"Ask the same question on a societal level... why... pour billions into a staggeringly expensive system of urban infrastructure when all you need to keep the wheels of commerce turning is Zoom, Signal, and a reliable, super-fast wireless network…. After Covid, nothing defined 2020 more than an explosion of crime across urban America, even though there were far fewer people outdoors to victimize…. [A]re nightclubs as much of a draw when dating can be now conducted online?… Covid has [sped the] demise of retail stores…. [M]useums and concert halls [and] sports stadiums and arenas to theaters and neighborhood cinemas… are all under assault, [from Covid and from] streaming video and virtual events. Another potential threat to density is the green movement… The manufacture of density’s core ingredients, steel and cement, produces some 15 percent of the world’s carbon emissions…. The fates of major metropolises are hanging precariously as they grasp at untested policies predicated on borrowed stimulus dollars, short-term business bailouts, non-eviction mandates, and other spit-and-glue measures that are most likely unsustainable…. All these challenges will be made even greater as the politics of cities grow increasingly polarized."
From "The Death of Density?/To survive and thrive, cities will have to overcome a number of formidable trends" by Richard Schwartz (who has "served in senior positions under 3 New York mayors).
I've compressed a lot, and I completely omitted the last paragraph — which calls for hope, hope for density. But the argument against density is so strong. You've got environmentalism counting in favor of the suburbs now. You've got all the new patterns of work and social life, all the speed and connection of the internet replacing the physical proximity maintained within a city. And you've got the crime in the city. And the politics, which will skew evermore to the left as people who want the benefits of nondensity — and want out of the ever-tightening grip of left politics — exercise their option to leave.
Posts
159 comments:
[A]re nightclubs as much of a draw when dating can be now conducted online?
I have never gone to a nightclub, and have never wanted to, so this isn't in defense of nightclubs. But, ah, I think online dating isn't quite an effective substitute for meeting in person.
That said, I think the critical ingredient in making urban spaces viable isn't public transit or amenities, or art grants or any of the things governments want to blow money on. The critical ingredient is controlling crime. Everything else is secondary. You can have the most beautiful parks in the world, but it won't matter if joggers are afraid if getting mugged and parents are afraid of letting their children play because they might get stuck by needles. You can have a dense urban rail and bus infrastructure, but it won't matter if people feel unsafe getting on. You can pour all the money you like into public schools, but children won't be learning much if they're at risk of getting shot on the way to school.
Crack down on crime first -- murders and rapes, yes, but shoplifting, burglary, carjacking, and even bicycle theft too. Remove violentl criminals from public spaces.
Crack down on crime and you create the space for everything that can make urban life attractive to follow.
Environmentalism is so much the passion of the moment that planners would probably do better planning what they want and manipulating environmentalists to go along than they would be trying to predict what affluent white kids are going to get hot and bothered about in 5 or 10 years.
Jobs may no longer require moving to cities, and that will stop some people, but so long as jobs allow people to move into cities, lots of people, especially the young, will continue to move into cities.
balfegor: +1. Everything you said is true.
The cities will come back. NYC already suffered thru this collapse once in my life... during the crack epidemic.
Almost everybody seems to leave out of the equation one of the most attractive features of the big city, the ability to live in anonymity.
This is particularly important to all the sex subcults. You can do whatever you want in NYC, and nobody cares and nobody suspects you the next day at work.
This is not possible in small towns and rural areas.
This anonymity thing is vastly important.
Gays didn’t move to the major metropolitan areas because they were being persecuted by homophobic mobs in the Styx. This is the myth the left created to absolve gay men of responsibility for the AIDS epidemic.
Gays moved to the cities for glamour jobs in the industries they prefer, and for the anonymity of the sex scene in the big city. Sex clubs, porn theaters, trolling the piers, etc. The rural areas and small towns won’t tolerate this shit. Not for homos or heteros.
"Crack down on crime first -- murders and rapes, yes, but shoplifting, burglary, carjacking, and even bicycle theft too. Remove violentl criminals from public spaces."
That won't happen if the city is governed by left-wing politicians. They're going in the other direction. How can they stop themselves if the voters in the next election will be the people who have remained despite the pressure to leave?
"How can they stop themselves if the voters in the next election will be the people who have remained despite the pressure to leave?"
It's a destructive feedback loop.
So much crime is driven by drug abuse, of all kinds. Alcohol, crack meth and more. I remember a statistic being thrown around some time ago which pointed to perps being high when perping and some three quarters being under the influence when arrested.
Crime has a constituency in the big city.
Why did all the hippies flock to San Francisco in the late 60s? Sex and drugs. The Wild West aura excited kids.
NYC has cleared out, and this is a huge opportunity for... crime and criminals, and people on the edges. A great time for hatching new enterprises that are on the cusp of legality, and might become legal if given the opportunity to succeed. And, oh yeah, with the cops hunkering in the donut shop, law enforcement is quite haphazard, which allows those businesses much more latitude.
For an employee who wants to remain anonymous, i.e. gets paid in cash or equivalents, this is fertile ground. I speak from experience. Willingness to venture into the crime saturated regions of the city will be rewarded with much higher pay. A lot of men in the trades will be more than willing to take the risk.
This cycle of collapse into gang control, then rescue by Wyatt Earp riding into town and throwing all the bad guys in jail, seems to be a repetitive pattern of NYC, and probably all big cities.
That won't happen if the city is governed by left-wing politicians. They're going in the other direction. How can they stop themselves if the voters in the next election will be the people who have remained despite the pressure to leave?
Eventually the pendulum will swing back in the other direction. It always does. You probably remember what NYC was like during the Dinkins years then Rudy came along and turned things around. There will be another Rudy or Trump or somebody down the road.
Re: Althouse:
That won't happen if the city is governed by left-wing politicians. They're going in the other direction. How can they stop themselves if the voters in the next election will be the people who have remained despite the pressure to leave?
That's definitely the direction that left wing activists are pushing left wing politicians. But I'm a little optimistic about Yang's candidacy in New York. He's not a creature of the left wing / special interest group political establishment the way DeBlasio is. Confronted with the problem of anti-Asian hate crimes, his initial reaction doesn't seem to have been that we need to spend huge sums on a Rube Goldberg machine of social programs and propaganda to attack "root causes." It was just hey, let's fund more aggressive policing:
At a press conference in Times Square on Wednesday, New York mayoral front-runner Andrew Yang, addressing Tuesday night’s mass shooting in the metro-Atlanta area, called for more funding for the NYPD Asian Hate Crime Task Force.
Which is refreshingly common-sensical. As a bonus, he not only pissed off the activists, he specifically pissed off famous racist troll Sarah Jeong:
“God fucking damnit,” journalist Sarah Jeong tweeted in reaction to Yang’s comment. “Andrew Yang out there single-handedly dismantling the stereotype of Asians being smart.”
So that's good too. We'll see if he can resist the pressure the left wing activist machine brings to bear, but at least so far, his instincts seem to be on the side of "crime is a problem -- let's encourage police to catch the criminals" rather than the usual leftist programs.
And I think presented with that alternative, there are enough people stuck in New York who don't have the means or money to leave, and just want to have decent lives in safe neighbourhoods, to carry him to victory. But we'll see.
It is hard to push people into using public transportation when you are pushing the Covid pandemic panic. Can't social distance in the hive, after all.
The cities will come back. NYC already suffered thru this collapse once in my life... during the crack epidemic.
>>
It won't come back in your lifetime, ST.
If it does come back, it'll be near the end of mine. (I'm 45).
Almost exactly 30 years from the Harlem riots to the peak in NYC violent crime, and about 6-10 years to clean it up, depending on how "clean" you wanted it to be before NYC was livable.
The biggest winners in volume from the death of the cities will be suburbs, obviously.
