Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
IT

Are Workers Finally Returning to Offices in San Francisco? (sfchronicle.com) 141

Posted by EditorDavid from the left-my-heart dept.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports: San Francisco's office occupancy rate continued its spring recovery, rising above New York and San Jose last week, according to a review by a building security firm. After four months of increases, 33.4% of San Francisco workers were back at their desks last week, higher than New York's 32.9% and San Jose's 31%, but still behind seven major cities in security firm Kastle's Back to Work Barometer.... The city of Austin has consistently had the highest office occupancy tracked by Kastle and was at 58% last week, followed by fellow Texas cities Houston and Dallas. [And Los Angeles charts at around 40%]

Both San Francisco Mayor London Breed and New York Mayor Eric Adams have urged firms to bring back workers to the office to help revitalize urban streets and the broader economy. "You can't stay home in your pajamas all day," Adams said at an event in February. "That is not who we are as a city. You need to be out, cross-pollinating ideas, interacting with humans. It is crucial. We're social creatures, and we must socialize to get the energy that we need as a city...."

Around a fifth of San Francisco office space remains vacant and rents have been flat.
That's better than during the omicron surge, when occupancy in New York and San Francisco was around 10%. (According to the article, citing figures from Kastle.) But there's also other metrics.

The newspaper notes that the number of people exiting the stations for the San Francisco's public rail system "were up in the first three months of the year but still only around a quarter of pre-pandemic levels."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Are Workers Finally Returning to Offices in San Francisco? More

Are Workers Finally Returning to Offices in San Francisco?

Comments Filter:

  • Oh yeah? (Score:5, Funny)

    by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Saturday April 30, 2022 @11:37PM (#62493170)
    "You can't stay home in your pajamas all day"

    Wanna bet?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      I don't work clothes at home. ;)

    • Re: Oh yeah? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by kopecn ( 1962014 )
      Seriously, when does a mayor dictate what I do for a living and how am I supposed to work. She is out of her mind and completely in bed with commercial real estate.
      • Why the resistance to in-person work? You don't get even a tiny bit of enjoyment from being around smart, interesting people in person? Maybe you should find a job that you don't hate as much.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sabri ( 584428 )

          Why the resistance to in-person work?

          The poster made no comment at all about in-person work. The poster made a comment about not needing a woke libtard mayor trying to tell the poster what to do.

          And the poster is right. Fuck the City of San Fran, and its mayor.

    • "You can't stay home in your pajamas all day" Wanna bet?

      Although it's hard to cross pollinate with new ideas that way....

      • Where I work, new ideas are a bad idea (i.e., I'm an accountant)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        Why? We have email, various chats, audio and video calls, etc. All that extra energy and enthusiasm that was burned by struggling with traffic and preening can go in to new ideas.

        The real problem for management is that it's hard to steal credit for great new ideas when you weren't even in the same building or on the call where it happened.Bad managers are afraid because WFH reveals that they were the actual dead wood all the time.

        • "Bad managers are afraid because WFH reveals that they were the actual dead wood all the time."

            Cleaning out the cruft, that's what they are afraid of. When W@H started during the pandemic they were shitting in their underoos because they knew that they would be identified as such.

            But they too are working in somebody else's house, so they shouldn't have let their egos inflate so big.

      • "You can't stay home in your pajamas all day" Wanna bet?

        Although it's hard to cross pollinate with new ideas that way....

        Ok, I suspected at least 1 /.'r would get the joke but clearly by the responses no one thinks of a human partner to cross pollinate with if you take off the pajamas...

  • Help! (Score:3)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Sunday May 01, 2022 @12:05AM (#62493194)

    Help, our buildings are losing value! I told you real estate owners would start crying to politicians pretty soon.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Help, our buildings are losing value! I told you real estate owners would start crying to politicians pretty soon.

      Yes, pretty much. Also "Change! Yikes!"....

  • It's not really about back-to-work... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday May 01, 2022 @12:10AM (#62493202)

    It's mostly about these mayors' who thought they were powerful up-and-comers but are now finding themselves at the helm of badly stagnating cities. These guys have extensive (and expensive) plans... plans that require the money they collect from the people and corporations that historically have crammed themselves into their cities. But people are now wondering if these expensive cities actually make as much sense as they did 50-100 years ago.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's mostly about these mayors' who thought they were powerful up-and-comers but are now finding themselves at the helm of badly stagnating cities. These guys have extensive (and expensive) plans... plans that require the money they collect from the people and corporations that historically have crammed themselves into their cities. But people are now wondering if these expensive cities actually make as much sense as they did 50-100 years ago.

