too), authentic Vietnamese restaurants, Guangdong, Sezhuan, Taiwanese restaurants, 2nd hand stores, unique cafes, small specialized book stores. And yes, also "brown" people. But also Japanese, Korean, Russian, Indian and Brazilian people.
  - seadan83 4y ago
    Less densely populated areas rarely pay for their road maintenance costs. It's actually quite unsustainable. That 10 mile road leading to just a few houses costs way more than is brought in by taxes from those houses. Public transit helps not having a car. That helps the environment and those that can't or don't want to drive. Most US cities have pathetic public transit to the point it is impractical (eg: buses running once every 2 hours and stopping at 6pm is not useful) Bottom line, I think this gets to the debate of car centric society. How do you do less densely populated areas in the american model without cars? I don't think you can. The problem with less dense and car centric is the 100 year upkeep cost is unsustainable
vincnetas 4y ago
but as you said, these information workers nees these services provided by city, so where will they move to? and if these services are sustainable only by economics of scale, you cant expect to just move out of the city to neatby area but still use city services time to time. its similar to all discount stores probaby. you can have them only because there are a lot of poeple buing non-discount things, and you get the leftovers. if everyone would only by at discount stores, the music would stop soon and game would be over.
- betwixthewires 4y ago
  Most of the services provided by the city are provided precisely to manage the problems created by the city. You don't need complex wastewater sanitation and management if you don't have a thousand people living in one building on top of an acre of land. You don't need a subway to get around wide open spaces. The services I was referring to though were private services. Bodegas, burrito shops, dry cleaning services, taxi cabs, all of these go out of business if office workers don't walk or drive by them en masse daily.
golemiprague 4y ago
Maybe in the US where cities are very strictly zoned and there is clear divide between the business district and suburbia. European and Asian cities are much more mixed and the effects there will not be necessarily the same. Actually, if American office building will reinvent some of the floors as residential apartments it might even make the city more attractive and interesting to live in.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago

> Why live in a city unless your job requires it? Huge variety of shops in walkable proximity, great public transport network, vibrant cultural life, plenty of opportunities to socialise. Why would you want to live outside of a city?

blhack 4y ago
>vibrant cultural life It's so funny that you say this. From my perspective the vibrant cultural life happens outside of the city. In the city everything is permitted and controlled. If you want interesting stuff, you have to get out of the city for it!
betwixthewires 4y ago
I do live outside of a city, and I do it for the lack of traffic, less crime, lower cost of living, being surrounded by the natural outdoors, and less stressful culture. But you missed my point. All those perks of living in a city are great, if you need to be there to earn what you earn. without that, the high cost of living simply isn't justified. Even if people want to be there, they'll make financial and economic decisions. And once those people start leaving, all those shops and bars and bodegas and what not that cater to them will go belly up. Then their owners and employees will leave. There goes your vibrant cultural life and opportunities to socialize. The flip side is that you'll find more of those things in less densely populated areas as this shakes out, and cost of living will rise as well outside of cities, but not by nearly as much, because the diaspora will be spread out.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  > But you missed my point. All those perks of living in a city are great, if you need to be there to earn what you earn. without that, the high cost of living simply isn't justified. I am not missing anything. I just deeply disagree. City life is enjoyable in and of itself. I don’t live there because I have to for my work. I live there because I find it inherently better than living somewhere else. If I was living in a normal city and not the capital of my country, it would not even be more expensive than living in the countryside. It would probably actually be cheaper. Gas is expensive here and our cities are built like proper cities. I think you are projecting your value on the situation and conclude that cities are doomed. Personally I think we are just going to witness a shift away from cities where life is expensive towards cheaper cities.
  - betwixthewires 4y ago
    That's a part of it too, moving to smaller cities, but that's still a massive economic reshuffling. I think you're grossly overestimating the number of people that live in cities for reasons other than economic opportunity. That is the entire value proposition of a city, that was the driver that led to urbanization in most countries as they developed. You might be willing to pay 3x as much in rent for the same pay because you like the local chicken place, but I doubt most of your neighbors would make the same choice as you when given the opportunity to reduce cost without reducing income. And when those people leave, all those perks of city life go with them.
    - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
      > That is the entire value proposition of a city … 3x as much in rent for the same pay because you like the local chicken place We are going in circle. Economic opportunities are clearly not the entire value proposition of a city. It’s a very convenient way of living. It’s not about a chicken place. It’s about walking your children to school, being able to go to conferences, to see plays or attend a concert. It’s also just nice to not need a car. It’s very advantageous to just live close to others. I don’t know where you get your 3x from by the way. An average city rent here is only 20% to 30% more expensive than living in the countryside. We are not talking about San Francisco.

