Paywall https://archive.is/2023.07.02-211826/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/upshot/american-cities-office-conversion.html
Sort-of relevant:
Suburbs have been a disaster for the human race.
They are essentially open-air prisons, produce loneliness and poor mental health, and make it so that driving is synonymous with "getting there."
Horrible.
Horrible, horrible, horrible.
Suburbs are so shitty, so insufferably boring that they have to be massively subsidized, and cities have to be sabotaged the hell out of just to stay relevant. On one hand, I appreciate suburbs as some kind of CHUD containment zone, but at least make cities the affordable option.
Frankly: I think suburbs produce chuds. People talk about "white flight" and that's relevant and true... but I also think it reproduces more chuds quite effectively...
“There’s nothing about that building — its construction, its mechanicals, its structural engineering — that prevents it from being converted”
Aside from the plumbing, ventilation, availability of windows, and often weight requirements of the building.
Factories become loft apartments. Industrial waterfronts become public parks. Warehouses become start-up offices and restaurant scenes.
Yes, and do you want to explain to me what’s different about those buildings compared to modern office towers? Could it have anything to do with the design, the availability of windows, setup of plumbing/wiring/utilities/elevators, and weight limits?
They've actually already turned similar buildings into apartments already. https://archive.is/2023.06.27-200134/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office-conversions.html while all of those are certainly challenges, they've also already been tackled in similar buildings. The difference between them here is the zoning laws.
I guess we're seeing the "acceptance" phase of corporate real estate adjusting to the new labor market, although their version of acceptance seems to be to push for total deregulation to convert their office investments into unlivable living spaces.
The fundamental issue is most modern office towers are not feasible for residential use, and there isn't enough retail demand to turn them into vertical malls. The unfortunate answer is that a lot of these buildings probably need to be demolished a replaced with actually functional architecture, but there isn't a feasible way to demolish many of them.
