Pictures, Videos, Articles showing just how boring it is to live in a dystopic society, or with signs of a dystopic society.
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Not sure how it’s dystopic to convert unused office space into housing. Sounds useful to me.
I’ve read that it’s difficult to do though because the buildings usually don’t have the right plumbing for it. I do wonder if they could replumb using raised flooring.
I’d also like to see some of this wasted office space converted into indoor farming.
There are wide swaths of dt Manhattan that are completely empty rn. Floors and floors of high rises. A lot of them are on 10 year leases so they're just being paid still while no one uses them but when they all go up it's gonna be interesting.
The current corrupt mayor refused to rezone them for residential and did a big RTO campaign that fell flat. They'll keep them empty even after rents end or try to figure out ways to rent whole floors to the mega rich. They'll never convert them to normal housing as it will lower the value of their skyscrapers. Instead they'll continue to lobby for RTO politicians to ensure businesses force back people to work in them.
The fact that they're micro apartments is telling.
I mean yeah, if people want to live in that condition to be in cities and save money, it’s fine. But not at $850/mo. That’s insane to expect that much to live in a closet with no personal bathroom. For $200-300 a month, maybe.
The solution is to end corporate ownership of single family homes and flood the market with the vacant homes they’re sitting on. Which will drive down home values, which will drive down rent values.
This “solution” is just trying to get the working class to be happy peasants because “hey, at least you have a room to yourself”. Get the fuck out of here with that.
I agree completely with your comment. Including the rage at the end lol
Exactly. Are they the solution? Yeah but not at 1k + Utilities and BJ a month.
A: no.
Due to the way office buildings are configured, they'd need to be converted to some sort of communal living (think college dorms). It seems feasible in theory, but it would have a very limited audience and would be a difficult living situation for most people.
Converting to individual units would require extensive retrofits and renovations.
No: converting commercial space to residential is more expensive than building new residential
No: converting commercial space to residential is more expensive than building new residential
Everything I'm seeing says the answer just isn't as simple as you're stating here in your post.
The more accurate answer is in the middle. Not all office buildings are created equal, and not all cities have excess land meaning there higher conversion costs are still worth it over building new residential. According to one study of 1000 office buildings evaluated in cities across the USA and Canada, 25% were good candidates for cost effective conversion to residential. Keep in mind this can include both small office buildings as large ones. source
"Now, developers in the city have five office conversion projects underway and 10 more in development, Paynter noted in his blog. He said he expects these initiatives to increase the number of residential units there by 24%. "
"The success in Calgary has prompted over a dozen cities and more than 100 building owners across North America to seek similar solutions for their struggling Class C and B buildings, Paynter said in the blog post. Projects including Franklin Tower in Philadelphia; 1 St. Clair West in Toronto, Ontario; and The Residences at Rivermark Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, show how outdated office buildings can be reconfigured into amenity-rich residential communities, adding value to the cityscape, Paynter wrote."
In some cities even if the cost of conversion may be higher than building new residential, it may still be worth it to do conversion instead of new build simply because there isn't land free in the right places. source I postulate in these cases, building new residential would also have to include the cost of demolishing the existing office building to reclaim the land which suddenly would make conversion cheaper again.
"Manhattan not only sees the most conversions at present, but it also has the most office space meeting our criteria for future conversion potential, and so we expect it to remain the leading market for OTM conversions."
From all sources I found the best office buildings to convert are actually older and smaller ones that are decades old, not new ones. Not only are the older office buildings easier/cheaper to convert these are also less attractive to businesses which prefer newer building designs and flexibility. This is one of those narrow cases where its beneficial to both groups. There are no losers in these specific cases.
Like may things in life, there isn't one simple answer, and that appears to be the case here.
Which is why developers do it. To lose money.
Not to mention the like 12 empty houses per homeless person.
This bullshit is just some vulture capitalist's foolproof scam to make a quick buck in a floundering corporate real estate market.
Fuck man, even the tiniest possible cruise cabins still have room for a stand up shower, toilet, and sink. And they fit a queen sized bed.