88840-8855 4y ago

I disagree. Living in a city is way better than living on the countryside. - access to a large airport to go on regular holidays easily - better health care coverage, more doctors, more specialists - cultural access - more diversity and more colorful services and products - better public transportation

betwixthewires 4y ago
I have access to a small airport that's an hour flight to a large one. The logistics of going somewhere for leisure are only marginally more difficult for me, and even easier since I don't have to navigate a small city within a city with a million people in it and traffic to get there and all that. And for the most part I have plenty of leisure around me, I don't have to fly anywhere to see wide open spaces for example. Health care is a special exception for me since I live under an hour from a couple of big hospitals and I live in a state with a lot of hospitals all over the place. But all that really shows is that such a system can be made without heavily concentrated population centers. That perk is a result of how things are now, not how they have to be. Cultural access... I see this mentioned alongside diversity and what not, do you mean brown people? If I were right and there were a large deurbanization trend, wouldn't it follow that the diversity would go with the diaspora, since the diversity is just people? Public transportation is largely a solution to problems created by cities. You don't really need a public transportation system in a less densely populated area.
- 88840-8855 4y ago
  I am talking about niche hobbie stores, d&d clubs, anime conventions, gay clubs (that are enjoyable as a hetero, too), authentic Vietnamese restaurants, Guangdong, Sezhuan, Taiwanese restaurants, 2nd hand stores, unique cafes, small specialized book stores. And yes, also "brown" people. But also Japanese, Korean, Russian, Indian and Brazilian people.
- seadan83 4y ago
  Less densely populated areas rarely pay for their road maintenance costs. It's actually quite unsustainable. That 10 mile road leading to just a few houses costs way more than is brought in by taxes from those houses. Public transit helps not having a car. That helps the environment and those that can't or don't want to drive. Most US cities have pathetic public transit to the point it is impractical (eg: buses running once every 2 hours and stopping at 6pm is not useful) Bottom line, I think this gets to the debate of car centric society. How do you do less densely populated areas in the american model without cars? I don't think you can. The problem with less dense and car centric is the 100 year upkeep cost is unsustainable

vincnetas 4y ago

but as you said, these information workers nees these services provided by city, so where will they move to? and if these services are sustainable only by economics of scale, you cant expect to just move out of the city to neatby area but still use city services time to time. its similar to all discount stores probaby. you can have them only because there are a lot of poeple buing non-discount things, and you get the leftovers. if everyone would only by at discount stores, the music would stop soon and game would be over.

betwixthewires 4y ago
Most of the services provided by the city are provided precisely to manage the problems created by the city. You don't need complex wastewater sanitation and management if you don't have a thousand people living in one building on top of an acre of land. You don't need a subway to get around wide open spaces. The services I was referring to though were private services. Bodegas, burrito shops, dry cleaning services, taxi cabs, all of these go out of business if office workers don't walk or drive by them en masse daily.

golemiprague 4y ago

Maybe in the US where cities are very strictly zoned and there is clear divide between the business district and suburbia. European and Asian cities are much more mixed and the effects there will not be necessarily the same. Actually, if American office building will reinvent some of the floors as residential apartments it might even make the city more attractive and interesting to live in.