21 ms·

These seeds were sowed when cities cashed in on commercial real estate, pushing residential zoning further and further out of the city. Wake up call: nobody wan

These seeds were sowed when cities cashed in on commercial real estate, pushing residential zoning further and further out of the city. Wake up call: nobody wants to spend longer than they have to on an unpaid, unpredictable commute into the city anymore. So while these downtown businesses are getting 1/3 of the foot traffic that they used to, all the supermarkets and shops a few miles down the road are raking it in.

reset-password 4y ago
Right. The value has not been lost. It has been shifted. It happens.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mantas 4y ago
  It depends on how you count value. Let's say you work from home and make your lunch. Previously you'd buy ready-to-eat lunch. While you still buy ingredients and pay for energy, you don't pay for someone to prepare it and then sell to you, prepare the housing of the eatery and so on. Effectively some GDP was lost. Next, let's say you grow some of your own veggies...
highwaylights 4y ago
I used to get the bus to work about 10 years ago because parking in the city became so expensive (I stopped long before Covid hit). The thing I don't miss is that I got sick every single Winter. All it takes is one inconsiderate person to not cover their mouth and everyone is getting ill. And it happened all the time. I had a commute time that ranged between one and two hours over that stretch as I'd lived in a couple of different places, but that wasn't even extreme. I knew people with 2+ hour commutes each way which they did for years on end. I understand there are a lot of people who need a place to work away from their home, but who is going to voluntarily return to an office when they don't need to just to prop up your portfolio and obsolete businesses? Why should they? It's like the argument that people should support local businesses instead of buying from Amazon. If Amazon is cheaper and more convenient, why would someone buy anything elsewhere? (It's not like those businesses are going to help with your rent or food costs).
- MengerSponge 4y ago
  I've had funny conversations about why I still wear a good n95 on public transit (planes included). My right-leaning and remarkably well educated parents are incredulous. A few years ago I thought personal masking didn't really matter. Wow, I was wrong! And not catching bs colds from weirdos on the bus or the grocery store makes it worth it. My face isn't that pretty anyway.
  - snapplebobapple 4y ago
    They might be right about the actual plane ride because the filtration systems on modern (read 20 years old or newer) are really good. Public busses tend to be a disaster for air filtration though, especially in winter when no windows are open. I wish there was some better research/more accessible research on this.
    - jghn 4y ago
      Even if the plane's filtration is good, if the person 3 feet away from you is coughing it's not going to be that good. I'd rather rely on the combination of filtration & a mask. Defense in depth. Day to day i'm not religious about masking, but for things like public transportation, airplanes, etc I try to always have face protection on.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        Pressurized airplanes have air changes per hour in the 12-16 range. That's above the ASHRAE recommended 6-12 air changes per hour for places that may contain viruses. (Obviously, ASHRAE isn't the CDC or healthcare organization directly, but they do know a few things about standards setting for HVAC.) Excellent filtration isn't as relevant when the average air molecule is in the aircraft for only 5-10 minutes. The standard for AC/H for offices is 3-4.
        lamontcg 4y ago
        The studied COVID outbreaks on planes show that this still isn't sufficient. I'm also pretty sure I got sick from the kid sitting directly behind me on the plane when I got influenza. You can site all the statistics and propaganda in the world about plane ventilation. It clearly isn't enough to prevent viral spread (I don't care about air changes per hour or cfm or anything else, the only endpoint worth discussing is viral spread--I give precisely zero fucks about how fast the air is moving around). I'm using n95s on planes from here on out.
rayiner 4y ago
Yeah—the stores in our area (which is a bedroom community for Baltimore and to a lesser extent DC) are doing great.
- jgalentine007 4y ago
  Which is funny, because after 2008 it felt like a lot of the bedroom communities / strip malls struggled and went down hill (lack of demand I guess) - and it felt like a whole wave of young people were only wanting to live in the city.
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    Living in the city is great for young people who have no kids - lots of entertainment options a short walk away. It's noisier/busier/dirtier (EVs will help A LOT with noise and pollution). Living further out is much nicer when you have kids - more space, more freedom for the kids to move around, more trees for them to climb and places to explore.
