Not a hot take, I think most people agree with that. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. In many cases, the cost of demolishing the building and building a brand new apartment building is cheaper than converting the current building. From floor plan to ceiling height to water and electrical lines, office buildings just aren't built to handle residential uses.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, that’s a fair point. You basically need to knock out all of the walls, and even then, you probably need cities and states to get creative with things like egress laws.

In place like SF there is so much useless office space now, and a massive need for housing. I’d love for us to find away to repurpose that square footage for what is actually needed - housing.

[–] EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 9 months ago

Yeah, I can only imagine what a nightmare of zoning regulations and everything else it is on top of the upfront cost, which none of these property owners want to pay.

I can't help but think, though, how much better our cities would be if we replaced all that empty office space with housing. I watched a great video once about how a city in New York has removed half of the aging highway ring in the city and is planning on removing the other half because of how replacing it with local roads has not only opened up tons of new land for development, but also revitalized their dying city core because of how much more accessible it is.