The biggest PERCENTAGE winners however, will be "cute" ex-urby towns within 1-2 hour drives from the cities. The upper Sonoma county area, for example, re: SF.
Madison, re: Chicago.
After that are medium size cities with a good airport, i.e. Bend, Grand Junction, places like that.
[M]useums and concert halls [and] sports stadiums and arenas to theaters and neighborhood cinemas… are all under assault,
I think saving the arts is almost as important as reducing crime to bring back New York City. Without the arts, particularly live performance, New York loses a big part of its mojo, the thing that draws the aspiring performers—with their exuberant energy and their willingness to dare living in the big bad city—and the tourists who flock to see them. You can stream Broadway or the Met but it’s a poor substitute for experiencing the energy of Hamilton or La Boheme live in a packed hall. Of course, people won’t risk life and limb to perform or attend, so controlling crime is paramount.
How can they stop themselves if the voters in the next election will be the people who have remained despite the pressure to leave?
It’s amazing how even pre-pandemic the supposed intelligentsia repeatedly voted against their own interests. All my liberal friends hate Deblasio yet they all voted for him. Twice.
Sure, we don't HAVE TO go downtown for
work
arts
love
sports
groceries
....
BUT WHAT ABOUT RIOTS!?!!?
WHERE are we supposed to riot? Besides large democrat city centers?
We NEED! to Keep these downtown areas!! So we can BURN THEM DOWN, AGAIN!!!!
an explosion of crime
Nationally a 40% increase in murders since St. Floyd overdosed, which is about 15 per day extra.
Since the increase is almost entirely by blacks, mostly killing other blacks, that would mean close to a 100% increase in the black murder rate in honor of St. Floyd.
ST correctly points out, that..
Almost everybody seems to leave out of the equation one of the most attractive features of the big city, the ability to live in anonymity.
Everybody Dies Famous, In a Small Town
Almost everybody seems to leave out of the equation one of the most attractive features of the big city, the ability to live in anonymity.
>>
Those of you who live in suburbs, do you know anyone beyond an immediate neighbor or 3?
Sure in tiny towns everyone knows everyone, but seriously.
There are plenty of 50,000-250,000 towns/small cities within a couple hours of a big city that are anonymous enough.
Cities don't always come back. Places like Detroit and Baltimore are still largely wastelands. Once the factories left and there was no longer an economic need to go into those cities, people didn't. The niche attractions of anonymity and crime have done nothing to reverse their decline.
DavidUW said..."The biggest PERCENTAGE winners however, will be "cute" ex-urby towns within 1-2 hour drives from the cities"
I can agree with this. Based on my experience in the few months driving to several small towns about that far outside of Atlanta, especially Newnan, to the SW, and Madison, to the E of Atlanta. Both are lovely and thriving.
Re: DavidUW and Shouting Thomas:
I agree you can get anonymity in a smaller city of 100,000. But if you're homosexual, what kind of a population are you really dealing with? Half are the wrong gender, so down to 50,000. Only what, ~2% of people are homosexual, if that, so down to ~1,000. And lop off children and the aged, and you're talking maybe 500 people. Assuming no one is in monogamous relationships. Say half of them are and now you're talking 250.
Yes, there's some level of anonymity, but . . eh, not really. I think it's qualitatively different from a city where you might start with a population more like 10,000, and then draw in more from the surroundings for a total population of more like 20,000 or something.
You can be anonymous on the street in a large town, but once you focus in on your niche, whether it's gay sex or going to the opera or whatever, that anonymity is probably pretty limited.
Relating to working from home, the youngsters don't want it. They want the office where there are mentors and socializing and dateable people.
Ann Althouse said...That won't happen if the city is governed by left-wing politicians. They're going in the other direction.
Sort of. Democrats tend to pursue policies that are more amenable to crime and lawlessness, but they never sell it by arguing, "a vote for me is a vote for getting mugged!" No, they sell it by arguing "crime is caused by the rest of us being mean to criminals, all we need is love!"
People vote for it because it feels good and might make sense provided you don't think about it too much, but even leftists want safe streets. Crack riddled New York voted for Giuliani and it was 20 years before they stupidly went Democratic again.
I don't know why people voted for the destruction of out big cities. People just suck, or are just stupid, I guess.
How many cities in America actually recovered during the glory days of 1997-2019 of city living?
New York.
San Francisco.
all the other cities you think of are smaller than they were in the '60's. Milwaukee. Chicago. St. Louis. Detroit. Philly. New Orleans. Cleveland. Pittsburgh. Even Washington, DC. Even Boston is still below 1960.
Other cities just kept on growing, mainly southern/suburban cities, so there wasn't really a "recovery." e.g. Houston.
Did this person think about anyone but middle class/upper middle class white collar professionals?
You can tell the age of the commenters on this board by their perspective.
Safety and comfort are obsessions of old people.
Young people want excitement and they are willing (and often eager) to sacrifice safety for that excitement.
How quickly we forget, huh, Boomers? The traveling hippie band you lionized in your youth was a quasi-criminal organization, dealing drugs and sex. Coke and LSD bankrolled many of the greatest bands. The cities were where suburban and rural kids ventured looking for kicks.
The cities will return full force because there will be a generation of kids that forgets everything that happened in the past and just wants to get it on, despite the warnings from their elders about consequences. You can count on this.
"That said, I think the critical ingredient in making urban spaces viable isn't public transit or amenities, or art grants or any of the things governments want to blow money on. The critical ingredient is controlling crime. Everything else is secondary."
-- This is incredibly true. I love going places in DC and other urban areas. But, I'm also a decently sized male. There are plenty of times I've asked people to come with me, and they're like: "That's in the bad part of town. No one should go there. You'll get mugged." To be honest, I was mugged once, but it was partially my fault. I was walking home at the time when I lived near Oxon Hill late at night, and saw several guys waiting at a bus stop that I knew no longer was running that night. And instead of saying, nope. Going home another way, I kept on walking forward.
The cities will return full force because there will be a generation of kids that forgets everything that happened in the past and just wants to get it on, despite the warnings from their elders about consequences. You can count on this.
>>
And it will take a generation. Hence my comments.
I grew up in the peak of the crime wave. I never really lived in a city forever thereafter, even when single. I got close, but even when I lived in Chicago, I was in one of the very few city neighborhoods dominated by single family houses.
NYC will be back. In 2050. Maybe.
Small towns will see a resurgence. Hopefully not from liberals.
The biggest PERCENTAGE winners however, will be "cute" ex-urby towns within 1-2 hour drives from the cities. The upper Sonoma county area, for example, re: SF.
Madison, re: Chicago.
After that are medium size cities with a good airport, i.e. Bend, Grand Junction, places like that.
The once kitschy summer only towns in the Lake of the Ozarks area has been a real boom since the pandemic. They've been open. They have good, and getting better, restaurants. The airport is getting bigger as well. Bonus points for the well funded schools that were open from early August.
Most new residents aren't coming from the nearby metropolises of St. Louis and Kansas City, as in the past, but from further afield (Iowa, Texas, Nebraska, Illinois, etc). As people are disconnected from physical requirements of their jobs, there is an increased move to more or better space.
I agree you can get anonymity in a smaller city of 100,000. But if you're homosexual, what kind of a population are you really dealing with? Half are the wrong gender, so down to 50,000. Only what, ~2% of people are homosexual, if that, so down to ~1,000. And lop off children and the aged, and you're talking maybe 500 people. Assuming no one is in monogamous relationships. Say half of them are and now you're talking 250.
>>
I don't know much about this since I'm not gay. But the closest friend I have who is, lives in Bend.
The ability to live anonymously is an excellent point. Plus the sheer diversity of culture and opportunity.
You will also never run out of work, even though you might struggle to pay for housing.
And most large cities in the US are not all that dense. Certainly LA where I live is not (yet) very dense at all. It's a happy medium.
It's really only NY and SF that are dense.
