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Basilone1917 t1_j8jfs4u wrote

Sweetgreen hardest hit

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bodhipooh t1_j8jgxgo wrote

Not sure if 100% serious, but this is definitely a fact. The NYT featured them prominently in an article discussing the impact of the remote, wfh setup and its effect in San Francisco, and Sweetgreen and other similar places basically have left the downtown areas and opened up outposts in suburbia or more outlying areas as crowds simply disappeared. My partner works in midtown Manhattan, and was back just a few months after the initial lockdown, and by her accounts, a ton of lunch places have closed down, which leads to more and more employees choosing to brown bag it, which compounds the problem for all these places catering to lunchtime crowds. For her, if she doesnt feel like bringing food from home, her options are quite limited and she will often just power through and not even bother trying to choose from slim pickings with much higher menu prices, which is yet another thing pushing people away from the what limited options remain.

People who doubt the narrative of a doom loop fail to see the real BIG picture. It's not just about workers, plunging commercial real estate value, and crime. So many aspects of city downtowns are being affected. Of course NYC will never cease to be, but people seem to conveniently forget that the city had some SERIOUS fiscal issues in the 70s and it took a lot of effort and work to get above from that.

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j8l8jww wrote

It’s a fake financial problem.

The state could just rollback all the tax breaks the upper class have gotten for decades paid for by the rest of us.

Reality is either way there will be budget issues. Even if the city got tons of money from people returning to offices the rich are going to want more tax breaks and that’s going to bleed it dry.

So this is really just a discussion over taxation of the wealthy.

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mooseLimbsCatLicks t1_j8kf8xe wrote

And it’s not easy to turn offices into residential because there is much less plumbing usually. Hotels are easier to convert

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Jahooodie OP t1_j8lgbzo wrote

And yet that's Mayor Adams' latest in the quest for housing. But yeah it may sound good but the infastructure isn't as straightforward as it may seem. Also things converted into a house tend to stay that way, and I'm just curious because alot of NYC's history of rebirth is on industrial/office space becoming the birth of the new age.

https://gothamist.com/news/mayor-adams-unveils-plans-to-turn-nyc-offices-into-20000-new-apartments

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mooseLimbsCatLicks t1_j8m4vz9 wrote

According to the comments the plan is just tax breaks and incentives for developers to do this.. bleh guess that might be necessary since it seems more complicated infrastructure wise

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mooseLimbsCatLicks t1_j8kezja wrote

Jersey City restaurants literally taking NYC’s lunch money

gif

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Jahooodie OP t1_j8lfy1j wrote

Rumba cubano's lunch service VS sweetgreen, who posted better numbers during the pandemic?

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DeepFriedAsses t1_j8l19br wrote

Crazy idea but maybe it's good to see people moving towards a more decentralized mode of living rather than having all human activity clustered around a single focal point

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Blecher_onthe_Hudson t1_j8les2p wrote

I'm sure it's going to seem counterintuitive to you but cities are actually quite environmental, can you imagine the landscape if everyone in New York City actually lived in single family suburbs?

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DeepFriedAsses t1_j8m1ce7 wrote

I’m aware, thank you. I don’t see where I suggested single-family suburbs, but I totally get how my comment implies that. Rather, it’s great to see the outer boroughs and JC thriving as opposed to a few Manhattan neighborhoods. Plenty of people still enjoy living in cities for residential and social reasons even if they don’t need to commute to a central business district for work.

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Blecher_onthe_Hudson t1_j8n2x3n wrote

Ah. That's kind of old news actually. In the late '90s there was a lot of breastbeating about Manhattan becoming unaffordable to the middle class. We now live in the result, the resurgence of JC, Brooklyn, Queens, and even the Bronx to some extent. I actually had a letter to the NYTimes published predicting exactly this.

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Jahooodie OP t1_j8j855a wrote

Impact on JC rental market when?

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aa043 t1_j8jqqpg wrote

Hoboken and JC are close to Manhattan(PATH, bus, ferry) and as convenient as other NYC parts. Parking is difficult and traffic unpredictable often terrible.

Remote conferencing existed before Covid but now its just normal. Companies save money by having smaller flexible office spaces. Remote and flexible office hours means less demand for office space.

JC is not as expensive as smaller Hoboken but JC needs better amenities and safety.

JSQ area now visible from far and more buildings going up. With influx of people, JC can change rapidly or face an exodous after a year or two. Nowhere to walk unless JC develops some great urban spaces like Paris has.

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mooseLimbsCatLicks t1_j8kfgt2 wrote

Jc and Hoboken are greatly positioned, I don’t see prices going down. They will just rise anywhere near transit

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Jahooodie OP t1_j8lfobo wrote

>They will just rise anywhere near transit

what happens with literal sea level rise? I kinda am medium confident NYC will figure out walls or something when push comes to shove, but like do you really see Hudson County will get together and collab to figure out a comprehensive plan

counterpoint: areas of Miami on the precipice of getting fucked still somehow have prices going up and major banks still certifying mortgages sometimes so EHHHHHH

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mooseLimbsCatLicks t1_j8lg1oq wrote

Wasn’t factoring for that. Don’t have a good time frame for when the we are fucked is coming

Heights tho…

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Economy-Cupcake808 t1_j8mntv1 wrote

I’ve lived in both places but traffic is way better on this side of the Hudson than it is on Long Island and parts of Westchester. Maybe it was different pre Covid

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Blecher_onthe_Hudson t1_j8lfqxl wrote

I expect this to simply become a cycle like most property and business cycles. The problem is been there has rarely been serious retractions in the price of real estate in the city. If it drops a serious percentage, like 30%, there are people and businesses who would find it attractive and there would be an up swing. As it was before covid, New York City had priced itself out of reality for many. It was a situation ripe for disruption.

The city budget is a different issue, the waste, poor choices, corruption and mismanagement create a situation where everything costs far, far more than it should. Perhaps a crisis is just what is needed to reassess the status quo of budgeting.

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whybother5000 t1_j8joar3 wrote

Many of those workers moved to this side of the river. Impact is mostly felt in office heavy locations.

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Brudesandwich t1_j8k59il wrote

Am I supposed for bad for Manhattan?

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Jahooodie OP t1_j8lfe88 wrote

Think of the poor capitalist masters of the universe types!

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Successful_Pen_2387 t1_j8n43y6 wrote

Jersey City too has a lot of office buildings. And they seem even emptier than the Manhattan ones.

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Jahooodie OP t1_j8n6ji7 wrote

I'm a firm believer that we need to pressure for more commercial space (doctor's offices, daycares, dry cleaners, smaller offices/light industrial) to keep our town vibrant and not a big NYC bedroom, so I have mixed feelings.

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