Phew! After all, the sky isn't falling in the Big Apple.
The academic behind the infamous “doom loop” scenario says things may be looking up for New York City, despite previous predictions that the need for office space would decline and send the city into a death spiral. said.
Stein Van Neuerburg, an economics professor at Columbia University, wrote the oft-cited 2022 essay “The Remote Work Revolution: The Impact on Real Estate Values and the Urban Environment.”
That theory was later reinforced in a report he co-authored with two colleagues, predicting that a post-pandemic decline in office demand would send cities into a death spiral due to reduced tax revenues and consequent civic decline. did.
As recently as October, Van Neuerburg called the office market a “slow-motion train wreck.”
but, Interview with online news site Gothamist Last week, Van Neuerburg hit a heavier pause button on the apocalypse than he did a year ago, when he simply called it “inevitable” in an interview with the New York Times.
He told Gothamist's Arun Venugopal: . . [due to ] The fact that New York City's economy is a well-diversified economy is unlike San Francisco's technology-driven economy, which is on the verge of collapse.
“It also has to do with the fact that the financial sector is pretty strict about returning to the office,” Van Neuerburgh added of New York.
He could have said the same is true for law firms that drive high-end markets as well as financial services.
He said this, sounding like an “I Love NY” copywriter. “I feel like New York City is coming back. People are coming back to the city, and when people come back, it makes the city even more attractive to colleagues and friends.” Like those who are also coming back. ”
The Big Apple is “not only a great place to work, but a great place to live,” he said.
