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Its a delicate balance with these things. Residential brings life to the monotonous business areas and helps to improve housing supply (often not by an awful lo

Its a delicate balance with these things. Residential brings life to the monotonous business areas and helps to improve housing supply (often not by an awful lot) but on the other hand, once you lose office sites they are generally gone forever (because of multiple ownership you can almost never convert from residential back to office) and even though the office market is taking a big hit from working from home / remote, the broader trend of the past 100 years is more and more jobs being concentrated into fewer and fewer office district that have to be larger and larger in critical mass. Sydney, Australia is a good example. They introduced residential floorspace bonuses 10-20 years ago which have changed the city for the better. Pre-covid they wanted to shut this lever off as it almost flipped the other way where they were running out of land for offices to keep up with demand. Now its a bit of a lull on how to respond to the new environment though.

kbenson 3y ago
> even though the office market is taking a big hit from working from home / remote, the broader trend of the past 100 years is more and more jobs being concentrated into fewer and fewer office district that have to be larger and larger in critical mass. Well, the question is whether we hit an inflection point which changed the future drastically and invalidated data based on prior trends or not. So, does remote work just alleviate how quickly office space needs were growing (and if so is it to the point that new office space could be built), or does it actually reverse the trend to a degree?
- hattmall 3y ago
  It's not strictly work from home. Lots of business located near each other in city centers for business purposes that are being replaced by digital services. Video conferencing and other collaborative tools have decreased the need for many business to be in close physical proximity to each other.
ktosobcy 3y ago
I never understood the need to concentrate all the offices in the single focal point of the city. And currently with WFH it seems to make even more sense to distribute office spaces in local "co-working" spaces and in the end mix residential with work making it intertwined (zoning in the USA, from what I understand, is weird as hack…)
- gameman144 3y ago
  For professions or companies where in-person collaboration is still needed, bigger concentration of business helps focus infrastructure investment into areas where it is most impactful. For instance, it's easier to make a subway line go through an area with lots of offices than it would be to have multiple separate lines passing through satellite hubs.
  - bloppe 3y ago
    This stuff is mostly not centrally planned. People are free to open up offices wherever zoning allows (which is generally a lot more places than the few ultra-concentrated areas like downtown Manhattan), yet they tend to concentrate. Perhaps highly concentrating workers and businesses creates the best conditions for free movement of workers between businesses, allowing the best companies to more easily find the best workers.
    - gameman144 3y ago
      It's true that these aren't centrally planned, but good infrastructure provides a feedback loop. People want to work at an office that's easy to commute to, so offices open near good transit. The extra offices require more transit, so more investment goes to the same area. Repeat ad infinitum.
- btbuildem 3y ago
  I think it's a hold-over from the age of factories and paper offices, when people had to be in one place to do the work. White collar work can now be mostly distributed, but light and heavy industry still needs groups of people working on site. Very different locations though, you don't see much manufacturing happening downtown.
  - germinalphrase 3y ago
    I trace my American heritage to the Midwest and have plenty of industrial electricians, iron workers, farmers, etc in the family line. Traveling around the big Midwestern cities, there’s a part of me that longs for the old industrial downtown. Loud with machines, busy on the streets with laborers, dirty and dynamic. Now? It’s mostly cars, a few pedestrians, and a bunch of people who barely leave their desks (me included). Plenty of reasons why the times now are better, but there is some kind of a loss there.
cramjabsyn 3y ago
Oh no not office suites being gone forever. Don’t worry they’ll rebuild. They always rebuild.
worik 3y ago
> Residential brings life to the monotonous business areas and helps to improve housing supply (often not by an awful lot) but on the other hand, once you lose office sites they are generally gone forever I am not a town planner, but this makes little sense to me. Can you not have mixed use?
- twelvechairs 3y ago
  There's a range of factors for why not endless mixed use. A few of the big ones: The clustering nature of businesses wanting to be close to each other. Most commercial areas are limited in expansion and a big 'critical mass' helps to drive the success of all the businesses. Office workers dont like to look out at residential uses (hanging laundry etc.). On the economic side its important to note that office-only zoning is effectively a government subsidy to encourage business. If they have to compete with residential some businesses will die and others will struggle. There's also issues with sudden change. If you convert zoning from office only to mixed use quickly expect 10 years or so of no new office buildings leading to flight of the best businesses seeking premium accommodation and office buildings start to run down and other building also seeing a lack of investment as their owners eye tearing them down soon. If the market swings back towards office over time it will be harder to respond to. As I say also its easy to convert office to residential but almost impossible to convert back.
  - lotsoweiners 3y ago
    > If the market swings back towards office over time it will be harder to respond to. As I say also its easy to convert office to residential but almost impossible to convert back. Additional complexities of a return to office mandate that some management blowhards want seems like a win for office to residential conversions in my opinion.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
davidjytang 3y ago
In Taiwan, we have a very large number of SMB which operates out of someone's apartment. If an apartment unit is up to office building code, then the apartment unit can be certified for a business license. Sometimes constructions are done to combine 2 or 3 apartment units into one bigger office. So office sites may not be gone forever but could be converted for small businesses. (if Chicago laws allow it)

