Indian here offering a slightly different perspective. I absolutely love remote work. Even before pandemic I used to work with remote team all the time only from office. Theirs stigma associated with remote work here. Employers don't trust their employees.
But if some employer does offer me remote with same pay as that of in the city I would love to work remotely precisely because
- I can work from hometown where living cost is minuscule of that of city. I was spending around 25K per month in city. It's just 8K now in hometown.
- I don't have to take a loan of 50 Lakh to buy a 1000 sq ft apartment in the city whose EMIs I am gonna have to pay over 20 years of my life because I already have a home. I can actually invest my earnings on my dreams. This alone is enough for me to forego any advantage that working in office might offer.
- Once you take a loan you have put a price on your freedom. You can't leave a job even if it sucks because it pays better. In India, the economics and everything plays out such that taking loan and buying apartment is considered safest route if you are going to work in city.
- People argue that remote hurts social life. I disagree. Remote work actually allows you to build your social life by letting you choose people you want in your life.
- If I am happy, I am going to put 110% of my efforts to ensure my employer remains happy with me.
Edit: I haven't even mentioned the advantages like savings on time, fuel and the fact that theirs no pollution in my hometown. It's so peaceful here I wonder how I got okay with 2 hour commutes with heavy traffic and awful pollution.
> I don't have to take a loan of 50 Lakh to buy a 1000 sq ft apartment in the city
Isn't the "city pay" made to cover the "city expense". I bet everyone wants to live in Barcelona with a Mountain View salary but that's going to boost gentrification even more
I’m a bit sad how remote work is likely to hurt my social life
I have many close friends that grew out of the intimacy of solving problems together. We could casually hangout IRL after work. Our partners and kids would get to know each other. In turn, that growing trust would feedback into a more positive workplace.
It’s not the only way to make friends, but it was an easy way. Now my relationships with coworkers can feel more transactional.
It’s further worrying considering the general trend of society to increased isolation and loneliness.
Conversely, imagine living in a lovely small town that has an active social life and a commercial scene, fuelled by the scores of people moving out there with nothing better to do in the evenings, who want to get out of the house.
People who don't spend all their energy commuting into and out of a city each day, people who are free from the crowded lonelinesses of the subway, and the hyper-busy trendy weekend coffee-shop.
Imagine a world where you might once again say hello to your neighbours, might know the folks around town. New friends we don't work with -- perhaps, a community!
If we play it right, we might possibly swing a revitalization of our social soul here, rather than sadly slouch ever further toward its final demise. At least, I hope.
Manhattan will be fine. It's reinvented itself many times before.
100 years ago it was filled with warehouses and factories. Those all left and never came back, and they were renovated into housing and offices.
If the offices leave, all those buildings will be renovated into WeWork like spaces (if not WeWork itself) or into more housing. Especially if everyone is working from home, people will want bigger places to rent. A single person may want two or three bedrooms (one for them, one for the office, maybe one for a guest). Not everyone can or likes to work from home, so if offices start closing, a lot of people will still want an office like place to go to to get away from kids and family or just to get more space.
New York is still a cultural center. People will want to live there.
> New York is still a cultural center. People will want to live there.
New Orleans is also a major cultural center. Some people will pay up to live around culture. But the vast majority of people paying NYC prices are doing so because of access to high paying professional jobs. There's a reason that San Jose is nearly as expensive as NYC. There's not a single major city in the world that survives off culture alone.
It's even more pronounced in SF, and it's probably the best thing that has happened to the city in decades, minus the obvious catastrophe of the pandemic itself. A nice studio apartment in a decent neighborhood can be had now for $1500; something unthinkable a year ago. Hopefully this can help start to revitalize the city's culture into something more than a monolithic tech frat party.
The workers will be back. As long as insufficient housing is allowed to be built, the culture will stay monolithic, split between grandfathered aging rich progressives and tech bros.
Either that or the city will crater like Detroit. Always possible.
I would argue that it's not monolithic tech bros. It's a monolithic culture that mostly has tech bros. When you don't have good boundaries on subgroups then you don't have a chance for groups to form identities.
Why learn the group's mannerisms/collective behavior when they're scared that they may be called "non-inclusive".
Manhattan especially is conducive to remote working IMHO. There is an incredible amount of collective wasted time due to the nature of commuting into and out of Manhattan. That's not including the more difficult to measure mental and emotional toll of such commutes.
Most people working in Manhattan probably do not live in Manhattan...or even the other NYC boroughs. A huge chunk actually live across the river in NJ.
I welcome remote work, and because my current employer is adamant that it will not be allowed once the pandemic is over, it's definitely another issue that will get me to jump ship.
