THIS

And even into the early to mid 80's as well.

Downtown was a seedy place pock marked by X-rated bookstores and movie theaters.

Block 37 was just that, a square block of beat up buildings.

The near north side has similar issues as well.

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It wasn't until 84-88 when the city began to turn around. It was grimy as hell before then.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

New York is its own category but Chicago is the closest comparison in the US.

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“How do you get to be president and you’re stupid?” Donald J Trump - 4/10/25
When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus. - Turkish Proverb

I think it's fair to say that describes most cities in that timeline. Urban decay entered the lexicon for most people around that time.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

It's fair to say that the last few years have been really bad for the city. I discussed that extensively in this thread viewtopic.php?f=175&t=121549

I also think some of the changes we will see will be permanent. Companies will decrease their physical office footprint, which will negatively harm downtowns. It will also reduce the incentive for people to live in an urban environment where easy travel to that downtown is required M-F.

Remote work is here to stay for many of us and even if many companies don't adopt it permanently, enough will to change the landscape. People move to a city like Chicago for the work opportunities as while I feel Chicago is losing ground to the suburbs, it still has more opportunities than Detroit, Cleveland, or most other Midwestern cities. However, that anchor draw of the city is lost when people no longer have to move for that opportunity.

As bad as Chicago is going to be hit by this, just wait until you see the impact this will have on the Bay Area. A lot of people with vesting stock options are going to realize they can live like kings away from their overpriced and overregulated California.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

The studies that are coming out of this are that optimal remote work for both employer and employee is 1 to possibly 2 days per week.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

back to the question at hand, I think the #1 and #2 items are the quality of schools and the affordability of housing. The Ogie scenario of everyone he knows moving to the suburbs is due, largely, to being unable to have confidence that they are providing their children with free, quality education all the way through high school. There really shouldn't be bad schools and good schools in CPS. There should be an entire school system that has a character that is applicable no matter where you live.

Sure, some people find nirvana in a cul de sac. I think the majority would prefer to live in urban centers if all things could be equal.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

maybe instead of people paying $2000 a month to rent someone's walk in closet in a 3 bedroom house with 6 other people sharing 1 bathroom the real estate market in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley will regress to a more livable mean

Climate change is still a problem. We can't have an entire nation at the population density of Huntley. We need density.

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You grossly overstate the movement towards work-from-home. The composition of this board is primarily introverted hermits so working-from-home is right up their alley. However, most employer and employee surveys point toward a hybrid model at best.

Even a hybrid model would change how people go about looking where they wish to live. It is worth noting that some of the largest tech companies are offering full remote to their employees and it's fair to say that depending on how that works out, others will adopt it as well. I have a friend who just moved from California to Texas since he no longer had to be in Palo Alto for his job that did have him at Facebook HQ at the former "Sun Quentin."

Let's see what happens when some of Chicago's largest corporate employers offer that option. Even with a hybrid model, someone who only has to come in 2 or 3 times a week may find that commuting on those few days isn't so bad and may move further out.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

I know my single family home lifestyle is not carbon neutral or environmentally friendly, but frankly that won't ever stop me.

Maybe I'll eventually put some solar panels on my roof if I feel guilty and decide it makes economic sense as prices fall.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

with companies abandoning downtown space there's going to be a metric fuckton of unused floors in big buildings throughout the loop and beyond. might be an opportunity for creating short-term living spaces to be used by worker-bees 3 days/2 nights a week and then by tourists on weekends.

Instead of employees piling into metra cars every day they commute in Monday AM, work Monday, stay downtown in one of these new not-quite-hotels-nor-air-b-n-b spaces Monday night, work Tuesday, stay over again Tuesday night, work Wednesday and then commute home Wednesday after work. And then another "shift" arrives downtown Wednesday AM, repeat. Friday everyone clears out for exurbia and the spaces are available for weekend tourists.

This cuts down on the back and forth commuting and attendant covid hazards/environmental impact.

That is one market where such a migration may actually be helpful to the city/area.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

Unlikely.

The city will still be a bigger draw for the young crowd than the suburbs. Few kids in their 20's wants to live in a Chicago suburb. And if they have enough money, they can stay and have a decent public school option. Semi-affordable private schools like DePaul Prep (formerly Gordon Tech) are helping out too.

