From Detroit to Oakland, pandemic threatens urban renewal

[thelakelander]

DETROIT — Downtown Detroit was returning to its roots as a vibrant city center, motoring away from its past as the model of urban ruin.

Then the pandemic showed up, emptying once-bustling streets and forcing many office workers to flee to their suburban homes.

Anthony Frank, who manages Dessert Oasis and Coffee Roasters on Griswold Street, said everyone loves Detroit's comeback story, but a 20% drop in business has been difficult to handle.

"We definitely had to do a lot of soul searching just to try to make sure that we were able to keep this thing going," said Frank, who is hopeful that things will eventually pick up again.

From midtown Manhattan to San Francisco, just about any city built around clusters of office buildings that used to bring in thousands of workers every day is feeling some degree of angst.

Full article: https://www.theledger.com/story/news/coronavirus/2020/10/21/detroit-oakland-coronavirus-pandemic-threatens-urban-renewal-downtown-businesses-resurgent-us-cities/6003311002/

[ProjectMaximus]

Explored downtown Detroit last summer and it was awesome! Campus Martius Park was rocking on a Sunday afternoon.

Really hope the little guys who were the crux of the turnarounds in Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland etc are able to pull through.

[bl8jaxnative]

It's hard to justify spending 2, 3, 5 times more for housing to be in downtown when there are zero amenities to show for it and you face the same sort of crime that for a generation wasn't tolerated.

If these big businesses - and this is just an if - do shift away from having most office personnel in the office most days, we could see demand for space cut in half.   Cities that have gone that sort of thing in the past, like Denver in the mid 80s, took another 20-30 years before all that empty space - the slack in the system - finally took itself out.   And at that was with  robust 50 % population growth.

[bl8jaxnative]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/upshot/future-offices-worker-choice.html

Even before the pandemic, there were signs of trouble with the office market in the handful of cities where the "creative class" had been flocking. In 2018, net migration to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco was negative, while the U.S. economy grew at a healthy 2.9 percent. Creative magnets like London and Paris were experiencing similar declines.


<snip>

Residential areas, street retail shops and hotels may have to accommodate more daytime workers. Signs of this shift are already visible. The nation's largest multifamily operators, Avalon Bay Communities and Equity Residential, have been adding work and meeting spaces to their buildings for a few years now.