4 ms·

Office buildings take land and resources and generate almost nothing for the local community, and are islands in vast seas of asphalt and traffic attractors to

by tptacek 3mo ago

Office buildings take land and resources and generate almost nothing for the local community, and are islands in vast seas of asphalt and traffic attractors to boot. But nobody moralizes office buildings, just data centers, despite the fact that data centers are usually objectively better neighbors.

shit_game 3mo ago
This was a very significant talking point through most of covid, actually. Granted, there is an orders-of-magnitude disparity between office buildings and data centers regarding both their resource consumption and their local financial return through employment. Its no surprise that the attitude towards data centers is much more negative.
- tptacek 3mo ago
  Not really, no? I'm not saying office buildings are "just as bad" as data centers; I'm saying they're substantially worse. It is much more unpleasant to have an office building next to your home than it is to have one of the CyrusOne Aurora data centers. The data center is --- seriously go look at them --- basically like having a park next door.
  - jrflowers 3mo ago
    Wait are you saying office buildings bring less to the community because so, so, so many more people work in them than in data centers Do you think a community is your house
    - tptacek 3mo ago
      The office buildings next to the CyrusOne data centers in the western suburbs are not filled with people from Aurora. They're filled with commuters.
      - jrflowers 3mo ago
        That’s wild, where do all the people from Aurora work? The data centers? Also what does the specific building or set of buildings you hate in one town have to do with the concept of office buildings
        tptacek 3mo ago
        I've lost track of what your argument is. Mine is that office buildings are not generally filled with workers from the immediate municipality in which they're situated. We're talking about office buildings because office buildings and data centers are both large-format commercial real estate developments.
        jrflowers 3mo ago
        >are you saying office buildings bring less to the community because so, so, so many more people work in them than in data centers >Mine is that office buildings are not generally filled with workers from the immediate municipality in which they're situated. Since neither are data centers, which aren’t filled with workers, you could’ve just said “yeah” “Office buildings bring less to communities than data centers because of all the people that work in them” lmao
        gilthelander 3mo ago
        > That’s wild, where do all the people from Aurora work? Last I checked, Aurora had a large blue-collar Latino population, many of whom are successful tradespeople. These people commute to construction sites elsewhere during the day, and perhaps your own neighborhood, where HN posters snitch to the town if they use a leaf blower within 1500' of their home office.
        jrflowers 3mo ago
        > These people commute to construction sites elsewhere during the day While it is a shame that tptacek has to see “commuters“ going both ways it is good to know that the people of Aurora have this beautiful park https://www.cyrusone.com/data-centers/north-america/aurora-il https://www.cyrusone.com/data-centers/north-america/aurora-i...
  - MrDrMcCoy 3mo ago
    Office buildings employ considerably more people, support nearby restaurants, consume less power and water, produce virtually no infrasound, and are more attractive than data centers. I'd rather have an office building next to my house than a data center, especially if they would not be providing me colocation services at a steep discount.
    - tptacek 3mo ago
      Office buildings are not more attractive than data centers; that's my whole argument. In format, massing, and design, data centers essentially are office buildings, just with drastically less parking. Asphalt is the biggest eyesore in commercial real estate. (Data centers consume immaterial amounts of water.)
      - rtpg 3mo ago
        Drastically less parking, so way less jobs in the local area right? Like maybe the municipality doesn't care because a lot of jobs are filled by people coming in from an hour away, but surely the inverse of "I am sad because <some job source in my area> closed" is "I am happy because <some job source in my area> opened", right? I get what you're saying about the buildings themselves. I just think that, in the abstract and all else being equal (it isn't of course!) "big box for 50 jobs" and "big box for 200 jobs", one seems nicer. Maybe I'm overestimating the job differential. And this is all a bit of a false dichotomy anyways
        tptacek 3mo ago
        First, no, all these buildings have wildly overprovisioned parking. Most of the lots are empty. I'd encourage people wondering about this to just go drive out to an office complex in a suburb near them and look. Second, no, these jobs are not generally filled by neighbors of the office complexes, or even people from the muni where the office complex is situated. The big box for 50 jobs is also a nicer building to have near you, at least when we're talking about the data centers you find in the western suburbs of Chicago.
  - watwut 3mo ago
    This is not true. Office buildings are non issue and also imply more shops, restaurants, cafes and generally walkable environment.
silisili 3mo ago
Office buildings presumably are filled with bodies who get paid, who will spend some amount of money in the local economy. I'm not sure data centers could make the same argument.
- mlinhares 3mo ago
  The agents will leave the data center and buy stuff from the local economy, didn’t you hear that?
- polski-g 3mo ago
  I have lunch around the datacenters when I go to them.
  - silisili 3mo ago
    The main point I think is density - for their size datacenters typically don't hire many people.
duskdozer 3mo ago
Nobody? I do, and I've seen plenty others.
Teever 3mo ago
People have been talking about these issues for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Life_of_Small_Urban_Spaces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Life_of_Small_Urban... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Marohn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Marohn https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Delahanty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Delahanty
locknitpicker 3mo ago
> Office buildings take land and resources and generate almost nothing for the local community This reads like the prelude to Month Python's "what have the Romans ever done for us" skit. I recommend you catch up on the post-covid "return to office" conversation, particularly the arguments from municipalities and local governments. Even though I'm a diehard WFH guy, you clearly missed all the arguments on how forcing people to commute to the office benefits the economic activity in urban neighborhoods. Now, if your employer opted to build offices in the middle of nowhere... That's another issue.
rtpg 3mo ago
> nobody moralizes office buildings I do not believe this to be true! I have the impression you keep up with zoning discourse etc in your area based on your posting history... you surely have heard of people complaining about things like traffic concerns and general "ugliness" complaints around building out office parks, right? Data centers might be making the nat'l news at the moment, but it feels hard to consider any subcategory of project development that doesn't have a bunch of whiners associated to it.
- tptacek 3mo ago
  I'm a housing activist (we're fourth and inches from getting Oak Park to be the first municipality in Illinois to outlaw single-family exclusive zoning) and from grim experience I can tell you that my neighbors would far rather have an office building go up than an apartment building. It has specifically come up.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
throw0101d 3mo ago
> Office buildings take land and resources and generate almost nothing for the local community, and are islands in vast seas of asphalt and traffic attractors to boot. Manhattan (or any downtown business district) has lots of office towers with little asphalt, and many (small) businesses that make their living from office workers. Perhaps you are biased towards car-centric design thinking? Toronto (for one) has condo towers next to (or not far from) business towers so many folks can walk, cycle, or take transit as their commute. And this is not a new concept: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb

by tptacek 3mo ago

shit_game 3mo ago

This was a very significant talking point through most of covid, actually. Granted, there is an orders-of-magnitude disparity between office buildings and data centers regarding both their resource consumption and their local financial return through employment. Its no surprise that the attitude towards data centers is much more negative.

tptacek 3mo ago
Not really, no? I'm not saying office buildings are "just as bad" as data centers; I'm saying they're substantially worse. It is much more unpleasant to have an office building next to your home than it is to have one of the CyrusOne Aurora data centers. The data center is --- seriously go look at them --- basically like having a park next door.
- jrflowers 3mo ago
  Wait are you saying office buildings bring less to the community because so, so, so many more people work in them than in data centers Do you think a community is your house
  - tptacek 3mo ago
    The office buildings next to the CyrusOne data centers in the western suburbs are not filled with people from Aurora. They're filled with commuters.
    - jrflowers 3mo ago
      That’s wild, where do all the people from Aurora work? The data centers? Also what does the specific building or set of buildings you hate in one town have to do with the concept of office buildings
      - tptacek 3mo ago
        I've lost track of what your argument is. Mine is that office buildings are not generally filled with workers from the immediate municipality in which they're situated. We're talking about office buildings because office buildings and data centers are both large-format commercial real estate developments.
        jrflowers 3mo ago
        >are you saying office buildings bring less to the community because so, so, so many more people work in them than in data centers >Mine is that office buildings are not generally filled with workers from the immediate municipality in which they're situated. Since neither are data centers, which aren’t filled with workers, you could’ve just said “yeah” “Office buildings bring less to communities than data centers because of all the people that work in them” lmao
      - gilthelander 3mo ago
        > That’s wild, where do all the people from Aurora work? Last I checked, Aurora had a large blue-collar Latino population, many of whom are successful tradespeople. These people commute to construction sites elsewhere during the day, and perhaps your own neighborhood, where HN posters snitch to the town if they use a leaf blower within 1500' of their home office.
        jrflowers 3mo ago
        > These people commute to construction sites elsewhere during the day While it is a shame that tptacek has to see “commuters“ going both ways it is good to know that the people of Aurora have this beautiful park https://www.cyrusone.com/data-centers/north-america/aurora-il https://www.cyrusone.com/data-centers/north-america/aurora-i...
- MrDrMcCoy 3mo ago
  Office buildings employ considerably more people, support nearby restaurants, consume less power and water, produce virtually no infrasound, and are more attractive than data centers. I'd rather have an office building next to my house than a data center, especially if they would not be providing me colocation services at a steep discount.
  - tptacek 3mo ago
    Office buildings are not more attractive than data centers; that's my whole argument. In format, massing, and design, data centers essentially are office buildings, just with drastically less parking. Asphalt is the biggest eyesore in commercial real estate. (Data centers consume immaterial amounts of water.)
    - rtpg 3mo ago
      Drastically less parking, so way less jobs in the local area right? Like maybe the municipality doesn't care because a lot of jobs are filled by people coming in from an hour away, but surely the inverse of "I am sad because <some job source in my area> closed" is "I am happy because <some job source in my area> opened", right? I get what you're saying about the buildings themselves. I just think that, in the abstract and all else being equal (it isn't of course!) "big box for 50 jobs" and "big box for 200 jobs", one seems nicer. Maybe I'm overestimating the job differential. And this is all a bit of a false dichotomy anyways
      - tptacek 3mo ago
        First, no, all these buildings have wildly overprovisioned parking. Most of the lots are empty. I'd encourage people wondering about this to just go drive out to an office complex in a suburb near them and look. Second, no, these jobs are not generally filled by neighbors of the office complexes, or even people from the muni where the office complex is situated. The big box for 50 jobs is also a nicer building to have near you, at least when we're talking about the data centers you find in the western suburbs of Chicago.
- watwut 3mo ago
  This is not true. Office buildings are non issue and also imply more shops, restaurants, cafes and generally walkable environment.

silisili 3mo ago

Office buildings presumably are filled with bodies who get paid, who will spend some amount of money in the local economy. I'm not sure data centers could make the same argument.

mlinhares 3mo ago
The agents will leave the data center and buy stuff from the local economy, didn’t you hear that?
polski-g 3mo ago
I have lunch around the datacenters when I go to them.
- silisili 3mo ago
  The main point I think is density - for their size datacenters typically don't hire many people.

duskdozer 3mo ago

Nobody? I do, and I've seen plenty others.

Teever 3mo ago

People have been talking about these issues for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Life_of_Small_Urban_Spaces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Life_of_Small_Urban... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Marohn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Marohn https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Delahanty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Delahanty

locknitpicker 3mo ago

> Office buildings take land and resources and generate almost nothing for the local community This reads like the prelude to Month Python's "what have the Romans ever done for us" skit. I recommend you catch up on the post-covid "return to office" conversation, particularly the arguments from municipalities and local governments. Even though I'm a diehard WFH guy, you clearly missed all the arguments on how forcing people to commute to the office benefits the economic activity in urban neighborhoods. Now, if your employer opted to build offices in the middle of nowhere... That's another issue.

rtpg 3mo ago

> nobody moralizes office buildings I do not believe this to be true! I have the impression you keep up with zoning discourse etc in your area based on your posting history... you surely have heard of people complaining about things like traffic concerns and general "ugliness" complaints around building out office parks, right? Data centers might be making the nat'l news at the moment, but it feels hard to consider any subcategory of project development that doesn't have a bunch of whiners associated to it.

tptacek 3mo ago
I'm a housing activist (we're fourth and inches from getting Oak Park to be the first municipality in Illinois to outlaw single-family exclusive zoning) and from grim experience I can tell you that my neighbors would far rather have an office building go up than an apartment building. It has specifically come up.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]

throw0101d 3mo ago

> Office buildings take land and resources and generate almost nothing for the local community, and are islands in vast seas of asphalt and traffic attractors to boot. Manhattan (or any downtown business district) has lots of office towers with little asphalt, and many (small) businesses that make their living from office workers. Perhaps you are biased towards car-centric design thinking? Toronto (for one) has condo towers next to (or not far from) business towers so many folks can walk, cycle, or take transit as their commute. And this is not a new concept: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb