The_Lone_Apple t1_iz4vn0t wrote
Reply to comment by mowotlarx in NYC comptroller says Adams has ‘exacerbated’ widespread city worker vacancies by mowotlarx
Someone really needs to explain to me the mentality that people who can do their jobs fine from home must come into an office. I don't want some nonsensical corporate speak that sounds like it came from Scientology - I mean the real reason.
co_matic t1_iz4yxgl wrote
If you have friends who are invested in commercial real estate, then you need your office workers in the office to keep up appearances.
skeeh319 t1_iz52bst wrote
Exactly. Adams needs New Yorkers to continue buying $20 salads in midtown to keep his real estate donors happy. The man is incredibly short sighted and self interested. I really hope as New Yorkers we can galvanize behind whoever will be opposing him in the primary.
AnacharsisIV t1_iz5wjkd wrote
Unfortunately a big chunk of the city's taxes come from either taxes on commercial real estate or from businesses that basically exist solely to serve 9-5 office workers.
Short of singlehandedly changing the economy of the city in a 4 year term, I don't know what you expect from Adams. I work from home and would love to continue doing so in perpetuity but the house of cards that is our city has been built with the assumption that people will be in offices.
Evening_Presence_927 t1_iz6sqwr wrote
At least start the process of weaning us off of that revenue stream. Vacancy taxes and higher taxes on the rich would help.
skeeh319 t1_iz7s1d6 wrote
47% of NYC revenue comes from property tax. As someone else said vacancy tax is a big one. And letting the free market do it’s work, the city needs to evolve with us. If people work from home more and eat at home we have to built communities and businesses around that. And make midtown residential, create parks. But Eric Adams is not a long term planner, he is more focused on slashing jobs, investing 5.5 million into a hip hop museum, partying with his friends, and campaigning for his 2025 race. What I want is for him to make concrete plans for how we will bring the city with us forward, instead of just strictly holding us in the past of pre pandemic times without any debate or negotiation.
The_Lone_Apple t1_iz55qcz wrote
Our new ranked-choice primary system delivered us Eric Adams.
cascoin84 t1_iz5p8wo wrote
Uh no. Adams was leading after the first round so he would have won under the traditional system. The ranked choice system allowed Garcia to come very close to overtaking him.
[deleted] t1_iz74xz1 wrote
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skeeh319 t1_iz7sdva wrote
That’s empirically incorrect. What got us Eric Adams is the abysmal voter turnout in New York City, in a large part thanks to the board of elections. Only 23% of voters voted for eric adams. Only 12% of voters showed up for Deblasios reelection! The problem is we don’t show up and we end up with politicians that don’t actually represent voters.
LostSoulNothing t1_iz5iajz wrote
Commercial landlords gave a lot of money to the Adams campaign so he is doing everything in his power to keep office rents high
Fuck_You_Downvote t1_iz511pv wrote
City gets money from property tax, sales tax and business tax. No business = no tax.
mowotlarx OP t1_iz53js7 wrote
If the City wanted to fix the issue of losing property tax from businesses in Manhattan they should request landlords lower rents and make it more enticing to stay or to rent space there for smaller businesses. Sometimes private business owners are smart. Why would they waste their $$ on bloated Manhattan rent when staff don't even want to be there? Who does that benefit except the rent collectors? Why is the City (well, the Mayor) the last one to understand this?
socialcommentary2000 t1_iz554e9 wrote
I agree with you in spirit, but there's a bit of a problem : Manhattan has sort of specialized in being the McLargeHuge commercial real estate capital of the country. It's very hard to repurpose that.
There's also the fact that financials and their involvement of commercial real estate means there's incentives (as in, actual contractual incentives for primary stakeholders) to never lower the rates on leases. Senior holders and all that. It's all very arcane, just like just about everything in commercial real estate.
mowotlarx OP t1_iz588nz wrote
I'm not sure we will ever find a future for the McLargeHuge commercial space. They need to make a decision now on whether to lower rents or remodel spaces.
Just an anecdote of course, but the massive quarter block office building I see out my office window has at least 5 gutted floors. It used to be cubicle farms top to bottom for a bank, I believe. It's been emptied out since late 2019 (started pre-COVID) and not a bit of movement there yet. As the Mega Corps leave to save $$ and keep staff happy, who else would ever come and claim that overpriced space? They're going to have to convert it no matter what, whether it's into smaller offices on the same floor or into housing. I don't know why the Mayor is leading them on and wasting time.
TheAJx t1_iz5avco wrote
One of the hardest things to do on this sub is to explain to people that not every problem is caused by evil people doing obviously evil things that could be magically solved with the wave of someone's hands.
The NYC is built the way it is, for better or worse, mostly better considering how prosperous the city is. To expect this behemoth of a city to just magically adapt to the new normal is asking a lot.
mowotlarx OP t1_iz5eskx wrote
It's not going to magically adapt, we all agree. We need a City government that is practical and responsive to change and to plan ahead. We don't have that. It'll come back to bite us in the ass.
Crimsonwolf1445 t1_iz9ax3d wrote
The big issue imo is that pretty much all solutions one can work towards would not see clear results for several years making it useless in the eyes of any elected official.
Why would they do the work of enacting policy the next guy will get all the credit for?
Frankly i have no hope of any politician from any party to not solely act in their own self interest
mowotlarx OP t1_izaac9p wrote
Agreed. City staff see the vision over time between administrations and do a lot of work. Then a new administration begins and they scrap the work and restart something that gets dropped again later. Very rarely do they promote agency staff into commissioner positions. Instead the pick their friends who have little to no experience and are starting from scratch.
It's very hard to have consistency and a cohesive vision for the public when politicians only hop in to promote their own agenda.
JohnQP121 t1_iz6y7jz wrote
Nobody wants the commute. Lower rent wouldn't help with that.
[deleted] t1_iz5bg44 wrote
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mowotlarx OP t1_iz5egkp wrote
And what if nobody moves in and pays the rent?
movingtobay2019 t1_iz5j6gg wrote
Valuation is based on listed rent, not actual rent.
Fuck_You_Downvote t1_iz5jt4r wrote
True. And property is valued based on cash flow. Paper cash flow or actual cash flow are the same. So in a spreadsheet somewhere someone said it is worth 100 a foot in rent, and was sold as such. And they guy who bought it says it is 110 a foot and got a loan based on that. If someone moves in under 110 the bank repossesses his building or it just sits vacant for 12 years. Which one will he do?
TheAJx t1_iz5aiyc wrote
>Someone really needs to explain to me the mentality that people who can do their jobs fine from home must come into an office.
At the risk of being swarmed, I will give it a shot.
The mayor is responsible for the city as a collective. He has to balance competing interests and priorities. That doesn't mean he's doing a good job of it, but that is technically his job.
For the health of the city - financial, social, cultural - it is valuable to have people working in the city because that leads to dollars being directly injected into the NYC economy. Nearly one million people commuted into NYC every day. They would spend money at drug stores, local retail, local restaurants. With WFH, that money is staying in New Jersey and Westchester and Long Island.
And that might be the future, but it's going to cause financial and social issues for New York City. Less money injected into the economy = less tax collection and that's less money for schools, parks and public services like transit. These are just the facts.
At the individual level, it is totally reasonable, understandable and justifiable to want to work from home. I work from home 3 or 4 days a week myself and I don't feel like going into the office. I'm not quite sure that's sustainable at the civic level. We are eventually going to run out of resources.
Now my suggestion is that we ultimately need to allow government employees to WFH a few days a week just to keep talent and keep morale high. But it is a tough trade off, and keeping individuals happy will have ramifications for the collective. My follow up suggestion to this is for the city of NY to commit to developing 500K housing units over the next 10 years. We can limit the impact of WFH by offsetting with a growing population.
jadedaid t1_iz69cgv wrote
I think this is a pretty balanced take on the issue. With prices being what they are, I like the idea of saving money by staying home more days. So maybe if we didn't make midtown unaffordable more people might show up more often.
most11555 t1_iz6wyhc wrote
City workers are legally required to live in the city. I’m sure some commit fraud but for the most part, that money was not staying in NJ.
ThinVast t1_iz7092z wrote
DOE teachers don't need to live in NYC.
most11555 t1_iz70heo wrote
I did not know that. Makes sense that teachers would have to work in person anyway.
Crimsonwolf1445 t1_iz9b5kp wrote
No most of them arent.
most11555 t1_iz9ozvh wrote
Ok I googled it and looks like most are allowed to live in 6 NYS counties outside of NYC after being a city worker for 2 years. But not NJ. Would be curious to know what percentage of city workers live outside of NYC.
Crimsonwolf1445 t1_iz9q9m4 wrote
Depends on the individual agency
A lot dont have that 2 year requirement
most11555 t1_izaq41t wrote
Idk the internet says most do have the requirement so who do I believe lol
Crimsonwolf1445 t1_izar1wn wrote
Nypd, DOE, sanitation, FDNY court officer, corrections…. Lot of city jobs that dont include that requirement
secretactorian t1_iz5cspf wrote
>I'm not quite sure that's sustainable at the civic level. We are eventually going to run out of resources.
?????
TheAJx t1_iz5dd91 wrote
Okay, let's start from the beginning. Did you understand the part where I described how commuters into the city inject money into the local economy through spending?
secretactorian t1_iz5fais wrote
Really?? Lmao, fuck your condescension. You made a statement without anything to back it up. Which civic resources, specifically, are we going to run out of?
The MTA may be crying about lost revenue due to ridership being down, but the fact is that there are plenty of people coming in to the office at least one day a week and tourists are back en force. The city isn't dying or in danger of losing any sector or service. It's readjusting, if anything.
TheAJx t1_iz5ghi6 wrote
> Really?? Lmao, fuck your condescension. You made a statement without anything to back it up.
What exactly do you need back up for. Do you understand the concept or not?