    - jghn 4y ago
      Don't forget older people who have no kids. I'm part of a DINK couple and could not imagine leaving an urban area. There's so much more to do, so much easier to get around, etc.
      - rbanffy 4y ago
        Sorry. Didn't mean to. I suspect we'll be in that space in about 10 years or so, when being next to a good hospital with excellent geriatric services will be more important than having trees to climb.
    - thatfrenchguy 4y ago
      And nowhere for them to go by themselves? Living in the suburbs as a tween/teenager is death.
jksmith 4y ago
Carr's "The Big Switch" in reverse. Technology ushering in a decentralization effect. And that's fine. Work at home. Communities buy micro reactors, Starlink ready to go. Low carbon produce that doesn't have chemical shit all over it. Maybe testosterone rates go up, maybe cancer rates go down. Probably a good idea all around.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids[1]. [1]: https://youtu.be/N1KvgtEnABY https://youtu.be/N1KvgtEnABY
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    I guess a lot of people got triggered by the first words and never finished reading after the downvote. Such an amazing movie...
    - adolph 4y ago
      The downvoters know the truth. rbanffy, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, rbanffy, __children's_ice_cream__. You know when fluoridation first began? Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, rbanffy. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      HN readers don't like low value joke / sarcastic comments.
      - 4y ago
neutronicus 4y ago
Yes - pre-pandemic, white-collar office parks and big-box retail had already dispersed to the suburbs where I live (Baltimore). Honestly, remote work allowed us to stay in the city (our preference), if I'd had to keep commuting I don't know if raising my kid would have been workable for us.
marcyb5st 4y ago
Europe arguably has better public transportation and shorter commutes. I am still seeing this happening (don't have any data to back my claim, just my experience). If I have to guess here is more about the housing cost being the issue. Buying is prohibitive given the average income and most new units are only for rent. In the last 6 years I spent more than 140k CHF in rent (close to Zurich). Once remote working has started we said screw that and moved further away from downtown. Now we own a nice apartment with a garden (unthinkable before) and go the city only when required.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  > Europe arguably has better public transportation and shorter commutes Mine (Dublin, Ireland) is still about an hour on the tram (for EUR 2) from where I live, so I'm not saying it's perfect, but my manager, in the Atlanta area, is a two-hour drive away from the office. That and he starting meetings at 6AM (because Dublin) makes me support remote working even more for the ATL teams. I gladly traded the rich cultural life and world-class restaurants for a walkable city and a house with a small park one gate away from the back yard. Even considering the occasional invasion of the house by a bunch of screaming little 10 yo's who are my daughter's gang (who lives mostly on the same street).
ar_lan 4y ago
Living in the Bay Area, I really can't afford to live close to my office. I have to drive to Palo Alto from San Jose (or take the train). Pre-pandemic, my drive averaged 1hr to the office, and 1.5hrs back. So, I'm wasting 2.5 hrs of my life every day... to do the same exact job I do from home (not to mention cost of gas/car maintenance). I also get more done at home, because I haven't reduced my hours any, but I don't waste time in the break room grabbing coffee and chatting. I don't know what the overall data is, and if I'm just a productive outlier or if that's a general trend. If I'm ever required to commute again, I 100% view it as a pay decrease.
- genocidicbunny 4y ago
  For a while, I used to commute from Santa Cruz to north San Jose for work. Since then, I absolutely factor my commute into my compensation, and anything more than an hour total commute per day is an additional premium. Factor in how terrible driving has become in the bay area, and I'm of half a mind to begin asking for hazard pay for commuting.
  - scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
    Especially on that Hwy17
- cyberpunk 4y ago
  I really love it how even on days where our team is in the office, if just one person can't make it (quite likely) then almost all the meetings are virtual anyway. Sitting in a room together with headphones in zoom meetings! Brilliant. :D
  - dataexporter 4y ago
    Some conference rooms have good video conferencing facilities, so no headphones in the same room though. But I get your point, it is a pain to commute all the way to be on zoom calls.

