Kill the Office To Breathe New Life Into Our Cities

As September usually brings with it a “back to school” spirit of new beginnings - this has me thinking about the need for things to die, in order for new things to grow.

In particular, I'm musing over the mindsets of those who viewed the end of Covid as the time to go “back to work”, meaning the office (as if people hadn't been working the whole time), as well as the limitations these attitudes impose on our ability to adapt.

A willful inclination toward stagnation hasn't just dimmed the prospects of the season; it's cast a much darker shadow over our entire economy. Yet, this might also offer an odd kind of opportunity. 

Our resistance to change has played a major role in the gradual decline of everything around us. However, there is the possibility that if everything breaks down sooner as a result, we might be able to accelerate our ability to deal with escalating issues as well, averting a path towards accumulating doom.

Similar to my view on the direness of our housing situation, where a crash might be the lesser evil, I sense the need for an equally disruptive force to rouse our spirits into action and enable us to fully embrace the potential of remote work.

Taking the fact that no one will do anything meaningful about housing until it crashes as a given, as well as the fact that no one will do anything transformative about the future of work until the old way is well and truly dead - it seems a good time to think about what could come next when we let go of an old economic model that has outlived its usefulness.

I know I'm not alone in expecting a crash in commercial real estate; we should be prepared to take advantage of it. It is far more surprising that it hasn't happened yet, than that it will.

Whenever it finally happens, I hope we refrain from artificially inducing it, akin to administering repeated shocks from a defibrillator. Rather, I envision a more natural course wherein the traditional office district gracefully gives way, allowing North American cities to evolve into more vibrant, bustling centres for people to live, above all else.

It may seem counterintuitive to draw inspiration from a much more conclusively failed society at this time - and saying the Soviets did something right is probably even less popular than stating we actually need a real estate crash, right now - but the cliche that broken clocks are right twice a day exists for a reason (just like what goes up must come down, for that matter).

It's no secret that I am not a fan of the Russian way of looking at the world, and my partner, who was born in the Soviet Union, is even less so. But there was one thing he often recounted to me that he felt was much better there, than here.

He hated the khrushchevka he grew up in (and looks quite askance at people we have heard suggesting developments akin to these as a solution to our housing crisis). However, he cherishes the memories he has of growing up in the neighbourhood that surrounded it.

Said neighbourhood was a microraion, or microdistrict. These were designed so that everything a person needed on a daily basis except work was close by and easy to get to without a car. They may serve as useful references for future cities, along with new communities that may emerge, after a commercial real estate bubble burst finally ends the argument that urban planning should be centred around cars and commuters.

Although some fear that remote work will be the death knell for downtowns, it's important to remember that urban centres with effective transit systems, bike lanes, and walkable neighbourhoods will be better equipped to adapt to changes that would refocus the value of a city on its residents, instead of placing undue emphasis on corporate interests. The key lies in embracing this inevitable shift, rather than resisting it.

It is often the same kind of people who want to return to the office to stave off the loss of a food court catering to office drudgery that are content to kill programs popular with people who actually live downtown and value a vibrant streetscape, if they interfere with maximizing the amount of road space available to cars.

This makes me think of the CafeTO curbside patio program, which we have all but killed here in Toronto. I remember a time during the Covid era, when (for a second, if I squinted) certain Toronto neighbourhoods sprinkled with spilling over patios looked (almost) European (if you ignored the ugly bollards). It was a glimpse of what our city could become if we focused less on cars on the road and more on people enjoying the streets.

It also illustrated all too well what those likening the death of the office to the killing of downtowns too often fail to comprehend - that for North American cities to thrive, they need more places with interaction and vibrancy built in, not places that we have to go to (but hate to be) like offices.

To understand what my partner really missed when he moved here, it is necessary to recognize what has been chronically neglected here in Canada, which is the value of "third places" -  locales beyond the home (the "first place", which wasn't great for him) or the workplace (the "second place", which is rarely exciting for any of us).

These are places where people socialize, participate in community activities, and enjoy leisure activities. They are essential for fostering a sense of belonging and social connection within a community. This includes coffee shops, libraries, parks, community centres, pubs and other gathering places where people can relax, and interact informally. 

Do we have these? Sure! But even in our cities, you can't get to many of them without a car. And commuting by car directly from your first to second place often makes visiting the third place seem like a chore, or at best, an occasional treat. They are not as much a part of the flow of the everyday as they were where my partner grew up, and in many other parts of the world.

By repurposing office spaces and eliminating office districts, we may have a rare opportunity to address this issue in a big way. 

