26.6 ...

The idea of companies filling office space with enough workers to require companies to rent said space from landlords at sustainable levels is over as commercial real estate is doing a deep dive for the ages due to the tech revolution enabling workers to earn a living with significant time spent at home and not in the office, thus reducing the need for companies to rent space at sustainable levels beginning around 2000 as seen by the chart below. At the same time this is happening, NYC's enjoying a renaissance in terms of tourists checking out the city on a temporary basis, something initially comforting but not a long term viable way for a city to remain solvent as tourism is not productivity but rather pleasure seeking. 

New York is undergoing a metamorphosis from a city dedicated to productivity to one built around pleasure. Many office buildings still feel eerily empty, with occupancy around 50 percent of prepandemic levels, harming landlords and the local economy. But 56 million people visited New York last year, making Fifth Avenue in December feel as crowded as Ipanema Beach during Carnival.

To yours truly, the NYTimes concluding statement is a wish list for the future of NYC as GW's coming and the impact of this existential problem will supersede all else as civilization moves further into the 21st century.

Cities thrived before the office was invented and can still triumph after the office has gone. Unfettered by cubicles and 9-to-5 jobs, we could achieve, more comprehensively and more joyfully than before, the city’s primordial aim: bringing people and ideas together. We need this integrative urban power now more than ever as social fragmentation, political polarization and economic inequality pull us apart. As we face the climate crisis, the allure of activity-rich neighborhoods could promote sustainable lifestyles. As we fight segregation in all its forms, dense cities can bridge our divisions. As we struggle with loneliness, an irresistibly vital street life could drag a generation of people off their phones and back toward one another.

One can only hope, right?