1. The Great NYC Reset ...
2. I remain fully confident in the wake of all this gloom & doom that NYC will end up just fine down the road.
3. This is not the 1960s, and it not the end of cities, particularly NYC.
4. That said, I fully expect retail and office, and also parts of the luxury housing sector to be gored.
5. But, please, let's not confused the goring of retail & office and luxury real estate with the end of cities.
6. It is painful for the owners of real estate & it will hurt NYC's tax base in the short run, but I for one am not going to mourn the absence of national chain stores from NYC.
7. Chain stores were a huge part of the gentrification & dullification of NYC... Good riddance ...
8. And the trauma in commercial real estate can also be a net positive for the city.
9. The gargantuan office towers & over-stuffed CBD are physical manifestations of a bygone era. It is time to bid them goodbye ...
10. And get on with rebuilding the city & the metro region around 15-minute neighborhoods, in the city, in the suburbs, where people can work closer to where they live & shorten commutes.
11. This is just a saner, healthier and saner way to live ... & work ... & build cities ... & suburbs.
12. Rand and others are already saying commercial space can be repurposed into housing, and especially affordable housing ...
13. Big floor-plate retail can be repurposed as incubator and accelerator space ...
14. The Regional Plan Association is making the case to rebalance NYC's office & employment market bolstering regional satellites ...
15. A hub and spoke system make sense. Abandoned malls can be repurposed into suburban satellite centers ...
16. Cities like Newark, New Brunswick, Trenton, Paterson ... can regain their roles as regional employment nodes ...
17. This kind of approach to regional rebalancing or *REGION-BUILDING* could be a centerpiece of a new transformative urban or metro strategy under Biden focussed on creating 15 minute neighborhoods.
18. End of rant: But the main point is that COVID0-19 creates a once in a century opportunity to rebuild our cities and metros better - along more equitable, inclusive and resilient lines. Let's do it!