>Which civic resources, specifically, are we going to run out of?
Economic Revenue to businesses and employees in this city; Tax Revenue.
>The MTA may be crying about lost revenue due to ridership being down, but the fact is that there are plenty of people coming in to the office at least one day a week and tourists are back en force.
No, the fact is that MTA ridership is down 30-40% and it is not sustainable to keep up operations at the same level. So the city and state will need to make a big decision on how they are gong to fix that gap.
> It's readjusting, if anything.
Okay, and the readjustment will be toward lower investment into public services. And that trade off might be worth it if most people are just sitting at home anyways.
Evening_Presence_927 t1_iz6u9wa wrote
> Economic Revenue to businesses and employees in this city; Tax Revenue.
So find new sources of that. We have the most billionaires in the world. I’d say start there.
TheAJx t1_iz85xlc wrote
What the fuck does this even mean. You need a news source to understand how consumer spending drives the economy of this city? You can't just use simple logic?
What does the existence of billionaires have to do with the general economy of the city? Do you think the number of billionaires in a city impacts spending at the local bodega, local restaurants, local drugstores? Do you think billionaires are just a magic source of money for everything the city wants to accomplish?
Karrick t1_iz7t1k3 wrote
I recognize you're playing devil's advocate here to some extent, so please don't take this as trying to jump on you. I'm just a teensy bit angry about the way the discourse has shaken out in the media.
I think it's disingenuous to suggest that the ~80,000 NYC employees who could work from home make that much of a difference. First, those employees are spread throughout multiple locations across the city - yes, there's a few major offices at Metrotech and in FiDi, but the city has office buildings all over. Just having city employees back is not going to save much of anything because the difference is so small. Second, Most of them would still have to live within the city anyway, so the city is still getting property and sales taxes from them.
"But city employees set an example to private industry" say de Blasio and Adams, to which I say bullshit. City employees are universally looked down on by private industry and public discourse. I would argue that is unjust in most cases, but I challenge anyone to find an example of a hot shit tech firm or a major bank saying "I wish our employees were more like city employees." You'll never find it. Instead you will find countless stories of how city employees are lazy and incompetent. The banks and investment firms and other private employers were always going to do their own thing and whether or not city employees were working from home was never going to make one iota of difference to their managements' decisions.
It kills me that for a brief minute workers in non-union office jobs had that moment of "Fuck you I'm not going back" and it's not turning into a massive labor movement, but here we are.
Edit: 100% on board with your housing suggestion. That's (among other things) one way to make the city more affordable and keep tax revenue up. Hell, I would go even further and suggest public housing that actually has the funding to stay maintained. Fold taxes and rent into a single income stream - you can keep the rents relatively low and the city gets more money out of it to pay for maintenance.
TheAJx t1_iz85p50 wrote
>I recognize you're playing devil's advocate here to some extent, so please don't take this as trying to jump on you. I'm just a teensy bit angry about the way the discourse has shaken out in the media.
How has the discourse shaken out in the media.
I don't think I'm trying to play devil's advocate here. I'm just pointing out that WFH has major trade offs that simply need to be considered. People on this sub absolutely refuse the consider trade offs in all the things they demand.
>"But city employees set an example to private industry" say de Blasio and Adams, to which I say bullshit. City employees are universally looked down on by private industry and public discourse.
I disagree. I think it is about building credibility. It is harder to convincingly argue that working in office is important if you are telling your own employees that they don't need to come into the office. Note, my personal stance here is to push for a hybrid model.
> It kills me that for a brief minute workers in non-union office jobs had that moment of "Fuck you I'm not going back" and it's not turning into a massive labor movement, but here we are.
Massive labor movement? . . . The primary beneficiaries of work from home were upscale, educated white collar professionals. Do you think blue collar and service sector workers view white collar professionals as compatriots in class solidarity? Because I can tell you they do not. They look at us as spoiled brats who reaped a massive advantage during covid, lecturing others from behind a computer screen while their own suffered and had to go into work in person. Construction workers, small business owners, maintenance workers, healthcare workers . . . what do these people have to gain from a work-from-home strike?
We should all have the dignity to admit that work from home is an incredibly privilege afforded to upscale white collar professionals and no one else. Whether we earned it or not, the truth of the matter is that we have that bargaining power and it just is what it is. Nobody has to apologize for it. But let's stop pretending that a bunch of six figure earners are Haymarket protestors.
bluethroughsunshine t1_iz9zxv8 wrote
It has nothing with anyone being able to do their job well or even delivering the service. It's all about us paying MTA and paying for carbs throughout the day and spend money on nonessentials. Nothing more. Nothing less. There has been no bigger "fuck you" to how much my job doesnt matter than that of the response of the Adams administration.
[deleted] t1_iz5udvl wrote
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Elaine_Benes_Lovr t1_iz77nmb wrote
The real reason is that if people stop coming into Manhattan, commercial real estate prices will drop, and real estate developers are big donors to politicians like Adams who is willing to do them favors like ordering folks back to midtown.
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