I may feel differently if it was a different metropolitan area. For example, I am not familiar with the Bay Area commute patterns, but some ex-coworkers who left NYC for the SFBA report that their commutes are now heavenly compared to the hell of Manhattan commuting.
Even if you live in the boroughs, it can still cost a huge chunk of time to get in. Between walking, waiting for and riding the subway, it takes me anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to get to my office.
That's 40 hours of dead time a month, and I'm so happy to have it back.
Remote is not the end all, hybrid is likely here to stay. And NYC is best place to live/work as a young person...At home all day on the computer? Sure rather have thousands of options for the evening instead of a dozen..
Agreed. NYC is still a desirable place to live, maybe even more so with Open Streets and expanded outdoor dining. I suspect that what will happen is people who only lived in NYC for work will be able to move where they want, and will be replaced by people who had previously been priced out. Both groups (and the city) will be better off for it. Tax revenues worry me, though.
> And NYC is best place to live/work as a young person
NYC is the best place to live/work if you don't plan on having children, which is the ultimate arbiter of whether a given environment is indeed "good for young people" or not. If it wasn't for the flood of people moving into NYC from regions where people still have kids at higher rates, the entire city's population would quickly collapse. It's a genetic graveyard.
At this point, I see two contrasting points being made again and again across different publications.
Articles lobbied by firms with interest in real estate are all about how people are tired of remote work and how post-Covid world will be much like the pre-Covid world.
And the other lobbied by firms with interest in technology are all raving about remote work being the new normal.
I think as usual when it comes to complex issues involving many people the truth will be somewhere in the middle. At the very least COVID has forced managers to get acquainted with managing remote teams — even if the team won’t be 100% remote a year from now, I can very well imagine a 3/2 or even 4/1 split between on site or WFH.
I'm a long-time NYC resident, looking to move next month when my lease is up.
Yes -- prices are down somewhat, and we will be upgrading, though not by as much as I expected when starting to look. And the demand is definitely there -- an apartment we were interested was leased sometime over the weekend.
Also a NYC resident. Been casually looking at apartments to take advantage of the decrease in price of the rental market. Found out 2 things; (1) that if you see an apartment you like you have to act instantly and submit an application otherwise it'll be off the market the next day, (2) the decrease in price is largely a myth. Some are cheaper but it's mostly negligible and temporary. These both tell me that the city is going to be fine. There's still a demand to be here. It's not just work. It's opportunity for culture and lifestyle that people are seeking as well. NYC is still at a premium for both of those.
Most of big companies are for physical offices because it is hard to manage big work force remotely. Listen to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon https://youtu.be/x8-eUse5hg8?t=413
Things like apprenticeship are impossible to do remotely.
Also Zuckerberg is for physical offices for the same reasons Dimon is. Hard to manage, no apprenticeship/internship, no culture.
Maybe it is possible for small companies and startups but managing thousands of employees remotely is very challenging.
Less people in dense Manhattan offices will reduce the value of the real estate. Presumably if it's a long term trend then more of it will convert to be residential. This would bring less people by day than full offices, but probably more people by night. It still allows for a pretty vibrant city.
> if it's a long term trend then more of it will convert to be residential
Converting an office building to residential use isn't easy. For example, you'd have to add water/sewage lines running to each residential unit.
Also, in NYC, apartments are required to have a certain number of windows. In a large office building, there can be a lot of floor space that's far from any windows.
Glad to see this is happening even with the largest employers. And for those employees who absolutely need that in-office/social experience, then you can offer them a credit to go rent a coworking space for the days that they need it.
It's worth noting that, for a long time, it's been rare for a company to compensate employees for their home office (rent/house cost + heat + electricity + everything else). I find it unlikely that, when most people are suddenly working from home, they'll decide to pay for those same people extra to have an off-site office.
I keep driving past all these half-empty buildings in Toronto and thinking this would have been a great time for urban exploration / infiltration. But cameras everywhere, and too much to lose at this age.
This is a good thing. Prior to this, we were all lemmings that were told to come into the office, to sit at a desk in front of our laptop or monitor, and type away at a keyboard.
The 2 hour daily round trip commute would wear us down. It would increase pollution and oil consumption. It would congest traffic, and city transportation services could not add enough roads, buses, trains, and subways fast enough to handle the load.
And it would get everyone sick, as everyone always caught a variant of the seasonal flu.
Now, we can all work safely from home. Just Zoom In and instant virtual meeting. Daily stand ups are a breeze. No need to schedule a small conference room that might be in overbooked availability.
It separates those that creates tools and products for business, vs those that consumes such tools to build further analytical results.
The greatest thing for me, is that I have not gotten sick in over a year. No flu. No cold. No sniffles. Incredible. Even if I worked late into the night, and on some days, I had little sleep, I still didn’t get sick. This proves to me, that the greatest vector of disease transmission is in the office. And probably the open office concept, that forced everyone into the same pig pen, and got everyone sick together.
