Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Sun Mar 07, 2021 9:47 am
Mr. Wolf, if you don't succeed at first, try again:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-old-ne ... _permalink
Got the article... and it doesn't hew to my thinking. The big thing is that it assumes a complete work-from-home environment everywhere. But that assumes the best case scenario: Ultra-fast Internet connecting to ultra-fast systems end to end that never fail, and everyone is comfortable with that.
That scenario is basically impossible.
Equipment fails. Some person has to go in and swap it out. The closer you are to potential failure, the quicker you are to react to it. So someone has to be in various offices.
Infrastructure fails. The Internet isn't as robust as you think, namely because the ISPs are cheap-ass (insert favorite swear word here) that push profit over sustainability. If it breaks or is too slow to do the job, you have to go where the Internet is better... and the first/best solution is in the office.
Humans fail. Some are able to work from home and concentrate, while others (*raises hand*) are easily distracted and need that psychological shift to go from home to work and back. They need that regular structure. They want to go into the office.
This is where I get my "65-75%" guestimate figure. I believe that after we get a full "masks off" order, it will take a year to have the effects shake out and settle down. Offices
will shrink but they won't go away. Businesses that support them (restaurants, tech repair, etc) will come back but not all of them. It all depends on the people who want to go back into work.
Back to the NYC perspective (although it can be extended to any major city with regular rail transit), the short term is to survive that year of shake-out. Tax revenue will be lower for quite a while, so NY will need to tweak it's taxes. There will probably be some property ownership consolidation, and the rental rates will start dropping as owners realize the market no longer can sustain such high rates. But by how much? That's something I know I cannot predict -- all I know that it will be a bit of a wild ride there.
Lets just say COVID-19 shook everything up, and it'll take a few more years to settle it back down again.