McKinsey said cities could adapt to the declining demand for office space by “taking a hybrid approach themselves,” developing multi-use office and retail space and constructing buildings that can be easily adapted to serve different purposes.
If businesses can run without $800 billion tied up in assets, not only should they, the market dictates that they have to. Sorry landlords, sucks to suck.
They could use them for retail or…they could re-zone these areas for residential housing and reduce the cost of renting or buying a home, but that would make too much sense.
To be fair, commercial and office spaces often lack a lot of amenities that residential spaces have (lots of access to natural light, sufficient water supply and sewage capacity, etc.) but that will be incredibly dependant on the building for how much that complicates the conversion
sleeping in the street has plenty of natural light. I think you’ll find some people are willing to make the sacrifice.
Oh no, more space that could be transformed into housing.
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A more serious problem than getting per-unit plumbing into buildings is the fact that commercial real estate is designed fundamentally differently than residential - as in the fact that there’s a large amount of interior space which would be entirely without windows. This is often illegal, but even if permitted it’s quite undesirable. Just look at what happened to Munger Hall - it was considered cruel enough that they cancelled the plans for it.
99% Invisible did a great episode on this subject which I highly recommend that you listen to: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/office-space/
Good. Turn them into apartments.