Moving to the burbs is, at least for me, a huge cop-out. I would be miserable.
You can be anonymous on the street in a large town, but once you focus in on your niche, whether it's gay sex or going to the opera or whatever, that anonymity is probably pretty limited.
That's where the internet comes into place. Engage your kink online and fly in the ones that make the cut and need a tryout.
Despite what you hear in the news, LA is gangbusters. With no signs of slowing.
You will also never run out of work, even though you might struggle to pay for housing.
>>
That's the point with remote work. Will you really run out of work if you can work remotely?
Otherwise I agree, and why I've lived where I have lived, because moving every time you switch jobs is a pain.
>>
And most large cities in the US are not all that dense. Certainly LA where I live is not (yet) very dense at all. It's a happy medium.
>>
LA is among the densest of US cities, with neighborhoods like WeHo being denser than SF.
The reports of the death of New York City are greatly exaggerated.
When a place like Detroit or Baltimore declines it is because the fundamentals of what attracted people - industry & jobs - have moved away or no longer exist. The list of reasons people visit and live in New York City is much longer. This desire to work from home, a home in the country presently, that was forced on so many people will lose its luster. People that enjoy and desire living in the city will eventually, maybe even soon, tire of life in Camden Maine. And the other things that make NYC a great place to be, theater, restaurants, museums, sight-seeing, are either still there or will recover. Most people I know and interact with are itching to get back to pre-Covid normal; except one SIL.
NYC will be back. In 2050. Maybe.
I'll take the under. By at least a couple decades...
Re: Shouting Thomas:
You can tell the age of the commenters on this board by their perspective.
I've been shouting "Bah, humbug!" at our squalid crime-ridden cities since my twenties. But I've been extremely risk averse since I was a little child.
Weho is not all that dense. Downtown is dense, but it's a small part of LA.
As for remote workers, they are much easier to fire because who are they and what do they so.
I'll take the under. By at least a couple decades...
>>
We'll see.
It took the better part of the decade after the Harlem riots for NYC to be left for dead.
It's only begun the decline. It takes awhile.
What do they do, I mean.
Weho is not all that dense. Downtown is dense, but it's a small part of LA.
>>
WeHo's density is 18,000 people per sq. mile.
that's denser than nearly every American city, including SF. That's the data.
Your perspective is a bit off.
A good first step would be to increase, not decrease the budget for the police and let them do their jobs. Then, fire all Soros-backed city prosecutors. Require bail. Do not dismiss criminal acts (as they just did in Baltimore and do regularly in major Dem-run cities).
You say people to pay to live in densely packed cities again? Make them civilized again. Giuliani did it for New York. And you people instead twice elected a dimwit socialist like DeBlasio who tore it all down. You elected Lightfoot in Chicago. Breed in San Francisco. Wheeler in Portland. Durkan in Seattle. Scott in Baltimore. Duggan in Detroit. Barrett in Milwaukee. And on and on. They give you the chaos you voted for. And now you're writing articles on how the cities can attract people again?
They'll come back. The young always fall for it.
Manhattan no longer feels abandoned. In many areas, the young are out and about as always. Packing restaurants but not stores. Foot traffic is less broad, and is centered more around places to eat and drink. The Apple store was once a crowded gathering place...now it’s reservation only. Reduces the buzz, because now the buzz is only around food and drink. No other entertainment. But there’s still buzz.
They'll come back. The young always fall for it.
>>
Chicago still has 800,000 fewer people than in 1960.
What city is coming back, exactly?
Baltimore? Milwaukee? St. Louis? Memphis? Philly? they've been shitholes for 60 years, with no recovery.
The only decent sized (500,000 or more) cities that lost population and recovered it in the past 60 years, literally, has been NYC and SF (Boston is close), that I could find. I'd love to know if there are any more.
why... pour billions into a staggeringly expensive system of urban infrastructure when all you need to keep the wheels of commerce turning is Zoom, Signal, and a reliable, super-fast wireless network
Houston has it problems. Texas did look bad with the latest freeze and power grid problems. However, when every other year, you have to occasionally live without power and internet for a couple of days; you realize that Zoom and Wireless network does not replace infrastructure. Those things can replace high rise office buildings, but not infrastructure or commerce. If you think it does, then you have no idea why Ever Green being stuck in the Suez canal was a big deal. You have no idea why buying computer chips right now is near impossible. And you are probably the reason why the US is now so dependent on international commerce to survive.
The cities will eventually be back, but it will take a generation, and certainly longer than it should.
I wonder if the rising crime will kill the DC statehood movement. It's always been a violent shithole, but the past twenty years saw a thin veneer of respectability laid overtop. It became somewhat hip, and a place where young professionals wanted to live and work, rather than simply doing your time until you could move on to somewhere better. I imagine that Congress likes that, as those professionals meant better neighborhoods, amenities, and a steady supply of eager twenty-somethings to pursue. Giving DC statehood would turn it over to the thoroughly corrupt local government, who will likely kill that through mismanagement.
The only decent sized (500,000 or more) cities that lost population and recovered it in the past 60 years, literally, has been NYC and SF (Boston is close), that I could find. I'd love to know if there are any more.
Denver has exploded. It's become a massive blob that stretches all along the Front Range.
Denver has exploded. It's become a massive blob that stretches all along the Front Range.
>>
I don't think it ever declined in population.
Yes, like I mentioned, there are cities that have been on a constant growth --Houston, San Antonio (well, every city in Texas), Phoenix etc.
But ones that lost people and then recovered population to previous peak?
The moment the government exculpates employers from employee litigation surrounding a mandate to return to office work the buildings will again fill up. At the moment any requirement to return that results in an infection or death is a lawsuit.
I predict these experts who have noted the obvious over the last year will be wrong in their predictions of the long term. Young people need to interact personally to learn and to impress and seasoned business people are now well convinced that Zoom life in business is horrible.
We have, by the way, been able to work remotely long before Covid and that is why there was no greater disruption.
I don't think it ever declined in population.
It declined between 1970 and 1990: it went from 514k to about 470k.
Shouting Thomas
You obviously haven’t been to Manhattan in the last year. It is nothing like the crack epidemic. Every person on the nearly empty street is wearing a mask. Every one. Until recently there were no restaurants open. Any open hotel had no food service, no maid service, no coffee makers n the rooms. If you fly into LGA you are meant to fill out forms as to whereabouts so they can check on you during your self guided quarantine.
Nope, nothing like crack epidemic.
There's considerable debate about when, if ever, Minneapolis will come back. Myself, I'm long on plywood.
The fundamentals of what attracts people to a city are what is threatening New York, now that we've seen that white-collar work can be carried on effectively from home. New York is essentially a one-industry city, because finance pays for everything. If the big banks come back, then maybe recovery is possible. If they decide that the time has come to save money by moving out of town and keeping their people online, then the arts and restaurant scene will die. Publishing will stay increasingly virtual. Tourism will limp along, hampered by crime.
Safety and comfort are obsessions of old people.
Young people want excitement and they are willing (and often eager) to sacrifice safety for that excitement.
That explains all the recent grads flocking to Chicago’s South Side.
There will be a move back to offices, but I suspect that those offices will be much more decentralized, and that there will be a lot more flexibility towards partial telework and the like. COVID broke a lot of cultural inertia that businesses had. It also revealed weaknesses in the system that are going to make people skittish. For example, the failure of public school systems in blue run areas.
Abandoned businesses, mobs rampaging police cowering why would there be acrime spike what planet are these people on, ceti alpha 6
"the politics... of the left" kind of seems like a pun in this context.
"nothing defined 2020 more than an explosion of crime across urban America"
Are progs allowed to notice?
Anyway, the "explosion" didn't happen "across" all of urban America. It happened mostly in certain well-defined parts of urban America. X shooting X. With a little bit of spill-over to X hitting Asians.