America has enough land mass to handle the 350 million people that we have. It’s better to spread out. Instead of cramming us all in to small cities.
Perhaps hot cities like Phoenix or Houston or Austin can finally bloom, because of this pandemic. They can work remotely during the daytime, in their nice air conditioned homes. And then at night, they can go out and socialize in the city with their friends and families, or make new friends.
We can imagine a newer and better reality for all. We just need the courage and will to do it. Or maybe, we just needed a little push from a little virus to make us think a different way.
> It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.
> In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic. More here.[2]
For that matter, you can read NY Times articles just by disabling cookies/JavaScript on the site with various browser extensions (I use uMatrix in Firefox).
What's really going to cause is a stir is the equal pay for equal work movement. The more remote the workplace gets, the less it will make sense for employers to pay premiums just based on location.
[+] [-] anthropodie|5 years ago|reply
But if some employer does offer me remote with same pay as that of in the city I would love to work remotely precisely because
- I can work from hometown where living cost is minuscule of that of city. I was spending around 25K per month in city. It's just 8K now in hometown.
- I don't have to take a loan of 50 Lakh to buy a 1000 sq ft apartment in the city whose EMIs I am gonna have to pay over 20 years of my life because I already have a home. I can actually invest my earnings on my dreams. This alone is enough for me to forego any advantage that working in office might offer.
- Once you take a loan you have put a price on your freedom. You can't leave a job even if it sucks because it pays better. In India, the economics and everything plays out such that taking loan and buying apartment is considered safest route if you are going to work in city.
- People argue that remote hurts social life. I disagree. Remote work actually allows you to build your social life by letting you choose people you want in your life.
- If I am happy, I am going to put 110% of my efforts to ensure my employer remains happy with me.
Edit: I haven't even mentioned the advantages like savings on time, fuel and the fact that theirs no pollution in my hometown. It's so peaceful here I wonder how I got okay with 2 hour commutes with heavy traffic and awful pollution.
[+] [-] rockyj|5 years ago|reply
- 50 Lakhs = 5 million = around 70K USD - EMI = Monthly Mortgage Payments
[+] [-] lm28469|5 years ago|reply
> I don't have to take a loan of 50 Lakh to buy a 1000 sq ft apartment in the city
Isn't the "city pay" made to cover the "city expense". I bet everyone wants to live in Barcelona with a Mountain View salary but that's going to boost gentrification even more
[+] [-] softwaredoug|5 years ago|reply
I have many close friends that grew out of the intimacy of solving problems together. We could casually hangout IRL after work. Our partners and kids would get to know each other. In turn, that growing trust would feedback into a more positive workplace.
It’s not the only way to make friends, but it was an easy way. Now my relationships with coworkers can feel more transactional.
It’s further worrying considering the general trend of society to increased isolation and loneliness.
[+] [-] wcarss|5 years ago|reply
People who don't spend all their energy commuting into and out of a city each day, people who are free from the crowded lonelinesses of the subway, and the hyper-busy trendy weekend coffee-shop.
Imagine a world where you might once again say hello to your neighbours, might know the folks around town. New friends we don't work with -- perhaps, a community!
If we play it right, we might possibly swing a revitalization of our social soul here, rather than sadly slouch ever further toward its final demise. At least, I hope.
[+] [-] jedberg|5 years ago|reply
100 years ago it was filled with warehouses and factories. Those all left and never came back, and they were renovated into housing and offices.
If the offices leave, all those buildings will be renovated into WeWork like spaces (if not WeWork itself) or into more housing. Especially if everyone is working from home, people will want bigger places to rent. A single person may want two or three bedrooms (one for them, one for the office, maybe one for a guest). Not everyone can or likes to work from home, so if offices start closing, a lot of people will still want an office like place to go to to get away from kids and family or just to get more space.
New York is still a cultural center. People will want to live there.
[+] [-] dcolkitt|5 years ago|reply
New Orleans is also a major cultural center. Some people will pay up to live around culture. But the vast majority of people paying NYC prices are doing so because of access to high paying professional jobs. There's a reason that San Jose is nearly as expensive as NYC. There's not a single major city in the world that survives off culture alone.
[+] [-] valarauko|5 years ago|reply
True, as well as healthcare - NYC has some of the best healthcare infrastructure & expertise in the world.
[+] [-] EricE|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aphextron|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Robotbeat|5 years ago|reply
Either that or the city will crater like Detroit. Always possible.
[+] [-] baby|5 years ago|reply
Although I'm looking at the prices and for what I used to pay for an old 1br, I can get the same but 3br and a parking in low pac height.