We need to stop putting off bold action because we fear difficulty. We've effectively transformed factories into desirable loft living spaces, in many cases overcoming far more formidable health and safety challenges than most offices would present. Our limits are often more self-imposed than real - which is one positive I hope everyone can take from the Covid era of upheaval.

Perhaps former offices could be reimagined as a blend of apartments on the upper floors and independent businesses serving residents on the ground level - or something even more innovative! Rather than using the challenges of improvement as a reason to revert to old ways, I want to see us explore new possibilities.

Taking this further, I see remote work as an opportunity for urban revitalization because it allows us to build more city-like communities outside our current overcrowded and often clumsily developed metropolises - in a more beautiful and livable way - by eliminating the need to centralize around bleak commutes and even bleaker office destinations. 

In this way, remote work could revolutionize quality of life, not only for former office workers, but for everyone who gets to live in a more desirable area.

We all stand to gain from the development of livelier, interconnected, and denser communities, whether they are established within urban areas or in more remote locations. Such communities could lead to reduced traffic, lighter congestion on public transportation, decreased air pollution, increased accessibility to local businesses (without the need for driving), and fewer households relying on multiple vehicles.

With so much land to build homes on and yet so many people without a place to live, this should be a no-brainer for a place like Canada to move forward with - once we get over our systemic obsession with not allowing our historically huge real estate bubble to pop.

Moreover, it seems much more sensible to reduce emissions by creating more attractive destinations that can be navigated without a car, as well as convenient alternatives to driving, rather than heavily relying on measures such as surveillance or fines for non-compliance with emissions targets.

Making it both convenient and appealing for people to reduce their reliance on cars will have a more significant positive impact on the environment than any ban ever could, and it's likely to result in less frustration among the public.

By doing this, we can make life more sustainable systemically, without making it bleak.

Refusing to embrace a massive change that people truly appreciate, like remote work, which carries substantial potential for ongoing emissions reduction by eliminating the need for regular commutes, raises doubts about the sincerity of our efforts to combat climate change.

This is particularly noteworthy when we notice that more prominent pushes are being made for symbolic measures, which may appear meaningful, but do not have as deep a systemic impact.

A lot less people will accept a WD-40 ban than have already embraced fully remote work - and the change they like is much more likely to make a real impact on sustainability. 

Understanding where I come from may help explain why I advocate for such massive changes in Canadian and North American cities. People living in cities with better urban planning might see my calls for revitalization differently.

Many of the (cautionary) examples in this video on designing better urban places actually come from right here where I live. There's another related video that drives this point home even further - detailing just how addicted Toronto is to cars.

Although I'm fully aware of its flaws, Toronto remains the city I've embraced wholeheartedly, having left its suburbs in my rearview mirror the very second I was able to flee my childhood home.

I've always been deeply urban-minded, and I want to see my nation and continent embrace true urban living more fully.

There is a reason that cities in Europe and Asia, providing more of a sense of place and oriented more towards locals than passing through, aren't suffering as much as cities in North America post-Covid.

Businesses that rely on the old office paradigm will wither away anyway, as the emerging norm involves occasional office visits, and the idea of enough companies reverting to a five-day in-office workweek to sustain these establishments seems unrealistic.

Why not embrace a more radical new norm that encourages dynamic change rather than slow decline?

Our office districts in North America already look like ghost towns, especially in places like the PATH in Toronto, built around shuffling, living dead workers - let’s let them finally move on to their next life.

I understand that the circumstances hastening their demise, driven by the abrupt and massive shift to remote work, weren't ideal for many. Nevertheless, the demise was inevitable. In fact, it should have occurred sooner, but the persistence of those resistant to change, oblivious to the harm caused by stagnation, kept it on life support for far longer than warranted. 

The industrial revolution similarly disrupted established norms of work and living, yet it ushered in numerous improvements without which we'd be worse off. This transition mirrors that transformative period.

Even though I disagreed with many of the measures we adopted in response to Covid, I appreciated the overall demonstration of our ability to make quick and major changes. One crisis should have been enough to wake up those in power to the importance of consistent innovation, not just in exceptional circumstances. But if another crisis is needed to provoke this awakening - so be it.

Having recently crossed the rubicon into my forties, I hope to live through a time when my own relevance and mortality fade away amid sweeping change. That would mean I would get to live in a dynamic and fully vibrant environment - akin to the transition of fall colours, rather than the dreary depths of winter in suspended animation.

It's hard for me to understand people so entrenched in their ways that they're content to drag everyone down with them as they fade - and I long to see us break free from their death grip.