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  #1  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 9:22 PM
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Rate your city's recovery

Be honest. As cities are finally opening up in earnest how would you rate your own city's performance? Are people returning to work? Do they continue to work from home? Any bright spots?

I'll rate the Portland metro 6/10 overall. While Portland proper lost population, neighboring counties actually grew. The downtown CBD is having challenges, mostly from retail theft and vagrancy, and a fairly high office vacancy rate near 25%. Id rate downtown only a 5. Its stabilized but not improving dramatically. Area suburbs are thriving tho and lots of new retail activity is happening in neighboring counties. Surprisingly, we have the lowest apartment vacancy rate in the country at 1.8 percent. Thats interesting.
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  #2  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 9:27 PM
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NYC- Offices have not returned to normal, and it's pretty clear now that there will be a new normal. Everything else has seemed to return to pre-pandemic normal.
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  #3  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 9:32 PM
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São Paulo is virtually 10/10 now, but reached this point only few months ago.

I guess there are still lots of people working from home, specially studying from home, but we can't tell it anymore. Youngsters came back to the city, events and everything are back to normal. Bars, restaurants, traffic and public transit, all on the 2019 levels.

We had the LGBT Parade in May, the NYE fireworks and within a month, it's Carnaval turn to come back.
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  #4  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 9:33 PM
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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
NYC- Offices have not returned to normal, and it's pretty clear now that there will be a new normal. Everything else has seemed to return to pre-pandemic normal.
Do you watch those Cash Jordan videos? Sounds like apartment demand is thru the roof tho. What is midtown like? Thats where most of the office sector is right?
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  #5  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 9:47 PM
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In terms of traffic and streetlife LA is pretty much back to normal. The city is buzzing with activity.
I kind of miss the empty roads and the post-apocalyptic vibe of 2020. You don't know what you have until it's gone.
A song of sorrow on the beach, oct 2020:

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  #6  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 9:52 PM
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It never really stopped except for a few months and the area is still recovering from the great recession, instead of COVID.
Tiered COVID restrictions, baby!
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  #7  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 9:54 PM
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London's still lying face down in its vom with its arse in the air. It's made some squidgy moves to correct its underwear.

Pretty much over Covid, just Ukraine and Brexit now. Retail and nightlife is back, but fewer spenders and lots of strikes, plus early closing times again, like in the 80s. Many shops now shut at 6, supermarkets are no longer 24hrs, and pubs have 11 last orders again

Still busy AF, though shortly after this was shot multiple train and tube strikes made the place a ghost town for a week

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  #8  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 9:59 PM
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Houston is largely back normal while SF seems to have had a tougher time bouncing back; a lot WFH and likely will always be and noticed a lot of closed businesses still.
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  #9  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 10:00 PM
3rd&Brown 3rd&Brown is offline
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I would say Philly is an 8 or 9 out of 10.

Office workers aren't back in at the same levels but we're buoyed by a 1. very large downtown resident population which is there whether they're working from home or not 2. large life science tenancy (i.e. research) which has to go to work no matter what 3. healthcare (ditto) and 4. inbound relocation of workers from nearby high cost metros (NY and DC in particular).

The city is still buzzing with construction. Retail vacancies are also plunging.
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  #10  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 10:02 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by muppet View Post
London's still lying face down in its vom with its arse in the air. It's made some squidgy moves to correct its underwear.

Pretty much over Covid, just Ukraine and Brexit now. Retail and nightlife is back, but fewer spenders and lots of strikes, plus early closing times again, like in the 80s. Many shops now shut at 6, supermarkets are no longer 24hrs, and pubs have 11 last orders again

Still busy AF, though shortly after this was shot multiple train and tube strikes made the place a ghost town for a week

Video Link
Maybe they all went to Ireland? I went to Dublin for xmas. Ive never seen so many tourists. Very, very lively. Belfast was pretty lively too. Made me feel sad to go home.
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  #11  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 10:04 PM
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I don't have enough data to slap a number on it, but honestly I never noticed that much of a change in Dayton from pre-COVID to the COVID years to now. A few construction projects downtown have slowed but nothing was really cancelled, and not that many businesses have shuttered in the past 3 years. And of course being a rust belt city there weren't really that many downtown jobs to lose anyway. Most of the skyscrapers were 1) already converted to residential or 2) currently being converted to residential. The demand for downtown living is still high, and I guess in a perverse sense we were "lucky" that we didn't have a sudden hole in our income tax revenue, since everyone had already left 20 years ago.
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  #12  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 10:26 PM
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Originally Posted by pdxtex View Post
Maybe they all went to Ireland? I went to Dublin for xmas. Ive never seen so many tourists. Very, very lively. Belfast was pretty lively too. Made me feel sad to go home.

London's still heaving with tourists, but the domestic variety (who are about 20 IQ points lower than your average tourist) who filled the void after Covid. London used to be the most visited city in the world every other year, but its 21 million international tourists (overnighting) is now only 60-70% still, thanks to Covid in China and Ukraine still creating the cost of living crisis across the continent.

In 2021 overnighters (inc domestic) halved to 60 million (by comparison NYC has 65 million on a good year), so still busy.

They now think it'll take till 2025 to recover foreign visitors.

PS would love to see some pics
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  #13  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 10:51 PM
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Do you watch those Cash Jordan videos? Sounds like apartment demand is thru the roof tho. What is midtown like? Thats where most of the office sector is right?
I think apartment demand is starting to cool off, but yes, mid-2021 through mid-2022 was nuts. Midtown is mixed. The office worker presence is still very sluggish, but leisure tourism is back to normal.

This is the first year that Christmas and New Year holiday tourism returned to normal. In December the city closed Fifth Avenue in front of Rockefeller Center to car traffic on the weekends and I heard it was insanely crowded:

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  #14  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 11:12 PM
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I live in Canada's capital region of Ottawa-Gatineau. The CBDs of our twin downtowns are not even close to having recovered as here the vast, vast majority of federal employees are still working from home most of the time.

Reports as recent as November 2022 say that frequentation of downtown Ottawa is down 45% from pre-pandemic levels, and Gatineau is down 75%.

Businesses that catered to daytime office workers have been really hard-hit, plus in downtown Ottawa they also suffered from last year's convoy occupation as well.

Stuff that isn't directly tied to CBD office workers and relies more on evening and weekend patrons has recovered a lot better. Though not quite to pre-pandemic levels. One thing I notice is that restaurant opening hours are still usually scaled back compared to what they were pre-pandemic.

The CBD issue is getting problematic and before Christmas the Canadian government announced it would be forcing all employees to return to the office a couple of days a week. The reason given was that it was for better collaboration and efficiency, and no mention was made of economics. But everyone knows that it's to help out the downtowns. Though many expect the public sector unions to strike over this.
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  #15  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2023, 11:47 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
I live in Canada's capital region of Ottawa-Gatineau. The CBDs of our twin downtowns are not even close to having recovered as here the vast, vast majority of federal employees are still working from home most of the time.

Reports as recent as November 2022 say that frequentation of downtown Ottawa is down 45% from pre-pandemic levels, and Gatineau is down 75%.

Businesses that catered to daytime office workers have been really hard-hit, plus in downtown Ottawa they also suffered from last year's convoy occupation as well.

Stuff that isn't directly tied to CBD office workers and relies more on evening and weekend patrons has recovered a lot better. Though not quite to pre-pandemic levels. One thing I notice is that restaurant opening hours are still usually scaled back compared to what they were pre-pandemic.

The CBD issue is getting problematic and before Christmas the Canadian government announced it would be forcing all employees to return to the office a couple of days a week. The reason given was that it was for better collaboration and efficiency, and no mention was made of economics. But everyone knows that it's to help out the downtowns. Though many expect the public sector unions to strike over this.
Portland city employees are STILL at home. Crazy. I hear federal employees in DC are working at home too. Thats like skipping sand bag duty when the river is rising. At least to me
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  #16  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2023, 2:09 AM
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Sacramento

5 of 10. Could be better, could be worse.


State workers remain overwhelmingly remote work decimating lunchtime food service.
Golden1 Center remains one of the busiest arena’s in the country which has helped evening and nightlife.

But multiple shootings has hurt nightlife downtown while midtown seems to be returning to normal.
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  #17  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2023, 2:15 AM
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Originally Posted by pdxtex View Post
Portland city employees are STILL at home. Crazy. I hear federal employees in DC are working at home too. Thats like skipping sand bag duty when the river is rising. At least to me
How much money is the city saving doing WFH?
Most people I think here are taking the urbanist point of view and just want more people downtown. To return to previous numbers, all downtowns should increase populations by building more condos and apartments.
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  #18  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2023, 2:28 AM
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Originally Posted by TWAK View Post
How much money is the city saving doing WFH?
Most people I think here are taking the urbanist point of view and just want more people downtown. To return to previous numbers, all downtowns should increase populations by building more condos and apartments.
I don't quite understand the nuances of Portlands city employee situation. I think it might be similar to the dude from Ottawa up above. It a union dispute. Represented employees don't want to go back to the office and their managers want butts in seats. I think in reality it mostly a pay issue. Ppl think if they return to the office they should get paid more. I agree that empty buildings will need to find alternate uses but I'm sure as shit most developers are going to find that cumbersome. I think in reality rents are going to end up dropping and new tenants will take over at some point. Or all of our CBDs are going to look like times sq in the 70s. Anyone here from Des Moines or Omaha? Did everyone go home in states that didn't shut down too?
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  #19  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2023, 2:32 AM
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New Orleans is a 9 out of 10 in terms of recovery. Big conventions are back in town, French Quarter is filled with tourists, hotels are consistently full, and the downtown office vacancy rate has stabilized at around 18% this year. That's down from around 12% vacancy before the pandemic as several companies are largely work from home now.
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  #20  
Old Posted Jan 11, 2023, 2:41 AM
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How can dc and Ottawa allow federal workers to phone it in 2 years after the pandemic , on the taxpayers dime no less

Most live on transit lines with short commute times . Meanwhile 20 something workers are having to work in horrifying social isolation . Its mind boggling that the feds allow this
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