kbenson 3y ago

> even though the office market is taking a big hit from working from home / remote, the broader trend of the past 100 years is more and more jobs being concentrated into fewer and fewer office district that have to be larger and larger in critical mass. Well, the question is whether we hit an inflection point which changed the future drastically and invalidated data based on prior trends or not. So, does remote work just alleviate how quickly office space needs were growing (and if so is it to the point that new office space could be built), or does it actually reverse the trend to a degree?

hattmall 3y ago
It's not strictly work from home. Lots of business located near each other in city centers for business purposes that are being replaced by digital services. Video conferencing and other collaborative tools have decreased the need for many business to be in close physical proximity to each other.

ktosobcy 3y ago

I never understood the need to concentrate all the offices in the single focal point of the city. And currently with WFH it seems to make even more sense to distribute office spaces in local "co-working" spaces and in the end mix residential with work making it intertwined (zoning in the USA, from what I understand, is weird as hack…)

gameman144 3y ago
For professions or companies where in-person collaboration is still needed, bigger concentration of business helps focus infrastructure investment into areas where it is most impactful. For instance, it's easier to make a subway line go through an area with lots of offices than it would be to have multiple separate lines passing through satellite hubs.
- bloppe 3y ago
  This stuff is mostly not centrally planned. People are free to open up offices wherever zoning allows (which is generally a lot more places than the few ultra-concentrated areas like downtown Manhattan), yet they tend to concentrate. Perhaps highly concentrating workers and businesses creates the best conditions for free movement of workers between businesses, allowing the best companies to more easily find the best workers.
  - gameman144 3y ago
    It's true that these aren't centrally planned, but good infrastructure provides a feedback loop. People want to work at an office that's easy to commute to, so offices open near good transit. The extra offices require more transit, so more investment goes to the same area. Repeat ad infinitum.
btbuildem 3y ago
I think it's a hold-over from the age of factories and paper offices, when people had to be in one place to do the work. White collar work can now be mostly distributed, but light and heavy industry still needs groups of people working on site. Very different locations though, you don't see much manufacturing happening downtown.
- germinalphrase 3y ago
  I trace my American heritage to the Midwest and have plenty of industrial electricians, iron workers, farmers, etc in the family line. Traveling around the big Midwestern cities, there’s a part of me that longs for the old industrial downtown. Loud with machines, busy on the streets with laborers, dirty and dynamic. Now? It’s mostly cars, a few pedestrians, and a bunch of people who barely leave their desks (me included). Plenty of reasons why the times now are better, but there is some kind of a loss there.

cramjabsyn 3y ago

Oh no not office suites being gone forever. Don’t worry they’ll rebuild. They always rebuild.

worik 3y ago

> Residential brings life to the monotonous business areas and helps to improve housing supply (often not by an awful lot) but on the other hand, once you lose office sites they are generally gone forever I am not a town planner, but this makes little sense to me. Can you not have mixed use?

twelvechairs 3y ago
There's a range of factors for why not endless mixed use. A few of the big ones: The clustering nature of businesses wanting to be close to each other. Most commercial areas are limited in expansion and a big 'critical mass' helps to drive the success of all the businesses. Office workers dont like to look out at residential uses (hanging laundry etc.). On the economic side its important to note that office-only zoning is effectively a government subsidy to encourage business. If they have to compete with residential some businesses will die and others will struggle. There's also issues with sudden change. If you convert zoning from office only to mixed use quickly expect 10 years or so of no new office buildings leading to flight of the best businesses seeking premium accommodation and office buildings start to run down and other building also seeing a lack of investment as their owners eye tearing them down soon. If the market swings back towards office over time it will be harder to respond to. As I say also its easy to convert office to residential but almost impossible to convert back.
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  > If the market swings back towards office over time it will be harder to respond to. As I say also its easy to convert office to residential but almost impossible to convert back. Additional complexities of a return to office mandate that some management blowhards want seems like a win for office to residential conversions in my opinion.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

davidjytang 3y ago

In Taiwan, we have a very large number of SMB which operates out of someone's apartment. If an apartment unit is up to office building code, then the apartment unit can be certified for a business license. Sometimes constructions are done to combine 2 or 3 apartment units into one bigger office. So office sites may not be gone forever but could be converted for small businesses. (if Chicago laws allow it)