Downtown Needs to Change to Survive
If cities want to revive their office districts, they must adapt to the age of hybrid work.
If you’ve stood on the right block in the Golden Triangle district of Washington, D.C., or inside the Loop in Chicago, or in San Francisco’s Financial District at 9 a.m. on any recent weekday, you might have experienced the creepy feeling that you had missed the Rapture and been left behind. America’s downtowns have not recovered from COVID-19, and they won’t—at least not to what they were before the pandemic hit.
For two years, federal dollars have buoyed local governments, transit agencies, and downtown businesses. But as we enter the third year of the pandemic, we can see that more fundamental change is needed. The public and private entities that depend on downtown money are going to need a path