reset-password 4y ago

Right. The value has not been lost. It has been shifted. It happens.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mantas 4y ago
It depends on how you count value. Let's say you work from home and make your lunch. Previously you'd buy ready-to-eat lunch. While you still buy ingredients and pay for energy, you don't pay for someone to prepare it and then sell to you, prepare the housing of the eatery and so on. Effectively some GDP was lost. Next, let's say you grow some of your own veggies...

highwaylights 4y ago

I used to get the bus to work about 10 years ago because parking in the city became so expensive (I stopped long before Covid hit). The thing I don't miss is that I got sick every single Winter. All it takes is one inconsiderate person to not cover their mouth and everyone is getting ill. And it happened all the time. I had a commute time that ranged between one and two hours over that stretch as I'd lived in a couple of different places, but that wasn't even extreme. I knew people with 2+ hour commutes each way which they did for years on end. I understand there are a lot of people who need a place to work away from their home, but who is going to voluntarily return to an office when they don't need to just to prop up your portfolio and obsolete businesses? Why should they? It's like the argument that people should support local businesses instead of buying from Amazon. If Amazon is cheaper and more convenient, why would someone buy anything elsewhere? (It's not like those businesses are going to help with your rent or food costs).

MengerSponge 4y ago
I've had funny conversations about why I still wear a good n95 on public transit (planes included). My right-leaning and remarkably well educated parents are incredulous. A few years ago I thought personal masking didn't really matter. Wow, I was wrong! And not catching bs colds from weirdos on the bus or the grocery store makes it worth it. My face isn't that pretty anyway.
- snapplebobapple 4y ago
  They might be right about the actual plane ride because the filtration systems on modern (read 20 years old or newer) are really good. Public busses tend to be a disaster for air filtration though, especially in winter when no windows are open. I wish there was some better research/more accessible research on this.
  - jghn 4y ago
    Even if the plane's filtration is good, if the person 3 feet away from you is coughing it's not going to be that good. I'd rather rely on the combination of filtration & a mask. Defense in depth. Day to day i'm not religious about masking, but for things like public transportation, airplanes, etc I try to always have face protection on.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      Pressurized airplanes have air changes per hour in the 12-16 range. That's above the ASHRAE recommended 6-12 air changes per hour for places that may contain viruses. (Obviously, ASHRAE isn't the CDC or healthcare organization directly, but they do know a few things about standards setting for HVAC.) Excellent filtration isn't as relevant when the average air molecule is in the aircraft for only 5-10 minutes. The standard for AC/H for offices is 3-4.
      - lamontcg 4y ago
        The studied COVID outbreaks on planes show that this still isn't sufficient. I'm also pretty sure I got sick from the kid sitting directly behind me on the plane when I got influenza. You can site all the statistics and propaganda in the world about plane ventilation. It clearly isn't enough to prevent viral spread (I don't care about air changes per hour or cfm or anything else, the only endpoint worth discussing is viral spread--I give precisely zero fucks about how fast the air is moving around). I'm using n95s on planes from here on out.

rayiner 4y ago

Yeah—the stores in our area (which is a bedroom community for Baltimore and to a lesser extent DC) are doing great.

jgalentine007 4y ago
Which is funny, because after 2008 it felt like a lot of the bedroom communities / strip malls struggled and went down hill (lack of demand I guess) - and it felt like a whole wave of young people were only wanting to live in the city.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  Living in the city is great for young people who have no kids - lots of entertainment options a short walk away. It's noisier/busier/dirtier (EVs will help A LOT with noise and pollution). Living further out is much nicer when you have kids - more space, more freedom for the kids to move around, more trees for them to climb and places to explore.
  - jghn 4y ago
    Don't forget older people who have no kids. I'm part of a DINK couple and could not imagine leaving an urban area. There's so much more to do, so much easier to get around, etc.
    - rbanffy 4y ago
      Sorry. Didn't mean to. I suspect we'll be in that space in about 10 years or so, when being next to a good hospital with excellent geriatric services will be more important than having trees to climb.
  - thatfrenchguy 4y ago
    And nowhere for them to go by themselves? Living in the suburbs as a tween/teenager is death.