      ... and not just the politicians and beaurocrats either, the CEO's, executives and shareholders of all the silicon valley corporations are a bunch of exploitive evil greedy selfish people, the tech 'business' has become completely corrupt and is now just being used to cheat and steal from the rest of us.

      these towers of excessive affluence and unrestrained power are bound to topple over

    • It's not a problem of expensive or inexpensive cities, it's a problem of town planning. These cities were built with the infrastructure and zoning based around a concept of people living in a suburb and then travelling to a centralised place where they were trapped for the full day. Trapped into an office building among other office buildings. Trapped into the only possible lunch being a local cafe / restaurant.

      The problem is WFH isn't compatible with this city design. You can have expensive desirable citie

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Well, yes. But this change was overdue. The pandemic just finally gave it a kick in its tardy butt.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        This is the worst time for it to happen then, because this is the period of historic credit crunch as baby boomers are retiring en masse and pulling their money from riskier investments into the least risky ones they can find, as they're no longer earning money and instead are starting to draw from their savings. This is one of the things that is driving the current inflation.

        And mass rebuild of cities requires a tremendous amount of capital.

        • This isn't an overnight project. It's a strategy that evolves over decades. There is never a bad time to engage in long term strategy.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            Engaging in a long time strategy when facing an immediate crisis is beyond bad time. It's fundamental stupidity of ignoring reality in favor of castles in the sky.

            When facing an immediate crisis, immediate crisis should take priority over long term planning in resource allocation. Reason is obvious. If this crisis crashes the system, long term benefits of long term strategy will never materialize and whatever resources you sank into said long term strategy are lost.

    • No they're not. I know .. i live in the subs of Montreal. Laval .. nice place .. lots of land. When we need something there's shopping malls. Noone goes to Montreal unless they have to for business reasons. Pandemic has shown something, people can work remotely and save considerably by not having to go to town everyday .. parking fees , restaurants , All started to realise that living in the city merely for convenience costs them dearly with rents that cost more than mortgages .. Buildings , restaudants , p

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      My attitude is that if companies want me to come into the office regularly then they need to pay me a hell of a lot more. There are big costs involved. I expect to get paid for my commute time, for the wear on my car, for the electricity I put in it, for costs like preparing or buying lunch and so forth. Plus danger money, thanks to COVID and their lack of protections like UV lighting in the office.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      Rent and property costs have been the stone dragging the economy down for a long time now. Time to cut it loose so we can get our heads above water.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by k6mfw ( 1182893 )
      I am thinking the economic construct that was built over the decades resulted in the only ones comfortable with living/working in cities are the very successful. Unlike back in the days where there were things like starter homes, and you can get a job with a livable wage straight out of high school. Not that things were great for everyone, at that time you can openly deny loans or jobs to people of color. One thing that ***nobody*** talks about is skyrocketing housing prices because those that did very well

  • Get woke, go broke

  • Are the ones that spend the day fiddling with a keyboard to create all of the dopamine hits that the 'other people' need when they end their day of doing the work that provides for the 'lifestyle' of aforementioned keyboard-fiddlers. We (the human race) as a culture has agreed that the people that manage to be entertaining or sufficiently good at administrating the management of providing entertainment (and to a large extent the infrastructure required to provide for that entertainment [which includes thing
  • First Amazon employees expect bathroom breaks and not working during tornado. Then white color workers want to spend time with their family instead of commuting to work. Where is the woke culture going to end, when we can no longer afford servants for our homes?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fermion ( 181285 )
        The context is that even if one is educated and skilled one still does not have the right to set your own working conditions is it does not meet the expectations, not job requirements but expectations, of the employer. We work downtown because paper needed to be transferred between office quickly and reliable phone service was not always a widespread. Now many jobs can and will be more reliable done from home, at costs saving.

  • > You need to be out, cross-pollinating ideas [...]

    So, when I send a message using my company's messaging system to a bunch of people instantly, that doesn't count? Should we do that in a building, one by one, or calling a meeting? Seems very inefficient.

    • This is a politician talking... so by "cross pollinating" he's probably referring to him banging an intern.