The middle classes youth still want to spend a few years in the city, however, they expect to be safe. As crime increases and their friends are robbed and raped that trend may fade.
Yes - crime is huge, but people forget Giuliani made all city agencies work, not just the police. The streets were cleaner, public transportation ran better, the parks improved...
The other day a woman told me in her eight unit apartment building she is the only one who has been paying rent since the corona no evictions rule went into effect. Many landlords are taking a beating, they will not have the money to maintain these properties.The parks and streets all look shabbier after 8 years of Deblasio, add in the homeless shelters he is putting everywhere -like his goal is to spread the blight.I want NYC to come back but feel pessimistic.
Small towns that have industry and a college or university are the present future. By small I mean less than 50,000. Valparaiso, Indiana, close to Chicago but light years away in most ways is growing nicely. Having a college brings culture to the community. It also brings young people, some of whom stick around.
"Zoom and Wireless network does not replace infrastructure"
Absolutely they do. There will be no more snow days in the white-collar world; work and school will just move temporarily online during a blizzard. Road and mass transit maintenance become easier and cheaper with decreased use. Supply chains get simpler and more predictable as retail is increasingly no longer part of the equation. Sure, this system is vulnerable to mass power outages, but obviously the pre-wireless world was too.
I refer you to "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster, first published in 1909 and republished in Volume II of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, from 1973. The story describes what is happening now rather presciently, and how that might play out in future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops
As to the amusing dictat by the CDC that evictions are forbidden, I for one look forward to both the lawsuits about lack of due process in this government overreach and also the lawsuits about property takings without just recompense. I'm billing the feds for my two tenants who haven't paid rent since September. One is a bum, the other is an illegal alien / undocumented immigrant. The former is just a scummy guy, the latter is a smart plumber. Both will leave when forced, and not a moment before.
“That won't happen if the city is governed by left-wing politicians. They're going in the other direction. How can they stop themselves if the voters in the next election will be the people who have remained despite the pressure to leave?“
They won’t.
Sane people are already leaving in droves. It’s untenable.
Hate to burst but Valpo may not be around much longer...
“I was walking home at the time when I lived near Oxon Hill late at night, and saw several guys waiting at a bus stop that I knew no longer was running that night.”
Ah. Memories. Lived there for several years 40 years ago. Wasn’t good then. Lived in a tall apartment building just west of Suitland Parkway (which I drove to work weekdays to Suitland a couple exits south). Our apartment complex was relatively safe because management gave LEOs from the surrounding area a break on rent, so you could expect to see their squad cars in the parking lot around the clock. It worked. But across the Parkway was a complex of apartments without the elevators and police presence. At least one rape a week. I did walk a couple times to work on Sundays, but wouldn’t have walked back after dark - and I was a 30 year old single male at the time.
It declined between 1970 and 1990: it went from 514k to about 470k.
>>
Ah. I was looking at 1960. Ok, let's add Denver to the list.
If we go on declines from 1970 to recovery, I think Seattle might join too.
A handful.
that's it.
Once the decline starts, 50, 60 years later, nearly all of the cities that were declining are still well below their earlier population peaks.
.
When you see a headline like that it's usually an ad for Amazon Prime.
I'm billing the feds for my two tenants who haven't paid rent since September. One is a bum, the other is an illegal alien / undocumented immigrant. The former is just a scummy guy, the latter is a smart plumber. Both will leave when forced, and not a moment before.
>>
I've found non-payment of rent to be a great time to do a lot of door repair.
As in taking off the exterior doors. For a day or 5.
The death of density??
Here in Arlington, hyper-density uber development smart growth continues on like a wildfire, impervious to facts, reason, experience. Ideology and greed controls all.
The moment the government exculpates employers from employee litigation surrounding a mandate to return to office work the buildings will again fill up. At the moment any requirement to return that results in an infection or death is a lawsuit.
I agree with this. And when you understand this, then you realize that vaccination passports are a bad idea of business. What you want is indemnification from responsibility for communicable diseases. Vaccination passports make you responsible for checking and validating the passports and ensuring they are up-to-date, which is just theater to show due-diligence in case someone gets sick and thinks they can blame it on the office environment. Why accept that responsibility?
My 24 YO son, who moved to downtown MKE about 15 months ago is already looking to get out. Just no great benefits of living in the city, especially over the last year. People begging for money and dangerous reckless drivers are big detractors. So safety. The most basic need takes precedence. It’s too bad, but leftists want to let the cities run wild.
I say, they can have it.
Most of the 'great' cities from the 20th century will never recover. New York is an exception; it is a world financial center, but even New York lost nearly a million people in the crime wave of the 70s. Look at the population centers of 1960: Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis... these cities have lost 40% of their population. There is no reason to think they will ever recover. As they have become poorer and depopulated, their governance has become more and more hard left. There will never be a Giuliani to save any one of them. They will be islands of crime and dependency, ever shrinking, ever poorer, ever more ignored.
As to "the death of density" - it has already happened. Detroit had nearly 2 million people in 1950; it now holds a bit over 600k. Cleveland boasted almost 1 million residents; now it has fewer than 400k. You could farm a large portion of those cities.
Arlington benefits from not being DC, just close. I haven't seen much of Alexandria in 30 years, but the seedy, non-public housing parts seem to have been gentrified.
But if you add in the suburbs that were barely there in 1960, the total population is probably larger.
But, I've been reliably told
The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown
Things will be great when you're downtown
No finer place for sure, downtown
Everything's waiting for you
I agree with Leland: many employers will want employees to get their asses into an office. Rightly or wrongly, there's an assumption of greater efficiency, or simply managers getting a quick face to face meeting. On the other hand, surely many employers have learned that at least some employees can be very productive working from home. I used to work for a provincial government that had odds and ends of only partly used offices in various regions. Managers would generally prefer you work from one of those, maybe close to home, rather than from home. Motelling is an option: being in some kind of office on certain days.
As for what employees want, and quality of life, and (yes) the environment, density may indeed be bad. Governments recently pushed big train and subway projects. Some of the people I worked with would point out: people really like their private little cars, partly for security. If cars become self-driving, they may be safer.
And you've got the crime in the city. And the politics, which will skew evermore to the left as people who want the benefits of nondensity — and want out of the ever-tightening grip of left politics — exercise their option to leave.
I have been assured that far left politics are desirable. Surely there will be people moving in to enjoy its benefits.
Covid kind of threw a monkey wrench into the plans of liberal government planners whose dream is to stuff more and more people in tiny boxes near transit hubs.
But it maybe helped the other part of their plans to build low-income housing in fancier suburban neighborhoods.
I would hate to be in commercial real estate unless I was a buyer right now with cash looking long-term...
Man is a social ape. As soon as the woke scolds are satisfied, we will begin congregating again.
“ Denver has exploded. It's become a massive blob that stretches all along the Front Range.”
Denver hasn’t exploded. The Denver suburbs have. And now the suburbs and smaller towns are growing together all along the Front Range into your big blob. The City and County of Denver has been bouncing around a half million since my father and grandparents moved there almost a century ago. The city went on an annexation binge maybe 30 or so years ago. The unincorporated areas around the city incorporated (Lakewood, Wheatridge, Arvada, and I believe Aurora) to prevent being annexed. After that they tried to annex SW in particular, but were so egregious with their flag poll annexations that two amendments to the state constitution went on the ballot to stop them. Both passed, with conflicting requirements, which essentially ended annexations by Denver. They were able to grow a little when the Lowry ANG base was shut down, then Fitzsimmons, and then when the new DIA airport was built. Denver wasn’t going to give it up, so Aurora had to give them the land for it. Plus, they got to develop the old Stapleton airport.
