Editorial: Chicago and the urban doom loop
In their midyear market reports, commercial real estate firms put a spotlight on concerns about “urban doom loops” in downtowns across the country.
The big worry goes like this: COVID-19 leads to remote work, which leads to companies shedding office space, which pushes office vacancy rates to all-time highs, which leads to loan defaults and reduced property and sales tax revenues, which in turn accelerates disinvestment, crime, homelessness and other ills. People flee, and central business districts become ghost towns.
San Francisco is the deeply depressing Exhibit A of this phenomenon, a formerly vibrant and prosperous real estate, the editorial page editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch made a similar, compelling case about downtown St. Louis falling into a downward spiral, not least because of pro-gun and other anti-urban policies imposed by Missouri state lawmakers hostile to the city.