jksmith 4y ago

Carr's "The Big Switch" in reverse. Technology ushering in a decentralization effect. And that's fine. Work at home. Communities buy micro reactors, Starlink ready to go. Low carbon produce that doesn't have chemical shit all over it. Maybe testosterone rates go up, maybe cancer rates go down. Probably a good idea all around.

woodruffw 4y ago
I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids[1]. [1]: https://youtu.be/N1KvgtEnABY https://youtu.be/N1KvgtEnABY
- rbanffy 4y ago
  I guess a lot of people got triggered by the first words and never finished reading after the downvote. Such an amazing movie...
  - adolph 4y ago
    The downvoters know the truth. rbanffy, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, rbanffy, __children's_ice_cream__. You know when fluoridation first began? Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, rbanffy. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    HN readers don't like low value joke / sarcastic comments.
    - 4y ago

neutronicus 4y ago

Yes - pre-pandemic, white-collar office parks and big-box retail had already dispersed to the suburbs where I live (Baltimore). Honestly, remote work allowed us to stay in the city (our preference), if I'd had to keep commuting I don't know if raising my kid would have been workable for us.

marcyb5st 4y ago

Europe arguably has better public transportation and shorter commutes. I am still seeing this happening (don't have any data to back my claim, just my experience). If I have to guess here is more about the housing cost being the issue. Buying is prohibitive given the average income and most new units are only for rent. In the last 6 years I spent more than 140k CHF in rent (close to Zurich). Once remote working has started we said screw that and moved further away from downtown. Now we own a nice apartment with a garden (unthinkable before) and go the city only when required.

rbanffy 4y ago
> Europe arguably has better public transportation and shorter commutes Mine (Dublin, Ireland) is still about an hour on the tram (for EUR 2) from where I live, so I'm not saying it's perfect, but my manager, in the Atlanta area, is a two-hour drive away from the office. That and he starting meetings at 6AM (because Dublin) makes me support remote working even more for the ATL teams. I gladly traded the rich cultural life and world-class restaurants for a walkable city and a house with a small park one gate away from the back yard. Even considering the occasional invasion of the house by a bunch of screaming little 10 yo's who are my daughter's gang (who lives mostly on the same street).

ar_lan 4y ago

Living in the Bay Area, I really can't afford to live close to my office. I have to drive to Palo Alto from San Jose (or take the train). Pre-pandemic, my drive averaged 1hr to the office, and 1.5hrs back. So, I'm wasting 2.5 hrs of my life every day... to do the same exact job I do from home (not to mention cost of gas/car maintenance). I also get more done at home, because I haven't reduced my hours any, but I don't waste time in the break room grabbing coffee and chatting. I don't know what the overall data is, and if I'm just a productive outlier or if that's a general trend. If I'm ever required to commute again, I 100% view it as a pay decrease.

genocidicbunny 4y ago
For a while, I used to commute from Santa Cruz to north San Jose for work. Since then, I absolutely factor my commute into my compensation, and anything more than an hour total commute per day is an additional premium. Factor in how terrible driving has become in the bay area, and I'm of half a mind to begin asking for hazard pay for commuting.
- scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
  Especially on that Hwy17
cyberpunk 4y ago
I really love it how even on days where our team is in the office, if just one person can't make it (quite likely) then almost all the meetings are virtual anyway. Sitting in a room together with headphones in zoom meetings! Brilliant. :D
- dataexporter 4y ago
  Some conference rooms have good video conferencing facilities, so no headphones in the same room though. But I get your point, it is a pain to commute all the way to be on zoom calls.