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Comment by sharkweek | Hacker News Reader

Agreed, I'm convinced there are two forces at work here (a little tinfoil hatty maybe, I'll admit):

- Local (city/state) governments who want to bring people into downtown areas to spend money are threatening to revoke tax breaks companies receive for having an office in their city/state.

- CRE lobbyists convincing city governments to do the above, threatening with a dystopian outlook of a downtown core riddled with abandoned buildings.

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It's been frustrating to see how the past decades of focus on the office and the suburb have left American cities so vulnerable to this kind of dilemma. There's a simple solution: create a pleasant, walkable downtown that people will want to actually live in.

The problem is most office spaces are not easily converted to liveable spaces. They basically need all kinds of plumbing and wiring and structural work.

> most office spaces

most open plan office space

Nah, the plan doesn't matter. It's things like limited plumbing through the core, elevators taking up excess space, structural supports limiting layouts.

It doesn't really matter where you run the facades, it's all the other stuff people want like bathrooms that require significant reworking.

Yes. It takes work and money. But it is perfectly doable in a cost effective way.

The biggest obstacle is that in some cities the building codes contain some arbitrary and irrational provisions to intentionally make it harder

Then we should start knocking down the less valuable office space and start putting up new living space.

You forgot “affordable”.

Affordability is great, but it'll be dictated by supply and demand. If, like contemporary SF, supply is strangled, then nothing will possibly fix affordability.

Why would the corporation care about what local governments and lobbyists want? They would be taking all the risk of managing disgruntled employees forced to come back.

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