I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe that. I’d really love to believe you’re right and I’m wrong, but I don’t see the evidence before me. Every person I know who works in Manhattan has no plans to commute there ever again. It seems that every time I look, I see another headline about a NYC company going fully remote, and another chorus of cheers from friends and friends of friends as they realize they’re permanently done working in Manhattan.
Meanwhile city leaders are sitting around falsely hoping office workers return, and the real estate industry keeps proposing office towers no one will ever fill. I don’t think ANY of the proposed office towers–175 Park, Affirmation, 2 WTC, 15 Penn, 343 Madison, you name it–will be built. None. Again, I’d love to be wrong. But I have a gut feeling, based on what I see, that NYC is on the brink of another 1970s-style decline.
I feel that’s a highly, highly pessimistic viewpoint. We’ll still see some large ones go up, especially highly mixed use ones like Affirmation tower which aren’t that dependent on large amounts of office space
Thanks, I was partly venting in my comment because just before I logged in here I saw another few acquaintances crowing on social media that they were done with NYC, and read a depressing NYT article about how many NYC employers are cutting office space. So I was being a bit emotional and pessimistic. But at the same time, I really do feel that city leaders and the RE industry are being too optimistic about office workers returning to Manhattan, and they need to adjust their policies to deal with a city with much less daily commuters. I’m not one of those people who’s been cheering on the death of cities during this pandemic, on the contrary the thought of NYC (one of my favorite places) declining has really been bringing me down lately. But I feel that way based on what I see. When I see companies and employees optimistic about working in Manhattan again, I’ll feel better.
Well we’ll just have to wait and see. Maybe there is a decline, but if so I see it being replaced by residential (at least in the long term). People have predicted the death of NYC over and over.
But then again I do agree about the air of optimism about the future, they do need to think about what they’re going to do if the situation happens to majorly decline for the office space.
I would love to see people live and work in the city not just commute. There are tons of younger people out there still that aren’t getting married, aren’t having kids, that would love to live a life in the city.
I think prices need to come down though. Its a global trend in cities around the world. Its wayyyy to pricy. But there is no lack of demand like there was in the 70’s when people were fleeing for the burbs.
Yeah, there is no dip in demand for NYC. People could turn those spaces into apartments and they would fill up in a heartbeat. People aren’t fleeing for the burbs like they were in the 70’s. Cities around the world are in high demand.
The thing is, housing prices just aren’t coming down. Even if/when these vacant commercial spaces are converted to apartments they’re still too expensive for the young unmarried people without kids who maybe burdened by other expenses such as student loans. Many people are moving back in with their parents that live in the suburbs or out of state.
In a crowded city like NYC that would be a disaster, this can’t be the Wild Wild West. I can’t see how having more guns on the street be a solution not to mention the nightmare it will be for law enforcement.
But wouldn’t enabling more citizens to be able to take the law into their own hands be a good thing? Basic neighborhood watch type stuff but with guns, That’s de facto community policing right there.
Well Texas pretty much takes that idea to heart and yet they’ve had multiple occurrences of gun violence throughout the state. So clearly, everyone having guns wouldn’t make problems go away.
The suspect here threw a smoke grenade into the crowd, how would a responsible gun owner even be able to react when they can’t see anything while surrounded by an injured and fleeing morning rush hour crowd? More guns does not equal less violence.
You advocating vigilantism. No, basic citizens shouldn’t be taking the law into their own hands, we have law enforcement for that. Plus not everyone is trained to handle a gun. There would be even more unintentional deaths at the hands of those untrained to handle a firearm.
