How the spread of sheds threatens cities
economist.com
economist.com
> Urban scholars like Richard Florida and Edward Glaeser (who spoke about the future of cities at Policy Exchange, a British think-tank, this week) are busy trying to work out whether the rise in home-working that has occurred during the covid-19 pandemic will endure when the virus ebbs. If it does, many service jobs in cities, from baristas to taxi drivers, will disappear. Public-transport systems will struggle. The value of city-centre property will tank. The shed boom makes that outcome more likely.
What a tenuous attempt at tying sheds to job loss and city center value reduction with no rationale whatsoever given. Where is the study on this topic? None is referenced or linked. The scholars referenced aren't given any context about their background, nor their current positions or research.
> This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Spread of the shed"
Perhaps they should have stuck with the print title instead of the vapid clickbait we were given. I'd say the Economist should know better, but they've been a shadow of their former selves for quite a long time now.
Found while searching one of the scholars referenced:
"It is impossible to predict in advance which changes will stick, and how much and to what extent our cities and suburbs will ultimately change. Such ventures in futurism are always a fool’s game. But it is safe to say that the changes that will persist are those that make our cities safer, healthier, and more efficient." - Richard Florida
Essentially, people are building sheds for offices. This discourages them from wanting to work in an office and that will destroy all the business models catering to office workers.
> The value of city-centre property will tank.
This is only briefly mentioned, but is probably the real reason for the rending of garments on the part of the media about working from home.
Thing to remember. If someone starts bagging on you for not caring about things like 'the children' or 'peoples rights' when historically they can't give a damn about either. They're gaslighting you for their own selfish reasons.
Good.
The house and gardens are worth visiting. It has a very fine collection of Japanese shin hanga prints. (https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/shaws-corner)
If they can work from home, they'll still want to be in the city, but they'll want a bigger place in the city. I can see a well paid engineer opting for a two bedroom place for themself instead one, so they can have a dedicated office to work from home, and still be in the city to hit up the bar or club at 6pm.
I'll bet we see the construction of more 2 and 3 bedroom units and fewer one bedroom/studios if the WFH trend continues after the pandemic.
We get to pretend that there's not a per-student price for public school, while disguising the fact that there's a mostly congruent "space and quality of life" price instead. A different funding formula for schools would make a lot of practical NIMBYs stop caring.
do you have an argument or source for this? I'm having a hard time finding a good breakdown of property tax assessed per unit in an apartment building. I can look at sale prices of condos vs homes on zillow, and it looks like condos tend to be more expensive per square foot. is your statement only true under the assumption that the apartment will fit the same number of bedrooms in a smaller floorplan?
[0] https://financialpost.com/real-estate/condos-cost-more-than-...
In most of America, towers are rare. Think more of 3 story apartment buildings along suburban arterials - those are unquestionably less expensive than the houses between the arterials.
San Francisco is, of course, an exception.
Right now everybody who's not making stuff directly useful for the pandemic is a loser, and most of the few winners positioned their products years ago and lucked into the COVID boom. There's no incentive to be near cities, because there's not a whole lot of innovation or economic revolution happening. That'll change very quickly if the economy comes roaring back, particularly if accompanied by major technological or social changes that open up new markets.