[+] [-] clapper|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monksy|5 years ago|reply
Why learn the group's mannerisms/collective behavior when they're scared that they may be called "non-inclusive".
[+] [-] decafninja|5 years ago|reply
Most people working in Manhattan probably do not live in Manhattan...or even the other NYC boroughs. A huge chunk actually live across the river in NJ.
I welcome remote work, and because my current employer is adamant that it will not be allowed once the pandemic is over, it's definitely another issue that will get me to jump ship.
I may feel differently if it was a different metropolitan area. For example, I am not familiar with the Bay Area commute patterns, but some ex-coworkers who left NYC for the SFBA report that their commutes are now heavenly compared to the hell of Manhattan commuting.
[+] [-] necrotic_comp|5 years ago|reply
That's 40 hours of dead time a month, and I'm so happy to have it back.
[+] [-] scottmcleod|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulgb|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rsj_hn|5 years ago|reply
NYC is the best place to live/work if you don't plan on having children, which is the ultimate arbiter of whether a given environment is indeed "good for young people" or not. If it wasn't for the flood of people moving into NYC from regions where people still have kids at higher rates, the entire city's population would quickly collapse. It's a genetic graveyard.
[+] [-] keenreed|5 years ago|reply
Maybe if NYC builds artifical skiing slope, or nice sandy beach..
[+] [-] hunter-2|5 years ago|reply
Articles lobbied by firms with interest in real estate are all about how people are tired of remote work and how post-Covid world will be much like the pre-Covid world.
And the other lobbied by firms with interest in technology are all raving about remote work being the new normal.
[+] [-] jhrozek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sickofparadox|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaredwiener|5 years ago|reply
Yes -- prices are down somewhat, and we will be upgrading, though not by as much as I expected when starting to look. And the demand is definitely there -- an apartment we were interested was leased sometime over the weekend.
NYC will be fine.
[+] [-] marrowgari|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luxurytent|5 years ago|reply
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/fbrc-tom-dyja/
[+] [-] mrkramer|5 years ago|reply
Things like apprenticeship are impossible to do remotely.
Also Zuckerberg is for physical offices for the same reasons Dimon is. Hard to manage, no apprenticeship/internship, no culture.
Maybe it is possible for small companies and startups but managing thousands of employees remotely is very challenging.
[+] [-] whateveracct|5 years ago|reply
the hierarchy and control they rely on to seem optimal are outmoded
[+] [-] greenyoda|5 years ago|reply
That would explain why, as the article mentioned, Facebook has added 1 million square feet of Manhattan office space during the pandemic.
[+] [-] lars512|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greenyoda|5 years ago|reply
Converting an office building to residential use isn't easy. For example, you'd have to add water/sewage lines running to each residential unit.
Also, in NYC, apartments are required to have a certain number of windows. In a large office building, there can be a lot of floor space that's far from any windows.
[+] [-] sylens|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RHSeeger|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JabavuAdams|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neonate|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] blackrock|5 years ago|reply
The 2 hour daily round trip commute would wear us down. It would increase pollution and oil consumption. It would congest traffic, and city transportation services could not add enough roads, buses, trains, and subways fast enough to handle the load.
And it would get everyone sick, as everyone always caught a variant of the seasonal flu.
Now, we can all work safely from home. Just Zoom In and instant virtual meeting. Daily stand ups are a breeze. No need to schedule a small conference room that might be in overbooked availability.
It separates those that creates tools and products for business, vs those that consumes such tools to build further analytical results.
The greatest thing for me, is that I have not gotten sick in over a year. No flu. No cold. No sniffles. Incredible. Even if I worked late into the night, and on some days, I had little sleep, I still didn’t get sick. This proves to me, that the greatest vector of disease transmission is in the office. And probably the open office concept, that forced everyone into the same pig pen, and got everyone sick together.
America has enough land mass to handle the 350 million people that we have. It’s better to spread out. Instead of cramming us all in to small cities.
Perhaps hot cities like Phoenix or Houston or Austin can finally bloom, because of this pandemic. They can work remotely during the daytime, in their nice air conditioned homes. And then at night, they can go out and socialize in the city with their friends and families, or make new friends.
We can imagine a newer and better reality for all. We just need the courage and will to do it. Or maybe, we just needed a little push from a little virus to make us think a different way.
[+] [-] baby|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] greenyoda|5 years ago|reply
> Are paywalls ok?
> It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.
> In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic. More here.[2]
In fact, someone posted a link to an unpaywalled copy of the article before you posted your complaint: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26623921
For that matter, you can read NY Times articles just by disabling cookies/JavaScript on the site with various browser extensions (I use uMatrix in Firefox).
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=paywalls%20by:dang&dateRange=a...
[+] [-] gnrlst|5 years ago|reply