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WFH isn't about not going to the office. It's about breaking real estate. If the professional class can do that, it actually benefits everyone by taking some of
by api 3y ago
WFH isn't about not going to the office. It's about breaking real estate. If the professional class can do that, it actually benefits everyone by taking some of the pressure off hyperinflated real estate markets in major cities. We could also see some repurposing of commercial space to residential, which would further take the pressure off.
If you as a professional class worker think the rent is too damn high, consider how insane it is for people who make less and work longer hours.
It's become clear to me that real estate is the economic problem, at least in the US. I said the economic problem, singular. I don't think any other issue compares.
The phenomenon of younger generations feeling poorer than their parents is largely attributable to real estate costs. I think real estate is at the root of a ton more problems too: homelessness (for obvious reasons), collapsing birth rates, low rates of family formation, even crime. Real estate is basically cannibalizing the future.
- rossdavidh 3y agoYour comment is much more insightful than 99% of the responses, which mostly seem just angry. But I have to think that the primary reason for the real estate problem (which, I agree, is quite serious and the cause of many other issues) is that housing became financialized, and the primary way for the middle class to save money. It doesn't have to be that way; mobile homes, for example, do not work like this, they work more like cars (financially). The dearth of people working from the office in NYC or SF lately does not seem to have made any meaningful dent in the rent, primarily because the drivers of it were financial.