{"id":12993,"date":"2023-10-25T21:33:45","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T21:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=12993"},"modified":"2023-11-06T21:37:15","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T21:37:15","slug":"downtowns-near-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2023\/10\/25\/downtowns-near-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Downtowns Near Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/real-estate\/commercial\/wrecking-ball-targets-empty-downtown-offices-d0e3391\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">from The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">America\u2019s Downtowns Are Empty. Fixing Them Will Be Expensive.<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>Lonely sidewalks and closed storefronts inspire proposals to recast office districts into neighborhoods where people live, work and raise families<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/news\/author\/konrad-putzier\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Konrad Putzier<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.wsj.net\/im-862701?width=1260&amp;height=840\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Workers renovating the Northstar building in downtown Minneapolis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>MINNEAPOLIS\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/american-cities-are-starting-to-thrive-again-just-not-near-office-buildings-d839798f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Downtown streets<\/a>\u00a0were so crowded in the 1960s that developers conjured up a maze of elevated walkways between buildings, providing winter-proof avenues for office workers who filled the central city Monday through Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stores, fast-food spots, bakeries and barber shops lined the covered, temperature-controlled walkways, which linked new\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/san-francisco-commercial-real-estate-office-buildings-471742ea\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">glass skyscrapers<\/a>\u00a0sprouting one after the next. Workers racing to cubicles in the morning kept to the right to avoid crashing into each other, recalled convenience store clerk\u00a0Monica Bray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bray sees only a trickle of passersby these days and lots of empty storefronts. Downtown streets also are quiet, leaving plenty of room for homeless people, police and the occasional tourist. \u201cIt\u2019s spooky,\u201d she said.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For decades, downtown office districts across the U.S. powered local economies, generating commerce, tax revenue and an aggregation of ambition, talent and disposable income. Many cities riddled with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/commercial-real-estate-woes-run-deeper-than-in-past-downturns-e0c1f2b3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">half-empty office buildings<\/a>\u00a0hope to survive the new remote-work era without bulldozing swaths of downtown and starting from scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/real-estate\/commercial\/wrecking-ball-targets-empty-downtown-offices-d0e3391\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">click to continue reading at WSJ<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from The Wall Street Journal America\u2019s Downtowns Are Empty. Fixing Them Will Be Expensive. Lonely sidewalks and closed storefronts inspire proposals to recast office districts into neighborhoods where people live, work and raise families By\u00a0Konrad Putzier MINNEAPOLIS\u2014Downtown streets\u00a0were so crowded in the 1960s that developers conjured up a maze of elevated walkways between buildings, providing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}