Comment on ‘Zombie Offices’ Spell Trouble for Some Banks - The New York Times

• Quexotic@infosec.pub ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  So, I’ve thought about it and we have a housing shortage and an excess of offices. Seems like a solid solution. Takes a lot of work to make an office into a home, but it’s more profitable than leaving them empty.

  But no, that would help people, and the cruelty is the point.

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  • vexikron@lemmy.zip ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yep, Ive been saying this for years now as well.

    We have giant mostly empty office buildings which could be converted into mostly apartments, with even make shift permitted commercial zones for basically street vendor / convention booth style shops every 10 floors.

    Instead it apparently makes more sense to not do this because it makes more sense to keep them empty, heated and lit 24/7, as basically a way to prop up the retail property market.

    Capitalism is a farce, and it has already doomed us all: we have now breached the 1.5 C warming barrier, even more rapidly than most of the worst case scenarios predicted. Permafrost in Siberia and Northern Canada is already thawing and releasing methane.

    Enjoy the collapse of human civilization in your own lifetime as people and governments continue to squabble and combat each other over scarcer and scarcer resources as our entire way of life becomes too expensive to maintain.

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    • lud@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Converting offices is expensive and complicated. Zoning laws also makes it even harder.

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      • Quexotic@infosec.pub ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        This is true, there are hurdles and there people actively working to overcome them and succeeding.

        Would you like to know more? duckduckgo.com/?q=office+to+residential

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  • StereoTrespasser@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s a solid solution only if someone ponies up the money to pay for the incredible effort it takes to convert an office building into residences. Waving your hands in the air and telling someone else to pay for it is not a good argument.

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    • Quexotic@infosec.pub ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Are you watching me? How did you know I was waving my hands on the arm?

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• random_character_a@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  But nobody wants those buildings.

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  • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They do, just not at the prices they want to sell them at.

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