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Editorial: Return to the office, for Downtown Pittsburgh's sake
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | December 10, 2022 | The Editorial Board

Posted on 12/11/2022 7:03:48 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

The beating heart of the Pittsburgh region is the Golden Triangle, and people are its lifeblood. For the sake of the social and economic health of Downtown, and of the entire city and region, employers in the urban core should encourage as many workers as possible to return to the office, at least a few days each week.

It’s not just about maximizing the number of warm bodies in office chairs: More workers mean more lunches and happy hours, more shopping and catering, more cycling and transit riding, more haircuts and shoe shines. In other words, more people mean more of the social and economic activity that makes an urban core neighborhood vibrant and attractive, as opposed to sparse and gloomy.

Due to the city’s unique geography, Pittsburgh has always had an uncommonly dense central business district, which means it has traditionally depended on the social and financial energy generated Downtown to power the rest of the region. While the national trend is for jobs to move to the suburbs, more than 50% of Pittsburgh’s office square footage remains in the Golden Triangle and nearby neighborhoods. And according to a New York Times analysis, Pittsburgh ranks fifth in the country for the percent of downtown real estate dedicated to office space. That made the city especially vulnerable to a widespread shift to working from home.

The recovery of Downtown activity levels from the COVID collapse in spring of 2020 has been discouraging. The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership recorded a daily average of 87,117 people in the Golden Triangle — including residents, employees and other visitors — for the month of November. That’s a decline of more than one-third from the same month in 2019. And the trendline has flattened to a plateau.

(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: business; commercial; corporateculture; covid19; downtown; economy; pandemic; pennsylvania; pittsburgh; realty; returntooffice; workfromhome
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1 posted on 12/11/2022 7:03:48 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Yeah, never mind the crime, the shootings, the random attacks by homeless people.

It’s nowhere near as bad as New York!!!


2 posted on 12/11/2022 7:05:26 AM PST by jdsteel (PA voters elected a stroke victim and a dead guy. Not a joke.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

LOL…”Please come back” is going to work.


3 posted on 12/11/2022 7:08:08 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (If you're not part of the solution, you're just scumming up the bottom of the beaker!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Scamdemics and stolen elections, thanks to it, have consequences, Steal city..


4 posted on 12/11/2022 7:10:56 AM PST by delchiante
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Did they clear it with Herr Fauci?/s


5 posted on 12/11/2022 7:11:55 AM PST by Travelin’ Right (Liberals ruin Everything)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

And a hearty GFY to the editorial board of the PPG!

Make your appeal to your new Senator.


6 posted on 12/11/2022 7:16:08 AM PST by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

The primary roles of cities today are to be a dumping ground for human refuse, and political power centers for Democrats.

The cities should die and we should decentralize in a big way. Find empty spaces and make them a little less empty.


7 posted on 12/11/2022 7:17:14 AM PST by ClearCase_guy (No one is as asleep as the "woke". They define the term "useful idiot".)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

https://www.foxnews.com/media/pittsburgh-restaurant-owner-closes-shop-due-post-covid-labor-shortages-moves-montana


8 posted on 12/11/2022 7:18:41 AM PST by ameribbean expat (The object of life is...to avoid finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -Aurelius)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Wake up earlier, burn gas, vehicle wear and tear, dress clothes, parking, lunch, inner city trash interactions, stupid woke people and HR, etc…

Nope.


9 posted on 12/11/2022 7:19:23 AM PST by EEGator
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Downtown Pittsburgh was a booming place up til the 80s. By 2000 its a open sewer. I went down there on a saturday and it smelt like a broken urinal. And it was so empty you could film a sequel to Omega Man and wouldnt have to block off streets.


10 posted on 12/11/2022 7:19:45 AM PST by Yorlik803
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Even if folks do return to downtown, by the time
the place gets up and running again - Directive 10-289
will just shut it all down again.

The US economy must/will be utterly crushed.
The 'Great Reset' demands it.
You can thank the elitists for this.

11 posted on 12/11/2022 7:20:03 AM PST by GaltAdonis
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To: Empire_of_Liberty

Hearty — yeah, that’s pretty good. More coffee, please.


12 posted on 12/11/2022 7:22:12 AM PST by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: jdsteel
Can we assume The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette owns their own building and that their building is 'downtown' and being sucked into the forming Democrat hellhole?

13 posted on 12/11/2022 7:22:27 AM PST by GOPJ (If OLD twitter management had stood up to Homeland & FBI goons they's be hurt 7 ways from Sunday)
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To: Yorlik803

Maybe that’s why they filmed Jack Reacher there?…


14 posted on 12/11/2022 7:25:25 AM PST by EEGator
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Assclowns concerned with lack of victims? 🤔


15 posted on 12/11/2022 7:28:55 AM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this? 😕)
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To: EEGator
At least half of my coworkers work from home two days a week. Of our top 5 company officers, just one lives in Texas. My supervisor lives in Florida, commutes to Dallas twice a month.

I’ll be working from home soon, too. Not an issue, I can work on tax returns anywhere. Most of our meetings are conducted over the computer. We also don’t keep any paper files, it’s all stored on pdf.

Why go back to the old way of doing things?

16 posted on 12/11/2022 7:30:04 AM PST by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It! lol)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Democrat politicians in Pittsburgh government actively supported Communist organizations such as Black Lives MatterTM rioting and attacking people in Pittsburgh. Who would ever go back?
17 posted on 12/11/2022 7:31:25 AM PST by T.B. Yoits
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Dimocrats continue to kill the golden goose. Oh well


18 posted on 12/11/2022 7:35:23 AM PST by Josa
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To: EEGator

> Wake up earlier, burn gas, vehicle wear and tear... <

Don’t forget Pittsburgh’s unofficial motto: You can’t get there from here.

And for those not in the know, that’s due to Pittsburgh’s crazy quilt of tunnels, bridges, and one-way streets. By the time you realize you’re in the wrong lane you’re a mile from where you want to be. And you’re probably on a one-way street.

Anybody who’d want to go back to that would have to be nuts.


19 posted on 12/11/2022 7:35:41 AM PST by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

This is what I’ve been saying. Its city politicians in big cities who are screaming at companies to make workers return to the office.

They have sort of somewhat tried to oblige as best they can all while knowing they’ll never get all that toothpaste back in the tube. So most of them are trying to get employees to at least accept a hybrid work schedule where they come in a couple days every week. They can only really get their junior employees to do this. The experienced workers/contractors and ones with very in-demand job skills just demand 100% remote or no deal and the companies have no choice but to accept it.

In time, companies are going to quietly not renew office leases and/or sell their office towers and just maintain very limited office space for limited purposes, meetings and presentations, etc.

Everybody knows its perfectly possible to run companies with almost everybody working remote. Big expensive Blue cities are in BIG trouble. Commercial real estate is going to take it right in the shorts.


20 posted on 12/11/2022 7:36:26 AM PST by FLT-bird
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