      • All joking aside, people do legitimately meet dating and even marriage partners through work. And there's nothing wrong with that, especially if you're in a job that encourages common interests.
  • The real question is what can be achieved by working in the office vs. working from home. Being a database administrator, I think I am more productive when working from home than when working from the office. I have to come to the office twice a week, same as my colleagues and my managers. The problem is that we can choose the days and not everyone makes the same choice all the time. The probability that all the right people will be in the office at the same time is rather minuscule. Even if we were in the

  • Why "finally"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday May 01, 2022 @02:00AM (#62493316)

    We are seeing a significant move to permanent home-office. Finally. Of course some die-hard morons cannot accept that, because they "work" by showing presence, keeping from working and generally dicking around and bossing others. To them, the home-office is a huge threat because a home-office very clearly shows who can do and who cannot and they will be the ones getting exposed. All the fantastic stories about "sharing of ideas" are just bullshit.

  • Not really (Score:3)

    by aglider ( 2435074 ) on Sunday May 01, 2022 @02:03AM (#62493320) Homepage

    I moved in the countryside two years ago. I spend much less and live much better.
    Why should I move back to any big crowded city?

    • I live in a city (NYC). I like the amenities. I like the fact that I never have to be lonely.

      • My family is with me: i am never alone.
        I can visit my parents or my friends in the weekend. I am never alone.

        You seem to be alone trying not to be. Have a life!

        • I have no family in the US. I never had a father. My mother is dead. I have never been able to make friends. I don't want to be with any woman who has the usual desires -- kids, house in the 'burbs, SUV. I'm an urbanite and don't want to be uprooted from NYC. I love living in the city, not in NJ.
  • Imagi [moneyedugame.com]ne working at home with just boxers and pants for almost years. You no longer use your dresses, the roaches mÃkes use of 'em. It's time to get off! Fog CViD!

  • Who wants to go back to a literal shithole? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sarusa ( 104047 ) on Sunday May 01, 2022 @03:14AM (#62493418)

    '"You can't stay home in your pajamas all day," Adams said at an event in February. "That is not who we are as a city. You need to be out, cross-pollinating ideas, interacting with humans. It is crucial.'

    What I don't need to be is stepping in human feces and dodging insane or feral homeless people because that's what you've deliberately turned the city into. 'Your city' is a literal shithole that I can't see any reason to go back to. How about making the city into a place where people who are worried about disease and getting attacked by random crazy people (who will never be charged for anything) can feel safe first?

    • I live in NYC. Do you? Yip yap yip yap yip yap braawk. You're an obedient little parrot, repeating the propaganda of Rupert Murdoch's fake news machine ... cities dirty BRAAWK! feces! YIP! YAP! OMG, I saw one needle! PANIC! AWWWK!

  • Wait what? (Score:3)

    by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Sunday May 01, 2022 @03:33AM (#62493428)

    >Around a fifth of San Francisco office space remains vacant and rents have been flat.

    So there's 20% vacancy rate, and rents aren't going down? Are there so many people owning those buildings that are using them for money laundering and keeping loan percentages low based on potential building value which assumes high rent?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      That's been going on for a long time. Many places in NYC are asking insane rents claiming to be prime locations. They have been vacant for nearly 10 years. When building occupancy goes down, the owner demands even higher rent in defiance of all market theory. Naturally building occupancy goes even lower. That's why there are so many malls returning to nature.

      See also foreclosed homes going to seed until they are condemned rather than being priced to sell.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        To my understanding, and as I note above, there's a significant amount of sense at keeping them. There are two possible things in play.

        First is money laundering. That one is self explanatory. And very criminal if found out, but that's what corruption is for. It's also for foreigners, like the increasingly rapidly fleeing Chinese money trying to get the hell out of PRC, who would be willing to invest if they can get one buck out for every five they invest in a few years. US West Coast and Canada West Coast h

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          I understand why they do it, but I will point out that the bank is being very foolish if they don't force the re-valuation based on an actual sustainable rent. Otherwise, if/when they foreclose, they'll get nothing of value. They may even get a liability if the property is deemed unfit for occupation due to long neglect.

          The cities would also do well to force some form of re-valuation to avoid having large areas taken over by street junkies and gangs and the associated civil liabilities.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            The problem here is that the problem is likely too large. If banks start forcing re-evaluation en masse as a matter of policy, you'll have a massive crash.

            This is not to benefit of banks, who would prefer to use collateral to issue more loans as fractional lending allows.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sjames ( 1099 )

              So skirting the line for fraud. The thing is, the problem won't just magically go away. The music will stop one day and guess who will have their hands out for yet another bailout. It seems the problem won't stop until instead of a bailout they get liquidation, jail, and nationalization (the newly nationalized institutions can be divested again after, but not to the original holders).

              If the banks were interested in actually doing legitimate business, they would recognize the distressed loans and take steps

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                Distressed loans have in fact been in large part addressed over a decade ago. The issue here is value of collateral. Loans given based on collateral appear to be performing fine.

                That is why banks are not interested in attacking the collateral.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by sjames ( 1099 )

                  Except, of course that they are rapidly turning in to effectively unsecured loans as the collateral decays. Once the places start getting condemned, just watch the default rate skyrocket.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                    That's not the way collateral works. The building still has very significant value. It's just less than total value of the required collateral for the loan. Loan would need to fail totally for entire value of the building to be required upon repossession to be repaid.

                    Total failure of a loan is a very rare thing. Most failures are partial as there have been some repayments made in the past, which means that building would be repossessed and sold to settle the remaining debt. In this, the value of the buildin

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by sjames ( 1099 )

                      If it's all no big deal, why not go ahead and lower the rent to a level that will actually attract occupancy? You claim the loans are not distressed and the banks have nothing to worry about, after all.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      Strange assumption of parity between positives and negatives, after a detailed explanation of why negatives are huge while positives are miniscule.

                      Did you miss this entire thread?

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      You must be starving in those Chinese lockdowns. It's literally one post above where I explained in detail that this is completely different from subprime:

                      >This is not some massive leveraging like what we saw in subprime. This is why it's tolerated even in the wake of subprime checks and balances. The only people who are getting screwed are those that cannot rent because of too high prices. These people have no stake in the loan. Both building owners and the bank owners, the people actually involved in t

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by sjames ( 1099 )

                      No, just a refusal to engage in doublethink. Either the real valuation is adequate given the performance of the loan and so they should set the rent to attract occupancy (they haven't) OR the real valuation would be a problem for the loan (which explains the owner's willingness to keep the building vacant long term while still paying property tax) and no good can come from the banks burying their heads in the sand with pretty little fictions.

                      Much of this is probably low to mid level people hoping to climb h

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      Are you really trying to argue that mathematical signs of "greater than" and "lesser than" are doublethink? That when two sides of the equation are separated by anything other than "equals", it's doublethink?

                      Are you trolling right now? Because that is such a fundamentally idiotic statement that I'm not sure how to even begin addressing it.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by sjames ( 1099 )

                      You are imagining the greater than or less than. You are claiming that X simultaneously doesn't matter and that it is important.

                      The collateral is either adequate or it isn't. It is greater than OR less than. You would have me believe that it is greater than but we can't talk about it's value because it's less than.

                      In short' you're arguing both sides, whichever supports your sub-point of the moment. Pick one Senator. And kindly stop the pathetic attempt at gaslighting.

                      You are arguing that a thinly veiled fic

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      Already addressed here:

                      https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by sjames ( 1099 )

                      Not even close. If the remaining real value of the collateral is sufficient, why not admit that that is the real value by setting the rent to a level that will actually attract occupancy? The rents are kept at a level that will never result in an occupant exactly to maintain the illusion that the collateral still has adequate value. But make no mistake, it *IS* an illusion.

                      Just to add on, as more buildings on the block go unoccupied, their value drops along with the still occupied buildings. Nobody wants to

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      >why not admit that that is the real value by setting the rent to a level that will actually attract occupancy?

                      Because controlling for this and renegotiations are not free. Professional evaluations of large commercial buildings are not free. And breaking up mutually beneficial arrangement are very much not free, and fundamentally stupid on top of that.

                      This is again a "greater than or lesser than" point of benefit. Which party to the contract between the building owner and the bank benefits from this poin

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by sjames ( 1099 )

                      Obviously, the re-evaluation is already ongoing to some degree or the bank wouldn't notice or care if the landlord lowered the rent in order to attract a tenant.

                      You seem quite desperate to twist logic and reason into a pretzel to defend the indefensible.

                      In the long run, this will go just about as well as the CDO shuffle did. As a tax payer I have a genuine interest in avoiding another bailout situation.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      >Obviously, the re-evaluation is already ongoing to some degree or the bank wouldn't notice or care if the landlord lowered the rent in order to attract a tenant. ... ... ...