Knock down a wall or two and don't make people share a communal bathroom like they're recruits in basic training.
Seems excessive. Loads of people have spent many many years in as little as 18 Sq. Ft. Why can't people just be happy with that?
/s
$850 a month for 150 square feet???? Utter insanity aside, how is that even remotely considered 'deeply affordable'
Because these idiots are comparing it to the normal sized flats, that are more expensive due to the deficit they created.
Why do they have to be micro though?
To fit more units, and make more money.
So they can make as much money as possible
yes private real estate bad but also guys this is infill housing, this is good.
EDIT: wait no hold on just saw how small those are that's awful
Ehh that studio on the right is perfectly livable for two adults. Common to see in Europe.
The left looks like some cursed dorm-type setup with shared restrooms and kitchens which is just unsanitary (have you met an average American?).
But the size is fine. Americans just insist on having ridiculous amounts of square footage to “live” because they don’t live. The US has no third spaces so either you go somewhere and pay for the privilege of being there, or you use your apartment as your all-in-one space for gatherings, exercise, relaxing, creating, etc.
The U.S. has a lot of third spaces like parks, libraries, art spaces, community/rec/senior centers, churches, etc. It's more that there's been a cultural shift away from using those spaces, because the norm for work-life balance has been steadily shifting toward only work, so people don't have energy left for themselves or their communities.
Parks and libraries, sure, but the rest pretty much all cost money around me. Art spaces are largely monetized, outside of maybe a free night a week, for a limited amount of time before closing that doesn't include access to all exhibits. Community/rec centers host events and charge money for most of them now, since I guess younger generations aren't becoming members in large enough numbers to make things self-sustaining otherwise. Churches have the disadvantage of being churches. Sure, you can technically hang out in them for free, so long as you don't mind constant religious services, which kind of comes with the territory on that one.
There are enough houses.
There are too many landlords.
For every rental, there is at least one landlord. In and of itself, this isn't a bad thing. Some people don't want to own homes, and would rather rent. There should be that option. Option. Not the only possibility. There are not enough ownable homes, because too many are owned by investment firms that keep them deliberately empty to drive up prices. Real estate investing should be heavily regulated, and, yes, this includes over landlords.
Converting older office buildings - say, 1950's and earlier - is often feasible, it's the newer ones that can be problematic. Most people don't want an apartment without a window (and often fire or occupancy codes require a window). This isn't really an issue for older building stock, as they were constructed when air conditioning wasn't as prevalent, windows provided ventilation, and window light was used to supplement office lights.
Modern office buildings don't worry about windows for either ventilation or light, so each floor can take up a massive amount of space. If this happens to be a long, thin space, you could put in some apartments - but a lot of the buildings are more square.
How do you handle that? Do you make each apartment really long and thin? If so, do you put in a hallway on one side that eats up precious space and does nothing other than keeping you from going through each room in turn? Or do you make it so you have to pass through each room to get to the end?
If you have the pass-through-each-room style, then which room should be the end room? Traditionally the living room gets the big windows, so you can entertain guests, but that leaves you passing through bedrooms to get there. If you put a bedroom at the end, then only one person/couple gets the light, and you're still potentially walking through the second or third bedroom.
You could make the apartments more square - but these are massive floors, sometimes taking up entire city blocks. And as I mentioned, often code requires windows, so what do you do with the massive space in the center? Do you make each apartment wide and long - those will be expensive and won't help the affordability crisis. Do you build in common areas: say, put in resident storage units every 3 floors and a gym every 5 floors and toss in some community spaces? That's great, but those common spaces will need housekeeping and maintenance, which raises ongoing costs. You can put in office space, but most people don't feel comfortable having those on the same floor, and it raises security concerns for the residents. There are a couple places that have put in a giant light well in the center, but that's expensive and makes the resulting apartments expensive too.
Conversion tends to work better with older building stock and while that works fine in some places, what do you do in cities that don't really have a good supply of older buildings? The supply of 1950's era office buildings is certainly limited in places like Los Angeles or Phoenix.