The Phoenix metro area has been growing even faster. And the city of Phoenix continues to grow, even though the suburbs are growing faster. The various central cities, including Phoenix, are blocked East, south, and west, but the Central Valley cities annexed like crazy several decades ago running north. When I first started visiting the area 30 years ago, the Scottsdale city line was just south of Carefree Highway in Carefree. Had friends with 20 acres a block within Scottsdale. It was almost completely empty desert between there and where they built the 101 freeway, almost 40 miles south of there. West of there, again as long strips are Phoenix, Peoria, and Glendale. It’s still weird driving across the open desert on SR 74 west of I-17 and see those city limits signs. The Scottsdale and Phoenix strips are very slowly filling up with mostly single family houses. Our new house should probably be in Scottsdale, but is in PHX instead. We are just south of AZ 101, and west of the Mayo Clinic. Some room to still build S of 101, but almost completely vacant directly north - most of the 40 miles to Carefree Highway.
What is weird is that the Phoenix metro area has sprawled so much, that I have never been to probably over half of it. Never had a reason to go there. My art net has spent almost 40 years off and on in the N Central Valley. We were out west for three years, and just moved back to her comfort zone, where one kid, a couple grand kids, ex husband, and ex in-laws live. I just remember buying her house from her 20 years ago, started driving to the closing from SW Scottsdale (East of Phoenix) and it taking almost an hour, driving SE from there, to get to the closing. Best way of thinking of PHX maybe is as a mini-LA, maybe half the population, but mostly newer construction. Suburban living for over four million people, with only a handful of decently tall buildings, downtown. It just sprawls, and sprawls, and sprawls.
It’s ok, but my partner won’t give up the security of family and friends of N Central PHX. I would prefer the Denver area, where my family is, but they avoid the worst of it by living on the western edge of the metro area, in or right by the mountains. We moved there in 1960, and my brothers never left. You can still almost pretend you live in a small town, with the amenities of a big city. Harder to ignore here in PHX.
I would hate to be in commercial real estate unless I was a buyer right now with cash looking long-term...
>>
There are no loans for commercial property outside a few locations like Miami/FL, Texas. Even Texas, if it's an oil town, forget it.
Not even hard money loans.
We're looking for a 5-10 acre piece of land, with or without a house on it, in southwest Missouri. It's a one-day market.
For most of history, cities have been death sinks. The mortality rate was higher than the countryside, and often so high that only a constant influx of new arrivals kept the city's population stable. It's a cost/risk decision. Cities had much more opportunities to improve your life, but increased your risk of dying.
The relationship between cities and the surrounding country side has always been adversarial. They have different interests and needs. In the United States, until Reynolds V Sims , the power of the cities and their population were restricted. Since the Warren Court, the cities dominate the relationship.
"There are no loans for commercial property outside a few locations like Miami/FL, Texas. Even Texas, if it's an oil town, forget it."
Hence my use of the word 'cash.'
Those of you who live in suburbs, do you know anyone beyond an immediate neighbor or 3?
Sure in tiny towns everyone knows everyone, but seriously.
There are plenty of 50,000-250,000 towns/small cities within a couple hours of a big city that are anonymous enough.
Especially since the point ST is trying to make is that you get to be kinky anonymously in the big city -- but he's living in the past here. A. people aren't that concerned about being anonymous in their kinks now and B. if you're shy about your fetishes, the internet is your friend.
"You probably remember what NYC was like during the Dinkins years then Rudy came along and turned things around."
Dinkins was a one-term mayor. He did not create the conditions in the city the existed during his term. He entered office with the city in that condition, following three terms by Ed Koch. Rudy Giuliani--a braying asshole then as he remains today--did not come in and magically save NYC from a "Dinkins crime wave." The NYC crime rates started declining during Dinkins' term and continued under Giuliani, part of a nationwide trend in declining crime rates.
Moreover, I moved to NYC in 1981, and, while the city was significantly dirtier and more physically run down than today, and while the crime stats were high, it's not as if crime was rampant in every part of the city. People didn't fear going out of evenings to dine, to see movies, to attend the theater, nightclubs, concerts, or other events. Crime was concentrated in particular areas of the city. I rarely, if ever, felt apprehension traveling at any time of day or night by subway. I worked at a hotel in Queens by LaGuardia Airport from 1981 to 1989, (while living in Manhattan), and I worked all shifts, including midnight shifts. I often had to wait on an isolated corner at midnight after finishing an evening shift, waiting for the bus to the subway to get back to Manhattan, and I regularly rode the subways at night, going to or coming home from my varying shifts. I never had any trouble.
Hence my use of the word 'cash.'
>>
Just confirming the risk perception of commercial R.E--no bank or loan shark will touch it.
The NYC crime rates started declining during Dinkins' term and continued under Giuliani
>>
Murders dropped by a massive (/s/) 10% from 1990 to 1993.
Murders dropped by a truly massive 65% or so from 1994-2001.
"As for what employees want, and quality of life, and (yes) the environment, density may indeed be bad. Governments recently pushed big train and subway projects. Some of the people I worked with would point out: people really like their private little cars, partly for security. If cars become self-driving, they may be safer."
Personally, I far prefer living in a dense city environment where I don't have to own or drive a car than I do living in a suburban area, (which was the only environment I ever lived in until I was 25). I think it is terrible that mass transit outside of a few metropolitan areas is so negligible that one must own an automobile to function in most parts of the country.
I think it is terrible that mass transit outside of a few metropolitan areas is so negligible that one must own an automobile to function in most parts of the country.
>>
Yeah, every loves dragging their groceries onto the bus or subway. or walking them a block or 10.
Density will never die as long as we have Drago.
My partner keeps reminding me that we are supposed to go visit NYC some day. I remind her that the reasons to go are the restaurants, shows, museums, etc, which are mostly closed, thanks to COVID-19. And then there is the safety issue. I can carry concealed in 3/4 of the states. NYC, where you most definitely cannot, unless you are ex LEO, or have very powerful connections, has become fairly dangerous again, thanks to left wing misgovernance. When AntiFA tried to come to Coeur d’Alene (ID), they turned around after seeing the citizenry patrolling with AR-15s on slings. NYC would arrest the citizenry patrolling to keep their city safe, long before they would arrest the violent, law breaking, members of AntiFA or BLM. NYC isn’t coming back until they get their priorities straight, and start protecting the law abiding, and arresting the law breakers. Until they start consistently providing what most of us consider basic city services.
I remember pre-Giuliani NYC. I think the city is going to get worse than that, before it gets better. They are still pretending there that criminality, violence, filth, and degeneracy are somehow virtuous. They aren’t. Who wants to live like that? Or having to ride moving Petri dishes to get to or from work? They haven’t hit bottom yet, because the crazy leftists are still running things. They have to give control of the city back to the adults before they can start fixing the city back up and making it livable and attractive again.
I guess I was wrong about weho. I need to venture east of the 405 more often.
Robert Cook
Agree, but the necessity of driving has been mitigated by Uber. I never drive to meetings in Atlanta, I take Uber. No hassle. No parking fees. Easy. I know a lot of young guys here who own but only use cars for trips out of town. The rail system is crappy but when paired with Uber it is possible to live here careless
"Yeah, every loves dragging their groceries onto the bus or subway. or walking them a block or 10."
I find it to be no problem at all.
Bruce Hayden
Wait for hotels to open their restaurants. As it is NYC hotels have taken coffee machines from rooms and with no restaurants in house you will have to hoove it to get your morning jolt. Restaurants are at 50% which is acceptable. No traffic. Streets are pretty empty. You can get across town at midday in ten minutes.
I guess I was wrong about weho. I need to venture east of the 405 more often.
>>
Santa Monica (I know, not LA proper) is also quite dense at nearly 11,000 people per sq mile.
Oakland, part of the "dense" Bay Area only has 7700 people per sq. mile.
“ Personally, I far prefer living in a dense city environment where I don't have to own or drive a car than I do living in a suburban area, (which was the only environment I ever lived in until I was 25). I think it is terrible that mass transit outside of a few metropolitan areas is so negligible that one must own an automobile to function in most parts of the country.”
I am just the opposite. Mass transit is far more dangerous from an infectious point of view, than driving your own car. And more likely to make you a victim of crime.
The fact that real estate prices (SFH) in Seattle are on the rise again - some of the fastest growing home prices in the US right now - makes me wonder if Seattle is the exception. Ditto Tacoma. In my sprawl suburban city @40 miles south (Lakewood/Pierce County) empty lots are being razed and developed at a pace I have never seen in the 12 years I've lived here.
Cities with spectacular water views might be the exception?
I find it to be no problem at all.
>>
Never had kids then I take it.
The fact that real estate prices (SFH) in Seattle are on the rise again - some of the fastest growing home prices in the US right now - makes me wonder if Seattle is the exception. Ditto Tacoma. In my sprawl suburban city @40 miles south (Lakewood/Pierce County) empty lots are being razed and developed at a pace I have never seen in the 12 years I've lived here.
Cities with spectacular water views might be the exception?
A lot of suburban areas are booming because everyone wants out of the cities proper. Plus, the West Coast has seen property values driven up by Chinese money flooding in to buy investment properties.
Michael said:
...the necessity of driving has been mitigated by Uber. I never drive to meetings in Atlanta, I take Uber. No hassle. No parking fees."
But then, Uber (or Lyft, etc.) are more expensive than mass transit. It isn't economically sensible to take Uber to work and back everyday. (When weather permits, I ride a bicycle to and from work, a distance of about 6 miles each way.)
“ Agree, but the necessity of driving has been mitigated by Uber,”
Better not live in CA then. Wouldn’t be surprised if the left killed Uber in NYC, and other big cities, too. My kid (Denver suburb) and one of my partner’s kids (here in PHX) use Uber a lot. But the trend seems to be to ban them from big Blue cities on various grounds - which usually just means that the entrenched interests (like NYC cab drivers) reduce competition through exercising their political power.
"Never had kids then I take it."
Nope.
"Crime was concentrated in particular areas of the city."
My recollection of that era, Cookie, is that the criminals were concentrated in particular areas of the city. But the crime got around.
I think it is terrible that mass transit outside of a few metropolitan areas is so negligible that one must own an automobile to function in most parts of the country.”
In Boston I walk everywhere. Well, mostly. We were a one car household. A year where we put 5k miles on it was a busy driving year.
"Yeah, every loves dragging their groceries onto the bus or subway. or walking them a block or 10."
We lived in a huge city for a couple of years...no car but the best transit system on earth.
For groceries I walked a mile or so to the store and bought a 'mom cart,' one with a handle and wheels to drag stuff home in.
Along with my filling my backpack I could get groceries for a week or so.
Between that and going out to incredible restaurants, we did fine.
And it kept me in decent shape walking 4-10 miles per day.
Urban density/office work will mostly return.
People like being around people.
"In Boston I walk everywhere."
Haven't spent a ton of time there, but when I did I walked everywhere...all over the city.
It is an interesting town and very walkable in decent weather.
Much prefer Boston to Philly.
Robert Cook
Agree about the cost of Uber. Not for all. I have a NY friend who walks to Wall Street every day from the upper east side. Must be six miles for him as well.
ALP said.. . The fact that real estate prices (SFH) in Seattle are on the rise again - some of the fastest growing home prices in the US right now - makes me wonder if Seattle is the exception.
Mr. Whibble said. . .A lot of suburban areas are booming because everyone wants out of the cities proper. Plus, the West Coast has seen property values driven up by Chinese money flooding in to buy investment properties.
We wanted to buy a vacation home last year - the proverbial 2-3 hours from Seattle Metro area. Covid hit, inventory was pitiful, and Seattlites were grabbing everything they could to live permanently away from the city. Part of it because housing was already expensive if you worked for and lived near Amazon corporate. Part of it was the protests that shut down the freeways and CHAZ. Part of it was the constant destruction of Nordstrom's downtown flagship store. And a stupid city council that fired Seattle's black female police chief because she wanted to prosecute the rioters.
San Juan Islands and Chelan area were the two biggest beneficiaries of the exodus.
Re: Robert Cook:
But then, Uber (or Lyft, etc.) are more expensive than mass transit. It isn't economically sensible to take Uber to work and back everyday.
Depends how much you value your time, and also how much the alternatives cost. If I compare Uber to the subway for my commute in DC, Uber is (or was -- I am still in remote work mode) about $15-25 more expensive round trip (depending on traffic), but subways take about an hour more, round trip, unless there are delays, in which case it could be more like two hours. And if I were to drive, the cost of parking would mean Uber is just $5-15 more expensive. For me the happy medium was Uber in, subway out, so that if there were delays (as there often were), it would be during my return, and I wouldn't miss calls or meetings because I was stuck on the train. That was about the same cost as parking. I'd still take the subway if I didn't have anything time critical in the morning, though.
"I'd still take the subway if I didn't have anything time critical in the morning, though."
One of the things I like about taking the subway is that I can read while traveling to or from my destination.
New York City will only recover if the financial industry doesn't pack up and leave. Without the financial industry, New York City will become Detroit, and quickly.
Yeah, every loves dragging their groceries onto the bus or subway. or walking them a block or 10.
I grew up in Chicago in a one car family. My mother worked after I was in 8th grade. She would do her food shopping on the way home and teenaged boys would deliver the groceries that afternoon for a small charge.
The movie "Death Wish" probably ended that practice.
San Juan Islands and Chelan area were the two biggest beneficiaries of the exodus.
I had 10 acres on Vashon for a retirement home but never built it and finally sold the land. As a surgeon, I had to be retired before I could live there but it was a pretty spot. It was high and had a view of West Seattle. Actually on Maury Island facing north.
Urban density/office work will mostly return.
People like being around people.
People like being around people they like.
Most offices are more Dilbert than not.
We lived in a huge city for a couple of years...no car but the best transit system on earth.
For groceries I walked a mile or so to the store and bought a 'mom cart,' one with a handle and wheels to drag stuff home in.
>>
I don't know what city that is but
1) that's a tiny minority opinion as far as I can tell.
2) in "cities" like SF, NY, Seattle, carrying a mom cart is annoying as you have to dodge other pedestrians, thieves, scaffolding (NYC), and junkie bum crazies (SF and NY and Seattle).
3) Most US cities that is an even bigger PITA with winter weather or summer heat. Good luck getting that ice cream home in a frozen state walking home in Houston. Even NYC.
Well I have lived in "dense" santa monica now for 7 years and there are lots of parks, not even including the beaches. The density is concentrated mostly in one part of the city by 3rd st. Its very walkable and bikeable and lots of single family home neighborhoods. My conception of "dense" is more like manhattan or tokyo or downtown la or hong kong.
Madison WI was fantastic and has a decent amount of density on the isthmus. But like another commentor said, college towns tend to be more interesting than the same size town without a college. Like chapel hill, for example.
"I don't know what city that is but"
Sounds like Tokyo.
"Sounds like Tokyo."
Hai, so desu.
And safe too...
Michael K said...
I had 10 acres on Vashon for a retirement home but never built it and finally sold the land. As a surgeon, I had to be retired before I could live there but it was a pretty spot. It was high and had a view of West Seattle. Actually on Maury Island facing north.
Haven't been to Vashon in a long time (we live in NE King County) - but it's not on our list for a vacation or retirement home since you pretty well have to go through miserable Seattle traffic to take the ferry. We're looking further north. Husband finally agreed that we will get out of King County permanently in a couple of years.
Robert Cook would have made a great propagandist and torturer in the old Soviet Union.
This guy is parody of the NYC commie stooge.
Robert Cook’s lies, by the way, are believed by commie stooges throughout Manhattan.
