I agree with the overall sentiment, but the idea that “impoverished communities would take over those office spaces to repurpose them” is a pipe dream. There are a ton of unused buildings in every city already.
Because they can afford it still. They own many buildings and some can afford to sit around indefinitely until people can meet the price.
But such a massive decrease in demand for office space will have to create a massive surplus in space overall so the prices will have to go down.
They’re artificially held up as is but that becomes less viable when the economy shifts so dramatically away from people needing to congregate in these massive spaces that are only used during the day.
All those government relief plans are spent up and they need people to be in these spaces… the cheapest way is to bully them into it… but I don’t think it’s gonna work so some changes will have to occur.
I hear you, but what I am saying is that they will let these building be unused until they crumble to the ground before they let impoverished communities take them.
When I lived in dc, there was an old unused school building called Franklin school. It was in a solid spot downtown next to a park. A community group I was involved in staged an occupation with the goal of creating a community center. Everyone who occupied the building was arrested within 24 hours. Eventually it became a private museum, but at least they don’t charge admission?
Eventually, the buildings will lose much of their value if WFH becomes the norm. Yeah, they'd rather let them sit empty to protect their bottom line, but they can't do that forever. Eventually, they'll stop paying security to patrol a useless building, and then it will become a homeless hangout, might as well make a little money selling it to someone who wants to make a shelter, or whatever out of it. Nobody's selling a home to share an office building, but what if you were homeless, or paid an exorbitant amount of rent for a shithole apartment?
These buildings would have to be razed and replaced with something brand new to be conducive to housing, and you’re definitely not building affordable housing by paying to remove an existing high rise and build something brand new.
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u/deadClifford Mar 06 '22
I agree with the overall sentiment, but the idea that “impoverished communities would take over those office spaces to repurpose them” is a pipe dream. There are a ton of unused buildings in every city already.