Episode Details

Downtown skylines are changing, not with new towers but with new lives inside old ones. As hybrid work leaves offices empty in cities around the world, developers and policymakers are betting on a radical reuse: turning vacant commercial buildings into housing. In this episode, we explore why projects like the massive conversion of 25 Water Street in New York have become symbols of a new urban strategy, how zoning reforms and political incentives are accelerating the trend, and why the physical realities of office design—deep floor plates, plumbing, and light—make such transformations far from simple. Drawing on Lower Manhattan’s earlier reinvention as a residential neighborhood, the story asks whether office-to-apartment conversions can truly revive struggling city centers, or whether they offer only a partial fix to deeper urban and housing crises.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/02/09/city-centres-from-offices-to-family-homes