Extremely prolific pundit Joel Kotkin writes at Tablet about the reluctance of former office workers who've been working at home during the pandemic to return to the office. Here is a key paragraph.
The rise of remote work drives these trends. Today, perhaps 42% of the 165 million-strong U.S. labor force is working from home full time, up from 5.7% in 2019. When the pandemic ends, that number will probably drop, but one study, based on surveys of more than 30,000 employees, projects that 20% of the U.S. workforce will still work from home post-COVID.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was higher than 20%. This isn't a great time to be invested in office-type downtown buildings.
If downtowns become semi-vacant, deterioration will follow and the rest will leave. Imagine empty office blocks turned into homeless crash pads with garbage, gross moldy mattresses and discarded needles.
Add to this the Soros-funded progressive DAs unwilling to prosecute crime and you've got an urban recipe for disaster. At some point the police will refuse to enter and it becomes the dystopian province of gangs and nihilist crazies, people like Firefly's reavers.