                      So you literally created alternate reality to be able to continue spin the narrative, where the bank automagically just "re-evaluates" things at random. Because you need it to for your narrative to make any sense at all.

                      When the entire thread has been about the fact that they do not in fact care to notice any such thing, because not

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by sjames ( 1099 )

                      No, it's logic. If they DON'T ever re-evaluate, there's no motive at all other than insanity for not lowering the rent until someone moves in.

                      If you couldn't figure that out, it's because you don't WANT to understand. I suggest you go argue with the mirror now since I am done with you.

                      Perhaps you can tell your reflection why YOU think a building owner would advertise an unrealistic rent until the building decays and falls down it's not the fear that the valuation will be re-evaluated.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      So not only do you believe in those magical re-evaluations, but you also believe that these sorts of arrangements are actually tied into maintenance of relevant buildings in a negative way with the strange projection of a view of "a building owner would advertise an unrealistic rent until the building decays and falls down".

                      I haven't even mentioned maintenance, and I obviously live in real world, which is why just like I understand that banks don't randomly spend resources on re-evaluating performing loans

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by sjames ( 1099 )

                      /. is not your mirror!

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      I know, it tends to reflect brainlets every once in a while, unlike a mirror that never does that for me.

  • The company I work for is evidently happy for people to work from home, as long as the work gets done. I have had no pressure to get back to the office. The plus side of home working is not wasting time on commutes and pointless blah in meetings, and having some flexibility of when you do your work, so you can do some shopping and cooking during the day, and put in a few hours in the evening, if there is nothing worth watching on TV. The downside is lack of immediate feedback to little questions. I can't ju

  • Mum's (Score:1)

    by zaax ( 637433 )
    We are keeping WFH as we found we got stay at home mum's and they are very good with a high education. Also no expensive office overheads
  • As long as work gets done, why should you care where I work?

    Cities dont make sense. I dont want to spend hours commuting.

    All fine and dandy. But you will reach a level where work gets assigned to you and you get paid to do the work

    But if you want to reach a level where decisions of "what work should get done, by whom" you may not be able to do it all from home and the Teams meeting. Usually pay is better at that level and lot more freedom than banging away at the keyboard in pajamas or taking a power n

  • The interesting thing is all of the out-of-state license plates that have popped up. It seems over the past two years we've added a few folks, welcome.
    Remember, turn signals matter.

    • DFW drivers are some of the worst. Be especially careful of Nissan Altimas with paper tags!

      • The paper tag thing is a scam, 3/4 of the legitimate ones are expired, the rest are just made up. Unless the cops pull the guy over you'll never know and most don't have insurance either.

        I ride motorcycles too, so yeah my head is on a swivel.

  • The newspaper notes that the number of people exiting the stations for the San Francisco's public rail system "were up in the first three months of the year ...

    Hopefully it's the same as the number of people entering the stations ...

  • The "finally" in the title of the article reveals the inherent bias.

  • The only reason why the leadership of cities want people back are economic ones, they could care less about the actual people

    • For the sake of the (IDK) 95% of the population remaining in cities post-pandemic, it's sort of their electeds' job to make sure the economy remains good. Adams and Breed are literally doing the jobs they were elected to do. Good on them (as much as I loathe some of Adams' other stupider ideas).

  • Cities exist party because that's where the work is.

    That paradigm is changing. Sure many jobs require in-person activities. But a great many do not. The future of cities is changing and we got a glimpse of it during the pandemic. People wanted to move out into less dense areas. And that's what they will get as time moves on and things keep changing.

    Mayors holding onto power, landlords wanting to sell office space, bad managers and downtown business... they all want you back at the office. And not bec

    • So where will a person like me who likes density, who loves trains, be able to live? Will Europe or Asia be my only options?

    • Here in Chicago the thugs doing the robberies, lootings and carjackings want you back too, they need more victims with stuff to steal.

  • Maybe make cities more freaking affordable to live in and maybe people will want to live there. Dear lord the housing market is massively fucked right now and if it keeps as-is or keeps going up, yeah--you're going to see a MASSIVE worker exodus over the next couple of years that will dwarf what happened during covid. Covid was the catalyst, and if rents keep skyrocketing there's no way in hell things will be going "back to normal".

    I live in an upper middle class area in SoCal, and *studio* rents in my apar

Slashdot Top Deals

"Inquiry is fatal to certainty." -- Will Durant

Close