For at least the last 20 years, I've seen plenty of young people move to the city for the nightlife, lakefront, social clubs, etc. and reverse commute to their jobs in the suburbs. Pre Covid, the reverse commute was as bad and sometimes worse, especially the Eisenhower and Edens. The future of remote work will make the city even more attractive when you don't lose your freshly shoveled parking spot each morning and after work can still walk to your favorite neighborhood tavern, restaurant, or go for a run on the lakefront.

the downsizing of commercial office space says otherwise.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

Yep I know because I'm from it. Like Seacrest said and you know well Downtown was a cesspool of seedy bullshit. Movie Theaters (Shout-out to the McVickers Theater) game rooms with a few crappy restaurants mixed in. Downtown was where you went when you wanted to find a little action and guys I knew from the "hood" used to walk sometimes because the walk was only about 3 miles. We loved going down there primarily for that purpose when I was an adolescent/teenager.

Super transfer Sunday was always the Fun day because you could ride the bus and the "L" for the entire day for 70 cents.

What I was asking about was pre covid number of population loss. Yes, Covid is going to affect Chicago and many other cities with work at home. No doubt.

Chicago is not the closest to NYC. Chicago is a midwestern city. Boston, Philly, NYC are simply older citiies with coastal feels. San Fran has more density than Chicago.

Back to original questions, what Chicago has going for it - Cost of living is cheap compared to coastal cities, public transport good, very good restaurant scene, arts, sports city.

Negative - Weather sucks for 4 months(bigger than some think, that is 1/3rd of the year), property taxes are 2nd highest in nation, not near any fun getaways nearby, kinda stuck in the midwest - Wisconsin or Michigan for weekend trips.

Real estate values and COL shows everything - Seattle down to San Diego cost of living way higher than Chicago, as well as all east coast cities.

Most people moving out are moving from south and west sides.

Also Chi is extreeeeeemly segregated if you travel for 2020. Gotta little mix from Uptown to Rogers Park, but "city of neighborhoods" is basically white north/northwest, some hispanic on north ave, Pilsen area, Black south and west.

You keep saying this without any evidence. Using your tech companies as an example. Facebook recently purchased REI's headquarters campus in Seattle. Amazon is continuing with its buildout of HQ2 in Virginia. Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google all expanded their physical footprint in 2020 in NYC.

maybe things won't work this way post-COVID as people have adapted to actually being productive when working from home. But, pre-COVID, I noticed that employees given a single work from home day, usually a Friday or Monday every other week, often treated it as an extra PTO day. Maybe everyone is nowadays acclimatized/conditioned to actually working when working from home that that won't happen; especially if it's multiple days each week of working from home vs a keep-an-eye-on-email-while-running-errands day every other week.

uber wealthy tech companies vulture investing in depressed assets?

there's going to be more abandoned space than all the FAANG companies can gobble up at discounted covid prices:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... r-pandemic

The move to reduce office space is well documented. 53% of companies surveyed (over 1,500 were asked this) said they are going to reduce office space

This is something we probably would have seen happen at some point later in the 2020s, but Covid forced companies to consider it sooner.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

you can take JERK WOOD out of the SUBRUBS,,,but you Can"t take the SUBURUS out of the JERKWOOD!

AS long as HOPLEAF! and WHILE FOODS stays open, CITY still fine for MANY??? Just IMAGINE would be in BEtter shape with myguy CHUY runing things!!!!

Yup, new companies move in with lower rents. My firm just recently move their San Diego office to Chicago given the attractive leasing rates.

You'll see MANY firms jumping into downtown areas at discounted prices. The suburban commercial market is going to get demolished.

The entirety of commercial real estate markets are going to get demolished. City and suburban commercial real estate alike are going to collapse.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

In the short-term there will be pain. However, if your investment horizon is longer than 5 years then downtown cores will be back. There will some reinvention and transformation but betting against urban business districts would be very foolish.

Long term I'd still bet against them. They're not going to die, but they also probably won't return to their pre-Covid workforce levels. The numbers are there to show us the future and yes some people will go in the office M-F 5 days a week without fail, but enough will be partial or fully work from home that it will not reach what we saw as the norm 12 months ago.

Going semi off-topic here, but air travel and hotels will be the same way. Other than conferences or really important client meetings that must be f2f, you'll see a drop off in business travel as companies realize they can save thousands per employee per year by moving a lot of meetings to virtual. It's not going to be all of them of course, but enough to prevent a return to pre-Covid levels for years to come. I think other than a couple of conferences per year, my personal business travel will not reach the level it was the last few years and that's just fine with me.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson