The Future of Cities

[Not A Serious Person]

Housing market shortage is so acute and the office glut is so big that Boston will offer 75% tax breaks on office-to-residential conversions
BYALENA BOTROS
July 13, 2023 at 1:15 PM EDT
https://fortune.com/2023/07/13/boston-housing-market-shortage-commerical-real-office-glut-pilot-program/

Conversion might be the hardest thing to do in all of Real Estate. And, if successfully done, they are high-end condos/apartments, not "affordable" housing, and are many years away from completion (like 3 to 5 years).

So, a good idea in theory but hard to execute in practice.

Finally, what problem are conversions solving? The housing shortage problem or the office glut problem?  If the housing shortage, they don't get at the affordability problem. If they are solving the office glut problem, converting a desolate downtown to a residential does not automatically mean people want to move in. It is sterile and lacks any character of a real neighborhood.

Conversions might work if the driving reason is to reduce the commute to the office. But the reason for conversions is offices are empty because of remote work—a circular problem.

Simply offering a tax break is nice. But as this story says, Boston will take applications for a year. So, developers have one year to ask for the tax break and then start. So, realistically, these are near 2028 to 2030 completions if any of them get done. This alone tells you Boston developers will not be running down to city hall to get this tax break as they are daunting, difficult problems, and everyone involved in real estate knows it.

A New York Property Developer Explains Why Converting Offices to Apartments Is So Complex
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-06/why-converting-new-york-city-offices-to-apartments-is-so-complex?sref=SgYAAa0L

[Not A Serious Person]

This week's cover story



https://nymag.com/press/2023/07/the-panic-and-pivot-of-manhattans-office-megalandlords.html

The July 17–30 cover package for New York Magazine, with an anchor story by features writer Andrew Rice, examines the impending crisis resulting from historically high post-pandemic office vacancy rates in New York City, the impact it may have on the economy and the city at large, and how landlords and government officials are trying to solve the problem. In a fascinating deep dive, RXR CEO Scott Rechler candidly opens his books for Rice, going through his portfolio and dishing on which buildings can be saved — and what made one building so worthless that it had to be given back to the bank.

[Hards Alumni]

Conversion might be the hardest thing to do in all of Real Estate. And, if successfully done, they are high-end condos/apartments, not "affordable" housing, and are many years away from completion (like 3 to 5 years).

So, a good idea in theory but hard to execute in practice.

Finally, what problem are conversions solving? The housing shortage problem or the office glut problem?  If the housing shortage, they don't get at the affordability problem. If they are solving the office glut problem, converting a desolate downtown to a residential does not automatically mean people want to move in. It is sterile and lacks any character of a real neighborhood.

Conversions might work if the driving reason is to reduce the commute to the office. But the reason for conversions is offices are empty because of remote work—a circular problem.

Simply offering a tax break is nice. But as this story says, Boston will take applications for a year. So, developers have one year to ask for the tax break and then start. So, realistically, these are near 2028 to 2030 completions if any of them get done. This alone tells you Boston developers will not be running down to city hall to get this tax break as they are daunting, difficult problems, and everyone involved in real estate knows it.

A New York Property Developer Explains Why Converting Offices to Apartments Is So Complex
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-06/why-converting-new-york-city-offices-to-apartments-is-so-complex?sref=SgYAAa0L

You're once again ignoring the very simple rule of supply and demand.

Adding to the supply of housing with drive down demand... which in turn puts downward pressure on prices.

[Uncle Rico]

You investing?

Sure am but my investments are very diverse.  That’s why I live in a gated community

[Not A Serious Person]

You're once again ignoring the very simple rule of supply and demand.

Adding to the supply of housing with drive down demand... which in turn puts downward pressure on prices.

So, city housing is doomed.

[MU82]

So, city housing is doomed.

Put it on the list! (Or was it already on it? I lose track.)

[Hards Alumni]

So, city housing is doomed.

Quite the opposite.

[4everwarriors]

Sure am but my investments are very diverse.  That’s why I live in a gated community

Ewe live at da Graybar Hotel, hey?

[Uncle Rico]

Ewe live at da Graybar Hotel, hey?

No, the ‘Quon

[WellsstreetWanderer]

Quite the opposite.

Depends on the city.  SF is doomed
Portland , one of my favorite cities , a foodie paradise, is forever changed. Don’t see either coming back soon

[Plaque Lives Matter!]

Depends on the city.  SF is doomed
Portland , one of my favorite cities , a foodie paradise, is forever changed. Don’t see either coming back soon

Portland is fine besides central downtown, which wasn’t as much the foodie area anyway. Overpriced chains there. East side is thriving

[Not A Serious Person]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-27/us-office-space-is-on-track-to-shrink-for-first-time-on-record

Office buildings are poised to set records for a bad reason this year: The amount of office space in the US is declining for what is likely the first time in history.

A lack of new construction and a plethora of aging office space being repurposed or destroyed will lower the amount of office space, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. Less than 5 million square feet (465,000 square meters) of new offices broke ground in the US so far this year, while 14.7 million square feet has been removed, often to be converted into buildings for other uses.

That would mark the first net decline in data going back to 2000, JLL reported, adding that it’s most likely the first ever.

[Not A Serious Person]

What is the old saying? A conservative is a former progressive who has been mugged.

It sounds like Portland has been mugged too much.

July 29, 2023
Fighting for Anthony: The Struggle to Save Portland, Oregon
The city has long grappled with street homelessness and a shortage of housing. Now fentanyl has turned a perennial problem into a deadly crisis and a challenge to the city’s progressive identity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/us/portland-oregon-fentanyl-homeless.html

This city of 635,000, home to the world’s largest bookstore and majestic views of snowcapped Mount Hood, has long grappled with homelessness. But during the pandemic this perennial problem turned into an especially desperate and sometimes deadly crisis that is dividing Portland over how to fix it.

While other cities in the West, like San Diego and Phoenix, face similar issues, the suffering on Portland’s streets has dealt a singular challenge to the city’s identity as a liberal bastion that prides itself on embracing transplants from across the country.

In 2022, Portland experienced a spate of homicides and other violence involving homeless victims that rattled many in the community: a 42-year-old homeless woman shot in the face by two teenagers who were hunting rats with a pellet gun; a 26-year-old homeless woman stabbed in the chest outside her tent; another homeless woman, 31, fatally shot at close range by a stranger.

The search for answers points in many directions — to city and county officials who allowed tents on the streets because the government had little to offer in the way of housing, to Oregon voters who backed decriminalizing hard drugs and to the unrest that rocked Portland in 2020 and left raw scars.

----

In November 2020, amid the national reckoning over policing and criminal justice, Oregon voters by a wide margin approved a ballot measure that lowered the penalties for possessing small amounts of drugs like meth and opioids.

While an increasing number of states no longer criminally charge people for using marijuana, Oregon took the bold step of decriminalizing the possession of “hard drugs.”

When the police in Oregon see someone using these drugs, they can hand out a $100 ticket and a card listing a hotline for addiction treatment.

Known as Measure 110, the law was meant to focus the government’s efforts on treating addiction, not on arresting users.

At the same time, it allocated millions of dollars in additional funding for addiction services across Oregon. But the new money was slow to roll out.

Sergeant Cioeta, who oversees a bike squad that patrols downtown Portland, believes Measure 110 is fueling more drug use by sending the false message that “all drugs are legal.”

In 2020, the year voters approved the measure, 69 people in Multnomah County fatally overdosed from synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, according to the county health department.

Last year, such overdoses killed 209 people in the county, and the drug is smoked openly on Portland’s downtown streets.

[Plaque Lives Matter!]

What is the old saying? A conservative is a former progressive who has been mugged.

It sounds like Portland has been mugged too much.

July 29, 2023
Fighting for Anthony: The Struggle to Save Portland, Oregon
The city has long grappled with street homelessness and a shortage of housing. Now fentanyl has turned a perennial problem into a deadly crisis and a challenge to the city’s progressive identity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/us/portland-oregon-fentanyl-homeless.html

This city of 635,000, home to the world’s largest bookstore and majestic views of snowcapped Mount Hood, has long grappled with homelessness. But during the pandemic this perennial problem turned into an especially desperate and sometimes deadly crisis that is dividing Portland over how to fix it.

While other cities in the West, like San Diego and Phoenix, face similar issues, the suffering on Portland’s streets has dealt a singular challenge to the city’s identity as a liberal bastion that prides itself on embracing transplants from across the country.

In 2022, Portland experienced a spate of homicides and other violence involving homeless victims that rattled many in the community: a 42-year-old homeless woman shot in the face by two teenagers who were hunting rats with a pellet gun; a 26-year-old homeless woman stabbed in the chest outside her tent; another homeless woman, 31, fatally shot at close range by a stranger.

The search for answers points in many directions — to city and county officials who allowed tents on the streets because the government had little to offer in the way of housing, to Oregon voters who backed decriminalizing hard drugs and to the unrest that rocked Portland in 2020 and left raw scars.

----

In November 2020, amid the national reckoning over policing and criminal justice, Oregon voters by a wide margin approved a ballot measure that lowered the penalties for possessing small amounts of drugs like meth and opioids.

While an increasing number of states no longer criminally charge people for using marijuana, Oregon took the bold step of decriminalizing the possession of “hard drugs.”

When the police in Oregon see someone using these drugs, they can hand out a $100 ticket and a card listing a hotline for addiction treatment.

Known as Measure 110, the law was meant to focus the government’s efforts on treating addiction, not on arresting users.

At the same time, it allocated millions of dollars in additional funding for addiction services across Oregon. But the new money was slow to roll out.

Sergeant Cioeta, who oversees a bike squad that patrols downtown Portland, believes Measure 110 is fueling more drug use by sending the false message that “all drugs are legal.”

In 2020, the year voters approved the measure, 69 people in Multnomah County fatally overdosed from synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, according to the county health department.

Last year, such overdoses killed 209 people in the county, and the drug is smoked openly on Portland’s downtown streets.

I work downtown in that exact area 3-4 days a week. There’s a lot of drugs around (this is a US major city problem), along with a lot of homeless people who are suffering, but the idea that it is a lawless no go zone is preposterous. The national media has been fear mongering the city for quite awhile so it’s nothing new. But don’t take my word for it, take it from the source that you so often decry as unreliable just because this times it fits your narrative of a place you don’t practically experience. As I said before, there is a portion of downtown that needs help and investment, But the city’s neighborhoods are thriving.

[Not A Serious Person]

I work downtown in that exact area 3-4 days a week. There’s a lot of drugs around (this is a US major city problem), along with a lot of homeless people who are suffering, but the idea that it is a lawless no go zone is preposterous. The national media has been fear mongering the city for quite awhile so it’s nothing new. But don’t take my word for it, take it from the source that you so often decry as unreliable just because this times it fits your narrative of a place you don’t practically experience. As I said before, there is a portion of downtown that needs help and investment, But the city’s neighborhoods are thriving.

What’s the matter with Portland? Shootings, theft and other crime test city’s progressive strain
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-02-10/whats-the-matter-with-portland-urban-ills-tests-citys-progressive-strain

Long hailed as a model of conscientious urban planning and civic engagement, Portland is facing a crisis of confidence. Nearly three years after pandemic lockdowns emptied out the city’s core and protests against police brutality turned a few downtown blocks into a battleground, this city of about 641,000 is dealing with skyrocketing numbers of homeless people, soaring crime and strikingly high levels of public dissatisfaction with what the city is doing about it.

Over the last three years, the number of unhoused people in the metro area has jumped from about 4,000 to at least 6,600. Shootings in the city have tripled. Homicides climbed from 36 in 2019 to 97 last year — a record. Lower-level crimes have spiked too: More than 11,000 vehicles were stolen in 2022, up from 6,500 in 2019.

“You don’t have to watch Fox News to look around Portland and say, ‘This is not cool,’” said City Commissioner Mingus Mapps, a Democrat and former political science professor at Brandeis University.

———

respond.

“‘Progressive’ means something different now than when it did when I was growing up,” the longtime Democrat said. “Now, when I think of progressive, I think of extremism.”

Portland still has many of its charms: towering firs and giant sequoias, efficient light rail and bike lanes, microbreweries and craft markets, and views of snow-capped Mt. Hood.

But downtown, some buildings remain boarded up.

The unhoused roll shopping carts of stuffed trash bags down empty streets as construction crews erect a glossy 35-story Ritz-Carlton, the city’s first five-star hotel. A recent study showed Portland ranks about average compared with 40 other cities when it comes to homicide, assault and robbery rates. But the surge in crime has resulted in an identity crisis.

[Plaque Lives Matter!]

Your second article more or less agrees with my rebuttal to you. But it’s not worth arguing with you. It’s like engaging with the old yahoo comment section

[MU82]

From the WSJ's "The Number":

79,535

The number of people Miami-Dade County lost through net migration to other parts of Florida or other states between 2020 and 2022, the Brookings Institution said. The 2019-2022 population decline was the region’s first such loss over a multiyear period since at least 1970, according to the St. Louis Fed. Surging housing costs and a fickle labor market are sending many people packing.

From this it would appear that major southern metro areas aren't immune from the problems that most cities face.

[tower912]

How many of those were COVID deaths?

[GOO]

From the WSJ's "The Number":

79,535

The number of people Miami-Dade County lost through net migration to other parts of Florida or other states between 2020 and 2022, the Brookings Institution said. The 2019-2022 population decline was the region’s first such loss over a multiyear period since at least 1970, according to the St. Louis Fed. Surging housing costs and a fickle labor market are sending many people packing.

From this it would appear that major southern metro areas aren't immune from the problems that most cities face.

And so the great migration north to escape the extreme weather begins.  As it was written. 

[MU82]

Trouble in paradise?

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/leprosy-may-be-endemic-florida-cdc-rcna97567

Cases of leprosy have increased in Florida and the southeastern United States over the last decade, according to a new report.

Leprosy, officially called Hansen’s disease, is a rare type of bacterial infection that attacks the nerves and can cause swelling under the skin. The new research paper, published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, found that reported cases doubled in the Southeast over the last 10 years.

Central Florida in particular has seen a disproportionate share of cases, which indicates it might be an endemic location for the disease, meaning leprosy has a consistent presence in the region's population rather than popping up in the form of one-off outbreaks.

"According to the National Hansen’s Disease Program, 159 new cases were reported in the United States in 2020; Florida was among the top reporting states," the report said. "Central Florida, in particular, accounted for 81% of cases reported in Florida and almost one fifth of nationally reported cases."

[rocket surgeon]

Trouble in paradise?

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/leprosy-may-be-endemic-florida-cdc-rcna97567

Cases of leprosy have increased in Florida and the southeastern United States over the last decade, according to a new report.

Leprosy, officially called Hansen’s disease, is a rare type of bacterial infection that attacks the nerves and can cause swelling under the skin. The new research paper, published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, found that reported cases doubled in the Southeast over the last 10 years.

Central Florida in particular has seen a disproportionate share of cases, which indicates it might be an endemic location for the disease, meaning leprosy has a consistent presence in the region's population rather than popping up in the form of one-off outbreaks.

"According to the National Hansen’s Disease Program, 159 new cases were reported in the United States in 2020; Florida was among the top reporting states," the report said. "Central Florida, in particular, accounted for 81% of cases reported in Florida and almost one fifth of nationally reported cases."

  shut'er down, mask up, shelter in place until we "flatten the curve" we can do this together

  doc fettucine picked a fine time to retire...we are doomed i say

[Uncle Rico]

  shut'er down, mask up, shelter in place until we "flatten the curve" we can do this together

  doc fettucine picked a fine time to retire...we are doomed i say

8 of 10

[JWags85]

Trouble in paradise?

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/leprosy-may-be-endemic-florida-cdc-rcna97567

Cases of leprosy have increased in Florida and the southeastern United States over the last decade, according to a new report.

Leprosy, officially called Hansen’s disease, is a rare type of bacterial infection that attacks the nerves and can cause swelling under the skin. The new research paper, published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, found that reported cases doubled in the Southeast over the last 10 years.

Central Florida in particular has seen a disproportionate share of cases, which indicates it might be an endemic location for the disease, meaning leprosy has a consistent presence in the region's population rather than popping up in the form of one-off outbreaks.

"According to the National Hansen’s Disease Program, 159 new cases were reported in the United States in 2020; Florida was among the top reporting states," the report said. "Central Florida, in particular, accounted for 81% of cases reported in Florida and almost one fifth of nationally reported cases."

We talked about it during COVID, but LOVE when news articles use percentage increases to gain clicks.  15 cases in Florida, END TIMES ARE HERE.

But of note, these were mostly in Brevard County.  Home of the Kennedy Space Center.  Can't rule out alien influence here.

[The Lens]

We talked about it during COVID, but LOVE when news articles use percentage increases to gain clicks.  15 cases in Florida, END TIMES ARE HERE.

But of note, these were mostly in Brevard County.  Home of the Kennedy Space Center.  Can't rule out alien influence here.

+1

Context is always important. 

[MU82]

We talked about it during COVID, but LOVE when news articles use percentage increases to gain clicks.  15 cases in Florida, END TIMES ARE HERE.

But of note, these were mostly in Brevard County.  Home of the Kennedy Space Center.  Can't rule out alien influence here.

In 2023, I would think one case of leprosy in a major U.S. metro area would be eye-opening.