Not sure this is the best sublemm (sublem, sublemmy, subhaw?) to post this to, but anyway…

  • It felt like there was a weirdly pro-office tilt in the article, like this shift to less office work and more remote had some kind of moral or ethical judgement associated with it. With that being said, big cities definitely should be worried about being able to keep up with the financial demands, with less revenue streams coming in from taxing office space. But that’s the issue with getting so much revenue from land owners rather than the corporations which operate in your space. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over time and how cities and the country adapts. We certainly have a housing crisis in many places in the US, will this resolve itself by residents spreading themselves more thinly across the US or will there be innovative ways to reclaim this office space in large cities and increased population density? Probably a combination of both.

    I’m glad less people are being forced to commute for many environmental as well as practical reasons. In general the workforce is less and less tolerant of shitty corporate behavior. A recent study I read talked about how gen z has the highest rates of not applying for jobs where the salary isn’t posted. I’ve seen many similar narratives and studies - ‘the great quit’, people just leaving without giving notice, people advocating for better work environments, demanding greater equity, the most important factor for workplace engagement being whether diversity is championed, and many other shifts in mindset. As a whole the market will attempt to adapt to the diversity of opinions out there, and it does not surprise me that some companies are pushing a return to office and a response is for other companies to compete by allowing remote work - this gives the employees a choice of company to work for. A response of companies easing their policies or not enforcing a return to work is entirely unsurprising and I expect a more highly remote environment to be the norm now that it’s actually plausible for many positions.

    • I’m probably being too simplistic here as usual, but the solution seems to be in plain sight: falling office occupancy? Lack of affordable housing? 🤔 Of course landlords are probably still waiting to see if businesses come back before they have to spend a dime on rennovations. I might suggest government incentive$ to landlords, except that I suspect this would be a giveaway to people who are already quite wealthy.

      • Literally nothing should benefit land owners pretty much ever, it’s an extremely parasitic part of society to be owning a lot of land. Anyone who can afford to own the space for a skyscraper or other large office building should not be given any extra money. The issue is with foot traffic being down so local businesses which crop up around office buildings and complexes are going to suffer. There probably isn’t much that can be done about this, however, and it’s just going to result in a redistribution of where businesses like this are (closer to homes rather than office centers).

        With regards to affordable housing, they just need to be more aggressive with pushing money to be used on affordable housing. The market is going to respond to incentives - if they can make more money in the long term creating less total housing that’s more boutique or upscale, they’re gonna simply do that. You have to provide incentives to create cheaper housing.