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> Let’s be honest. This is about saving cities. Without commuting office workers, the office buildings go empty, they become worth a fraction of their cost, and

> Let’s be honest. This is about saving cities. Without commuting office workers, the office buildings go empty, they become worth a fraction of their cost, and retail cannot survive. This erodes the tax base of most cities so much as to create a more-than-serious problem. I wonder how true this is. Plenty of people seem to enjoy the city life. Though I suppose if they had to work from a small apartment they're already living in that could be unpleasant.

quantumwannabe 3y ago
Also, it’s not like demand for retail businesses has declined. Businesses near where people live are booming.
NegativeLatency 3y ago
Just annecdata: I used to go into the city core every day, now I stay at home most days. While the city core is certainly less busy (and many of my favorite restaurants have closed there), my home neighborhood (a streetcar suburb) is being revitalized. There are at least 5 new bars/coffee/food places that have opened up within walking distance and they seem to be doing healthy business.
- allears 3y ago
  OK just a wild guess. Are you in the Sunset in SF?
  - NegativeLatency 3y ago
    Portland
agumonkey 3y ago
It's a strange time in life where centralization is not the most beneficial mechanism anymore. Internet influenced things down to the real world.
- Nasrudith 3y ago
  Data centers benefit from economies of scale and thus centralization. Office spaces benefit marginally if we are being generous. Most office jobs wouldn't be improved in productivity if they spent time interacting directly with orders of magnitude more people.
PaulHoule 3y ago
That's the urban attitude isn't? When commuters weren't riding the LIRR the LIRR was complaining about how they'd go out of business if people weren't riding it. We exist to ride transit, transit doesn't exist to get us where we want to go. On the other hand public transit companies don't get excited at all if you miss work because the bus didn't show up. I ride the bus most days and fortunately I am near the end of the line because frequently we get a minibus instead of a bus and the minibus fills up leaving passengers abandoned on the side of the road. You have no voice, they don't care. Loyalty only gets you so far. People exit by taking their car. This video points out the complete lack of a customer service attitude that causes public transit to languish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3yXSD2O95E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3yXSD2O95E If your car broke down at least your car dealer would pretend to care.
- jltsiren 3y ago
  It sounds like you live in an area that can't support reasonable public transit. If missing a bus is a big deal, and if the bus may get replaced by a minibus, population density is probably too low. When public transit works well, you see it more as a network of fixed routes than as catching individual vehicles. You show up at a stop, and the system takes you close to your destination. If you miss a bus/tram/train, the next one is probably not too far behind. If you miss a connection, the system may suggest you another route. The US is full of medium-density cities that don't work well. Population density is high enough that traffic gets bad if most people drive, but it's simultaneously low enough that public transit is only viable on most popular routes.
  - cvwright 3y ago
    I used to live in PDX, which is generally regarded as having very good public transit for the US. My experience was pretty close to what the poster describes.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    Certainly if you have transit running every five minutes it is entirely different then if it isn’t. (In that case unreliability isn’t the killer that it is when a bus runs every hour) I had no problem with the reliability of the bus before the pandemic (got an electric bus instead of a minibus) but the bus company in Tompkins has never really recovered. For a while we had people advocating the Utopian idea of letting everybody ride the bus for free, it seems to have become a reality by accident because the fare collecting machines have broken and haven’t been fixed.
CapmCrackaWaka 3y ago
Yeah, I read the article hoping for some elaboration. After all, I doubt ANY of my past employers would have cared what was happening to the city around them if they were saving a few bucks. The author says: “That’s all this is about. Your local government officials are pressuring CEOs to get butts in seats and your bosses want to walk around the office feeling like a God again watching their peons slave away in terrible conditions.” Uuuuuugh the second point is so tired. But the first point is interesting… IF it’s true. Is there any evidence of this? Are local governments putting some kind of pressure on companies to go back to the office? I doubt there’s much to it, given the rest of this article turned out to be ranting.
- ytch 3y ago
  https://www.geekwire.com/2023/seattle-mayor-praises-amazons-back-to-office-policy-in-state-of-the-city-address/ https://www.geekwire.com/2023/seattle-mayor-praises-amazons-... the news didn't mention about pressure directly, but mayor and interest groups are happy about back-to-office.
Jochim 3y ago
I like city life but not because of office landlords. Most retail sucks as well. Cities are great for the variety of leisure, hospitality, and entertainment on offer.
inamberclad 3y ago
The problem with 'saving' cities via business is that since the 1950s, people have only thought of cities is being places for business. There are better ways to maintain a high-density area than one that empties out every night in a mass exodus of vehicles, but people can't seem to wrap their heads around that.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  The problem is that jobs are easy money. The services that cost the most money for governments to provide are often for residents; a person sends their child to school at home, not in their work area. And offices densely pack a lot of workers compared to homes, so you are getting a lot of tax revenue that doesn’t need as much services spending.

quantumwannabe 3y ago

Also, it’s not like demand for retail businesses has declined. Businesses near where people live are booming.

NegativeLatency 3y ago

Just annecdata: I used to go into the city core every day, now I stay at home most days. While the city core is certainly less busy (and many of my favorite restaurants have closed there), my home neighborhood (a streetcar suburb) is being revitalized. There are at least 5 new bars/coffee/food places that have opened up within walking distance and they seem to be doing healthy business.

allears 3y ago
OK just a wild guess. Are you in the Sunset in SF?
- NegativeLatency 3y ago
  Portland

agumonkey 3y ago

It's a strange time in life where centralization is not the most beneficial mechanism anymore. Internet influenced things down to the real world.

Nasrudith 3y ago
Data centers benefit from economies of scale and thus centralization. Office spaces benefit marginally if we are being generous. Most office jobs wouldn't be improved in productivity if they spent time interacting directly with orders of magnitude more people.

PaulHoule 3y ago

That's the urban attitude isn't? When commuters weren't riding the LIRR the LIRR was complaining about how they'd go out of business if people weren't riding it. We exist to ride transit, transit doesn't exist to get us where we want to go. On the other hand public transit companies don't get excited at all if you miss work because the bus didn't show up. I ride the bus most days and fortunately I am near the end of the line because frequently we get a minibus instead of a bus and the minibus fills up leaving passengers abandoned on the side of the road. You have no voice, they don't care. Loyalty only gets you so far. People exit by taking their car. This video points out the complete lack of a customer service attitude that causes public transit to languish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3yXSD2O95E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3yXSD2O95E If your car broke down at least your car dealer would pretend to care.

jltsiren 3y ago
It sounds like you live in an area that can't support reasonable public transit. If missing a bus is a big deal, and if the bus may get replaced by a minibus, population density is probably too low. When public transit works well, you see it more as a network of fixed routes than as catching individual vehicles. You show up at a stop, and the system takes you close to your destination. If you miss a bus/tram/train, the next one is probably not too far behind. If you miss a connection, the system may suggest you another route. The US is full of medium-density cities that don't work well. Population density is high enough that traffic gets bad if most people drive, but it's simultaneously low enough that public transit is only viable on most popular routes.
- cvwright 3y ago
  I used to live in PDX, which is generally regarded as having very good public transit for the US. My experience was pretty close to what the poster describes.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  Certainly if you have transit running every five minutes it is entirely different then if it isn’t. (In that case unreliability isn’t the killer that it is when a bus runs every hour) I had no problem with the reliability of the bus before the pandemic (got an electric bus instead of a minibus) but the bus company in Tompkins has never really recovered. For a while we had people advocating the Utopian idea of letting everybody ride the bus for free, it seems to have become a reality by accident because the fare collecting machines have broken and haven’t been fixed.

CapmCrackaWaka 3y ago

Yeah, I read the article hoping for some elaboration. After all, I doubt ANY of my past employers would have cared what was happening to the city around them if they were saving a few bucks. The author says: “That’s all this is about. Your local government officials are pressuring CEOs to get butts in seats and your bosses want to walk around the office feeling like a God again watching their peons slave away in terrible conditions.” Uuuuuugh the second point is so tired. But the first point is interesting… IF it’s true. Is there any evidence of this? Are local governments putting some kind of pressure on companies to go back to the office? I doubt there’s much to it, given the rest of this article turned out to be ranting.

ytch 3y ago
https://www.geekwire.com/2023/seattle-mayor-praises-amazons-back-to-office-policy-in-state-of-the-city-address/ https://www.geekwire.com/2023/seattle-mayor-praises-amazons-... the news didn't mention about pressure directly, but mayor and interest groups are happy about back-to-office.

Jochim 3y ago

I like city life but not because of office landlords. Most retail sucks as well. Cities are great for the variety of leisure, hospitality, and entertainment on offer.

inamberclad 3y ago

The problem with 'saving' cities via business is that since the 1950s, people have only thought of cities is being places for business. There are better ways to maintain a high-density area than one that empties out every night in a mass exodus of vehicles, but people can't seem to wrap their heads around that.

bobthepanda 3y ago
The problem is that jobs are easy money. The services that cost the most money for governments to provide are often for residents; a person sends their child to school at home, not in their work area. And offices densely pack a lot of workers compared to homes, so you are getting a lot of tax revenue that doesn’t need as much services spending.