The city will come back over their dead bodies.
They actually enjoy the destruction and sabotage. It gets them off.
Churchy La Femme: "People like being around people they like."
People you don't like present other opportunities. Remember:
If you can't say something nice about someone, sit next to me.
Depends how much you value your time, and also how much the alternatives cost.
>>
UberPool East Bay to SF: depending but $15 ish. $30ish r/t.
BART + parking: $14 (won't necessarily get you to where you need to go)
Drive: $7 toll+$20 early bird parking, plus 2 gallons of gas= $35.
"Robert Cook’s lies, by the way, are believed by commie stooges throughout Manhattan."
Following his long-time pattern, Shouting Tom seems to have gone into another one of his fugue states, during which he tends to spout vulgarisms and/or paranoid delusions.
What "lies" are you imagining, and what "commie stooges" are there "throughout Manhattan"?
Manhattan is home to a critical concentration level of Marxists and sex cultists from all the small towns and college towns in the U.S.
This is an interesting, if depraved, part of the really Big City.
The misfits have to have a place to run away to. All the major cities now have these concentrations of what we used to call “hipsters.” I say used to call, because that was back when there were still leftists with a playful enough attitude to be called hipsters.
The left is now deadly serious... about everything.
but it's not on our list for a vacation or retirement home since you pretty well have to go through miserable Seattle traffic to take the ferry. We're looking further north. Husband finally agreed that we will get out of King County permanently in a couple of years.
Vashon, at the time I still owned the land, had a walk-on ferry to downtown. You could park your car in the ferry lot, walk on the ferry, arrive downtown to go to dinner, etc, and go back to the island with no traffic. I was there a few years ago and that ferry is gone. The car ferry goes to West Seattle.
I did look hard at San Juan Island back 30 years ago. It was just too far for us. I loved the island. Vashon and the walkon ferry allowed some visits to the city.
Well, dense urban cores, like college campuses, still have the promise of a diverse and large aggregation of sex partners. Working there, just means you aren't heading out to the suburbs just as the bars are opening. Or in most urban corpses, having to plan your night around catching the last commuter transit out of downtown. But if you aren't in it for the multitude of potential sex partners, both on campus and urban core living becomes more trouble than it is worth.
And urban corpses aren't coming back as manufacturing locations. The square foot per employee for manufacturing is now about double that of other types of enterprises so manufacturing has been priced out of near-urban core areas. Not to mention, if you are moving a lot of physical goods, you want to be near the freeway.
And then current urban politicians are going full blown in pushing the "Curley Effect" where they institute policies to push out political opponents, but just do enough to keep the support of their constituencies. In earlier decades, those discomforted constituencies who moved out of the city still worked in the city, but this time, they don't have to keep their firm downtown or aren't stuck with a downtown employer.
Visited Seattle 10 years ago...thought it was a nice town...a bit hippy even then but not objectionable.
Was in Seattle for a wedding in 2019 and it was a complete shithole city. It made San Francisco look clean and drug-free.
You couldn't pay me to live there.
"I think it is terrible that mass transit outside of a few metropolitan areas is so negligible that one must own an automobile to function in most parts of the country."
Reaching for new heights of cluelessness, are we? To help you back down, I'm going to assign you a 3 page essay on the meaning of the word 'mass' within the phrase "mass transit".
People didn't fear going out of evenings to dine, to see movies, to attend the theater, nightclubs, concerts, or other events. Crime was concentrated in particular areas of the city
This is changing or has changed. Recently, a woman was stabbed coming out of the subway at 72nd and Broadway at noon, a couple driving their SUV on lower Fifth Ave were set upon by a gang of teens and I was accosted on my UWS block in one of the “good” neighborhoods by a homeless man who demanded a dollar When I ignored him, he called me a racist and followed me for a while. People didn’t fear but they sure are starting to now.
A simulation of life. A virtual life.
Also, keep it green. Go Green: renewable drivers, intermittent conversion.
One step forward, two steps backward.
"Why operate your business from an expensive midtown office when all you need is a smartphone and laptop, a tasteful backdrop for your video calls, and Amazon Prime?"
That's a typical "clickbait" headline used and repeated by every 'Media' pundit whose ignorance are legion about business. The only people who can operate without a physical address, i.e., online only, are businesses who are to small to afford physical addresses. Once a small business becomes successful and grows to a certain size it's paramount they have a physical address to show its clients and suppliers that they are not a 'fly-by-night' huckster pushing garbage on thru the online marketplace. The other 'error' in this headline is - "expensive midtown office" which occurred decades ago. Because businesses long ago abandoned expensive cities like NYC. This trend has accelerated during the pandemic. However, during the '70s crime, illiteracy, and homelessness; drug abuse and AIDS; the high costs of living and doing business; crumbling public facilities -- will test it more severely than at any time since the mid-1970s, when fiscal mismanagement and the loss of 600,000 jobs pushed New York toward bankruptcy. Today in NYC, there are only 12 - out of top 100 - of the top Fortune 500 left [vs.'70s - 110] - mostly banks and insurance companies. For example, IBM is headquartered out of NYC in Armonk, NY. Moreover, most of the employees of these banks and insurance companies have long ago moved their operating entities from NYC to other parts of the country because of costs. The comments by the author is a throwback to the '50s, '60s and '70s and not true. Name me one substantial modern business that only operates without physical addresses?
"But like another commentor said, college towns tend to be more interesting than the same size town without a college. Like chapel hill, for example."
This was/is definitely true of Gainesville, FL, where I attended the University of Florida in the 70s.
The problem with what those of you who love city living and riding subways to work, is that it assumes that everything else is equal. But it isn’t. Staffing jobs in a big city costs more than elsewhere. Office rent is higher as well as salaries are higher because of the higher rent and other costs of living. Traditionally, NYC offices have cost a lot more to employers - it is one of the more expensive places in the world to do business in. The question then becomes how does an employer cost justify locating an employee’s job position in NYC (etc), if it is really considered a luxury, and not a necessity to have that employee located physically in NYC.
What COVID-19 has done is show that the number of jobs that have to be staffed in expensive city centers, and esp in ultra expensive ones like NYC, is much lower than they had thought. Corporate back offices have been fleeing big city centers, including NYC, for some time. If a corporation, a law firm, etc, has a national, even just a regional clientele, locating them in a place as expensive as NYC, is a luxury. Maybe employees aren’t quite as efficient working remotely, but with the significantly higher rent, utilities, and salaries required, why not just hire a couple more employees for the money saved by them working remotely?
I think that we were headed in this direction already. COVID-19 just accelerated the trend. We did what we would have done eventually, just a couple years, maybe a decade or so earlier. In my last job, as a patent attorney for a large regional law firm, I very rarely actually met with clients in meat space. The rare times I had to, I just jumped on SWA, and popped into our Las Vegas or PHX offices. Now, I probably wouldn’t even do that. Meanwhile, I was living right below Tahoe, where I could see a ski area. I could easily ski in the morning a couple hours, then be at work by 11 am. I could walk, skate, or bike to work most of the year, with no competition for the sidewalks. Sure, I didn’t make quite as much as I would have in our big city offices (and even less than if I worked in NYC). Friend who is a partner in a patent firm in a smaller city hasn’t been to the office for a year now. They have a receptionist in their offices. Some of the attys show up on occasion to meet with clients. No one else, the paralegals, the secretaries, etc ever go into the office. But they are very likely going to give up most of their downtown office space when their current lease is up. The plan right now is a conference room, a couple of shared offices, and the 30 or so employees and partners continuing how they are going - with everyone working remotely.
Corporate back offices have been fleeing big city centers, including NYC, for some time.
Rick Rescorla tried to convince his employers to move to New Jersey from WTC for safety reasons after the 1993 attack.
“Name me one substantial modern business that only operates without physical addresses?”
Sure, in a lot of cases, you need a physical address to show that you are really a business. And maybe a prestigious one if you cater to that clientele. But why locate the bulk of your employees in offices in high rent, high cost, high crime, etc urban settings?
But they are very likely going to give up most of their downtown office space when their current lease is up.
My husband's multinational company used to have 14 floors on Avenue of the Americas; their lease expired and they are keeping 1 floor.
DavidUW,
Re: "mom carts,"
1) that's a tiny minority opinion as far as I can tell.
2) in "cities" like SF, NY, Seattle, carrying a mom cart is annoying as you have to dodge other pedestrians, thieves, scaffolding (NYC), and junkie bum crazies (SF and NY and Seattle).
3) Most US cities that is an even bigger PITA with winter weather or summer heat. Good luck getting that ice cream home in a frozen state walking home in Houston. Even NYC.
I used to do my grocery shopping with a cart, on foot. Not in a big city, though; I never lived in one, unless you count Oakland (and we were in North Oakland, a few blocks from Berkeley). But in Novato, CA we were almost exactly a mile from Trader Joe's, and that was perfectly practical. Even here in Salem it's doable, though the gigantic hills make it much less practical (Novato is essentially flat). In either place, it's much easier with a cart than without, especially as some stores have given up supplying bags with handles on them.
Re: rebounding cities, have you thought of Pittsburgh? Or is it too small?
I worked at a hotel in Queens by LaGuardia Airport from 1981 to 1989...I never had any trouble.
-------------------
Fondly remember a stay at the Holiday Inn LaGuardia back in late 70's where there was a small parking lot. Got back late from business and parked on the street. Next morning the car was gone. I found out with the rental car place down the street an employee saw the car there and moved it back to their lot. You also had to lie to the rental car agencies if you were driving to Long Island City (Dannon Yogurt). Otherwise they wouldn't let you have the car. Good times.
Bruce, howdy, I am also a patent attorney. However I do mostly litigation (general and IP-specific), meaning that I need to be near the Courts. Prosecution is easier to do from anywhere of course. So it also depends on the nature of the work you are engaged in. Plus I find that being in a big city provides more access to clients and potential clients, which would be harder to do in rural areas.
It’s all well and good to have a city “vibrant” with people with empty pockets, I guess.
"I think it is terrible that mass transit outside of a few metropolitan areas is so negligible that one must own an automobile to function in most parts of the country.”
Everybody pony up, Bobbie doesn’t want to buy a car with his own money or fork over the extra money to live in the walkable parts of whatever town he might stoop to settle down in.
I used to do my grocery shopping with a cart, on foot. Not in a big city, though; I never lived in one, unless you count Oakland (and we were in North Oakland, a few blocks from Berkeley). But in Novato, CA we were almost exactly a mile from Trader Joe's, and that was perfectly practical. Even here in Salem it's doable, though the gigantic hills make it much less practical (Novato is essentially flat). In either place, it's much easier with a cart than without, especially as some stores have given up supplying bags with handles on them.
Re: rebounding cities, have you thought of Pittsburgh? Or is it too small?
>>>
Not in a big city, exactly. Just the scaffolding in NYC makes it untenable.
Also weather. Novato doesn't have it.
Pittsburgh has 1/2 the population it did 60 years ago. One-half.
"Fondly remember a stay at the Holiday Inn LaGuardia back in late 70's...."
That was just down the road from us. I worked at the Sheraton Inn at LaGuardia, which later became a Royce Hotel, and even later, (after I had left), a Marriott Courtyard, which it remained until it closed about three years ago. The building still sits there, empty, with the ground floor windows boarded up.
For anyone affected by scaffolding in NYC, which is out of control, this is essential viewing:
"How to Put Up Scaffolding", https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13021528/
“ Bruce, howdy, I am also a patent attorney. However I do mostly litigation (general and IP-specific), meaning that I need to be near the Courts. Prosecution is easier to do from anywhere of course. So it also depends on the nature of the work you are engaged in. Plus I find that being in a big city provides more access to clients and potential clients, which would be harder to do in rural areas.”
As you said, much of it is client specific. Guy I know from CO and his partner had a successful patent practice in NYC. They realized that living there was pretty sucky. They spent a couple years trading in their NYC clients for a national and international clientele. They then picked up and moved their practice to a resort community in the CO mountains. The icing on the cake was trading up from a 1500 sq ft apartment to a gorgeous 5,000 sq ft brand new house on a acre or two lot in thick lodge pole pines, a 5 minute drive from work.
I will agree that it is helpful having an office by the courthouse, if you do a lot of litigation. Or, in your case, the federal courthouse, given that patent litigation is exclusively federal. But you don’t really need the entire firm across the street from the federal courthouse. Probably just enough offices and conference rooms for those attys, etc currently involved in trials and hearings in the courthouse. We had runners to actually file our papers with the various courts, and they are relatively cheap. (I loved them because when I would pop into our Vegas office, they would meet me as I walked out the door at the terminal. It was maybe a five minute drive to the office, then back again when I was done. Got spoiled)(And that was the office that wasn’t next to the courthouses, but rather close to the airport, with a gorgeous Strip view, esp at night).
"Everybody pony up, Bobbie doesn’t want to buy a car with his own money or fork over the extra money to live in the walkable parts of whatever town he might stoop to settle down in."
Buying and maintaining and fueling a car is financially burdensome for many low income people. But it is a burden they must bear--or suffer--if they live in spread out places where they must travel miles from their homes to work or shop, etc. (I'm thinking, as an example, of Jacksonville, FL, where I grew up.) The money they must acquire to obtain a car could be better put toward other urgent needs (food, rent, medical care, etc.). I'm thinking now, as an example, of someone I knew very well in Jacksonville, and of the many others in her situation.
For anyone affected by scaffolding in NYC, which is out of control, this is essential viewing:
>>
It's been out of control for as long as I've been going there for work.
For about 10 years I stayed at one particular almost every visit and walked to the NYC office when I was there from the hotel, about a 1.3 mile walk. The same blocks had scaffolding up the entire decade. I'm certain it was there before I started staying at that hotel, I'm certain it's still there.
It really diminishes the so-called "walkability" of that city. but I suppose they'll have bigger worries with de Bolshevik setting things up for Dinkins, part deux.
*Particular hotel
Personally, I would never want to work from home. That would be torture. I enjoy coming into the office and being around colleagues.
Fortunately, I have my own firm and never shut it down for Covid. Attorneys are "essential" if they provide services to essential businesses, according to the Covid rules. It's easy to meet that standard - just pick up a restaurant or doctor client.
Bruce, that's cool regarding the attorneys who moved to CO and kept it going with international clients. I'm guessing that would not have been possible had they not paid their dues in NYC.
DavidUW,
Also weather. Novato doesn't have it.
I beg to differ. For one thing, flooding of homes only a couple of blocks from ours was routine. Also, "black ice." (Here, "freezing fog"; same just-about-freezing cantankerous behavior of H2O.)
You're right about Pittsburgh, of course; I looked it up later on. I guess what I was thinking of was the complete turnaround of the place from a steel-and-coal-based economy to a tech center. But the population still kept declining, just more slowly in the last 30 years.
I beg to differ. For one thing, flooding of homes only a couple of blocks from ours was routine. Also, "black ice." (Here, "freezing fog"; same just-about-freezing cantankerous behavior of H2O.)
>>
I grew up in in shithole northside Milwaukee.
Novato doesn't have weather.
DavidUW,
I grew up in upstate NY; I hear you. All the same, sometimes it was cold, sometimes it was blistering hot, and five months out of the year it was often very wet. Salem's is worse, not least b/c it's 500 miles or so north. Not Milwaukee, though; I'll certainly grant you that.
Anyway, more than "a tiny minority" find carts useful. Not everyone lives in Milwaukee, or in SF for that matter.
Post a Comment