What Happens to Downtown?

[BrettM]

MailOnline has an article entitled "Oxford Street is CLOSED for business: How London's iconic shopping destination has transformed with dozens of stores now lying empty"

The article is in the form of a photo essay, with before and after pictures of well-known London establishments that are now closed for business. Some of the pictures are quite depressing.

 

[Brainster]

That doesn't sound like #DavosStandard at all. What's good for Davos is good for all. And not just when we are talking C-19.

He's been living with long Covid since February 2020? Must have been one of the very first; that's before there was any standard at all.

I do think your idea of putting hepa filters in homeless tents is brilliant.

 

[Brainster]

MailOnline has an article entitled "Oxford Street is CLOSED for business: How London's iconic shopping destination has transformed with dozens of stores now lying empty"

The article is in the form of a photo essay, with before and after pictures of well-known London establishments that are now closed for business. Some of the pictures are quite depressing.

I remember that tube stop, not sure if I ever patronized whatever was there in 1976.

Long-term the argument is that ground floor rents will adjust to the new normal, but there does come a tipping point where things spiral out of control. Assuming the surprising laissez-faire economics espoused around here (and not from me!) prevails we could be looking at Escape from New York. In every big city.

 

[Brainster]

Re: OP: yes, businesses are just now discovering what many of us have known for years: the business model of going to an office for basically no reason whatsoever is kind of stupid and wasteful. Other businesses have formed their business plan based around the aforementioned stupidity and wastefulness. And it seems that they are on track to discover that like a third of their workers are only working to maintain the stupidity and wastefulness , and another third are doing nothing much that needs a human in the first place. In theory, eliminating all this wastefulness should result in a much more streamlined and cost-effective operation that results in lower costs to the end user or consumer. Because that's totally what a corporation would do.

So the resteraunts etc now fact the dilemma that horse and buggy manufacturers faced when cars started rolling out. Move forward and change, or stamp your feet and complain that the way things used to be was more to your wasteful financial benefit.

I agree that we should have moved from the work from home model for lots of reasons before covid. But now that we have, I don't mind saying we are going to face a crisis in our downtowns of potentially catastrophic proportions, that I don't even have a suggestion how to solve. Just get ready.

 

[dann]

He's been living with long Covid since February 2020? Must have been one of the very first; that's before there was any standard at all.

I do think your idea of putting hepa filters in homeless tents is brilliant.

You appear to have missed this part:

That doesn't sound like #DavosStandard at all. What's good for Davos is good for all. And not just when we are talking C-19.

#DavosStandard! It's not just for pandemics anymore!
But do tell us more about how giving up the convenience of working from home will help the homeless downtown.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Downtowns need to change.

I always assumed we would move downtown when the kids got out of school. I always worked downtown and hated the commute, so it seemed logical that life would be better if we moved downtown.

Covid made that unattractive. But wfh made it unnecessary. The whole reason I would want to be there is gone. So, time to find a better way to attract business. I’m out, but there have to be others who are willing to be in.

As Darat said above.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Downtowns need to change.

I always assumed we would move downtown when the kids got out of school. I always worked downtown and hated the commute, so it seemed logical that life would be better if we moved downtown.

Covid made that unattractive. But wfh made it unnecessary. The whole reason I would want to be there is gone. So, time to find a better way to attract business. I’m out, but there have to be others who are willing to be in.

As Darat said above.

The 15-minute city is the new thing.

Designing cities with suburbs where you can walk or ride to get what you need, rather than drive/commute long distances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15-minute_city

Limitations & criticism are included at the link, most mentioned here already.

 

[ZirconBlue]

Whether or not the pandemic is "over," the fact is that a lot of office workers have discovered that they like working from home. They have even discovered that they can maintain their employment while living anywhere they want, even way outside commuting distance. And employers have discovered that they don't need to pay for class A downtown office space for every employee. I think it's a mistake to imagine that downtowns will thrive again if only the pandemic would end. The economy has changed permanently.

These argument seem to hinge on how dependent the downtown is on people working downtown. My city's downtown seems to be doing quite well, but it's seen as a destination. A lot of people, who do not work downtown, go downtown for dining and entertainment. There's some office space downtown, but most of the office workers there are government or bank employees.

 

[Donal]

I can't speak for other cities, but that retail and restaurant space was already struggling because of how bat **** crazy commercial real estate got. And we have had prices outpacing wages for a long time. Its gotten out of hand the last few years. A lot of the problems we have that people are blaming on COVID and lock downs have actually already been a problem or were teetering on the edge. COVID just blew them all up.

No one seemed concerned about those poor small businesses before. And they sure as hell aren't talking about raising for servers or hosts now.

And plenty of cities have had commercial space converted into residential spaces. Does it take time and money? Yes. That's not the real hold up though. The problem is that a bunch of publicly traded companies are holding onto these properties and don't want to front the money for projects that will take longer to turn a profit than next quarter. They don't want to front it.

 

[dudalb]

It's not just a US problem; BBC did an artical about the problems that "High Street" (the UK exact equvilent of the US Main Street" are having.

 

[arthwollipot]

The 15-minute city is the new thing.

Designing cities with suburbs where you can walk or ride to get what you need, rather than drive/commute long distances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15-minute_city

Limitations & criticism are included at the link, most mentioned here already.

In a recent episode of the Skeptics With a K podcast, Marsh pointed and how the exact same conspiracy theorists who complained about COVID lockdowns have now seamlessly pivoted into complaining about the 15-minute city.

 

[Orphia Nay]

In a recent episode of the Skeptics With a K podcast, Marsh pointed and how the exact same conspiracy theorists who complained about COVID lockdowns have now seamlessly pivoted into complaining about the 15-minute city.

I listened to an interview with a 15-minute city planner on the ABC Listen app on that very conspiracy theory.

 

[Brainster]

The 15-minute city is the new thing.

Designing cities with suburbs where you can walk or ride to get what you need, rather than drive/commute long distances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15-minute_city

Limitations & criticism are included at the link, most mentioned here already.

About 40 years ago, Phoenix came up with a similar idea; multiple core areas where higher density development would be allowed; they called it the Urban Villages Plan. But when downtown struggled a bit, they started limiting the development of some of the cores and as a result it never really worked; at the nearest core to me there are almost no office buildings and certainly none that are four stories or higher.

I still pretty much exist in a 10-mile radius from home aside from vacations, and I can find everything I need in that area. But I do live in an urban/suburban neighborhood.

 

[arthwollipot]

I'm not even sure what "downtown" is supposed to refer to.

 

[dann]

I already posted a link, but maybe this one (Wikipedia) is more to the point. I thought the word originated in New York, but Wiki says Boston.

It has happened more than once and a long time before the alleged "Covid year": Malls and the death of Downtown (Brooklyn Paper, Mar 14, 2011)

 

[The Atheist]

I'm not even sure what "downtown" is supposed to refer to.

Central Business District.

 

[dann]

When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go ...

 

[Donal]

I am disappointed that wasn't a Seinfeld clip

 

[dann]

 

[JoeMorgue]

I'm not even sure what "downtown" is supposed to refer to.

The part of the city that the city has been trying and failing to "revive" for as long as anyone in the city has been alive.

Less flippantly in American parlance "downtown" refers to dense urban cores that in ye' olden days served as the central business district.

As demographics changed they are now mostly older parts of cities, densely packed with things that like government buildings, very old businesses (banks, lawyers, etc) and not much else which makes them feel old and sterile and for some reason cities don't like that.