
A Vision of Post-Pandemic New York - gregorymichael
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-31/post-pandemic-new-york-younger-cheaper-poorer-more-segregated
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crazygringo
I live in NYC, and this is possibly the dumbest article I've read in a long,
long time.

Old people who live in NYC do so because they love it. They're not leaving.

Headquarters aren't going away. If you're in NYC it's for a good reason
(access to labor/industry).

A "much poorer New York"? Not more so than anywhere else.

Develop the strictest test-and-trace? That would require them to get their act
together, so no. This isn't a well-managed Asian city.

Subway ridership lower? People take the subway because they don't have a
choice. Somebody explain to me how people are going to get to work instead.

And on and on.

The author teaches at a university in Virginia. Reading this article it's hard
to imagine he's spent any time here in the city at all.

~~~
downerending
> Old people who live in NYC do so because they love it. They're not leaving.

They might not leave more than before, but they do leave. NYC is a very
expensive place to live if you're not rich or don't have a high-paying job.

------
josephorjoe
Seems a bit early for weird dystopian fantasies about populations segregated
by covid-19 immunity status. Suggest the author go read Poe's Masque of the
Red Death[1].

NYC will change and adapt. But from the perspective of someone living hear
stuck in my apartment for the last few weeks, I wouldn't predict a mass exodus
of older new yorkers. They are a pretty stubborn lot who live here for a
reason. Maybe if we get recurring waves of large scale infections they would
leave, but at that point, so would most people who could.

I would predict more wealthy families with school age children who have been
considering the suburbs will likely leave, but a percentage of them leave
every year.

I think one of the more likely and immediate impacts will be closings (as in
going out of business) of many restaurants, delis, and bars and financial
hardship for everyone who worked for them.

I got a request from a local restaurant I've been to exactly one time to
donate to a GoFundMe to save the restaurant. I'm not sure what to say about
that... Doesn't feel like a reasonable 'ask' to me. The place is good, but not
sure my current priority for charitable donations should be a 30 seat
restaurant with $35 entrees.

[1]
[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1064/1064-h/1064-h.htm](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1064/1064-h/1064-h.htm)

~~~
esotericn
> not sure my current priority for charitable donations should be a 30 seat
> restaurant with $35 entrees.

Doesn't this illustrate the issue with market decision making in general?

Rationally wouldn't you want to go on funding the things you wish to happen /
enjoy in equal proportion to before the crisis, if the money flows are still
the same (e.g. you can still 'virtually' tip the waitress at your fancy
restaurant etc?)

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
The money flows can't be the same overall when lots of people aren't working.
No matter how you make decisions, someone has to be worse off from the loss of
the value their work would have produced.

------
paulgb
I'm really interested/worried about what the transit situation will be like
post-COVID. New York is one of the few cities in the US where public transit
use cuts across class lines to a major extent, but it's also the place where
we come into close contact with hundreds of strangers on a daily basis. I just
don't see us going back to that in a heartbeat.

I'm _really_ hopeful that the city takes this opportunity to build proper
infrastructure for people to bike around safely. There just isn't room for
everyone to start driving a car.

~~~
Ericson2314
New York is New York if and only if there is dramatically fewer cars. It is
simply definitional.

Any retreat from public transportation would be astoundingly stupid. And in
fact this whole piece is astoundingly stupid. Asian cities are the prior art
of density combined with basic public awareness of epidemiology. None of the
weird stuff the author talks about happens there to my knowledge.

~~~
coredog64
If it happens, I see it happening not as deliberate policy but as a
consequence of consumer preference. The MTA was already on their way to fucked
before this happened. Poor policing policies have reduced the social penalties
for turnstile jumping. Ridership (and fare intake) has been on the decline.
The high cost structure, coupled with lower fare collection means more money
has to come from the city/state via taxes, for which there is already stiff
competition.

IMO, I don't really see the MTA coming back from this. The unions won't let
them decrease costs (construction or operational). They don't have the capital
to make the improvements that would increase automation, and even if they did
they'd have a hell of a time getting that through the operating unions. Making
the stations nicer just means you're going to wind up with more police chasing
more homeless people, creating more opportunities for police-on-citizen
violence caught on video.

~~~
g_sch
It's strange to me to hear people blame turnstile jumping for the decline of
the MTA. Its budget for operations has been repeatedly cut or diverted to
large capital projects, which do nothing to improve service if operations are
poor. Declining ridership and fare intake were a reflection of the poor
operational state of the system - in 2017 and 2018, as the number of delays
and major incidents skyrocketed, ridership went down. And when operations
improved over the latter half of 2018 through 2019, ridership went up again.

Even if a low farebox recovery rate were the problem, the solution isn't
increased policing. Many people in NYC simply can't afford to ride the subway,
and you're not gonna magically squeeze money out of them.

~~~
coredog64
I don’t blame turnstile jumping, just see it as a symptom of the broader
issues facing the MTA.

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esotericn
As a Londoner I find this very difficult to believe and I think the situation
is fairly similar across all of the major metropoles.

Basically everyone I know is chomping at the bit to get back to the pub and
resume life as normal.

If there's an antibody test and enough people are infected, then I imagine
that those that are immune will just act exactly as before and perhaps even
find paranoid folk frustrating to be around.

A nonzero and significant fraction of people (I don't condone this FWIW) are
still wandering around in the parks, having barbecues etc, because they simply
don't want to face the idea of a life in which we are afraid of our common man
- it's the essence of metropolitan life. The death of sociality is the death
of London.

~~~
standardUser
Nothing wrong with going to the park or cooking food outside, as long as
you're maintaining social distance with people outside of your household. The
virus doesn't spread by magic.

~~~
michaelt
I believe the issue in London is the parks can get so busy, you can't maintain
social distancing. Or at least, some parks can, when there's no coronavirus,
and the weather is good, at weekends.

~~~
mrfusion
Maybe this shows we need more parks.

------
jshaqaw
I’ve been living in NYC since before 9/11 when there was similar
prognostication that this was the beginning of the end for NYC. That didn’t
happen either.

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KoftaBob
Opinion columns like this are essentially blog posts. While that's fine,
having a big name like Bloomberg stamped on it is confusing to many people, as
they'll think this is an actual analyst prediction, which it's not.

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mapleoin
> Most of all, there will be an exodus of elderly residents.

What is this based on? Just because the outbreak is worse in New York now,
does that mean it can't be like that somewhere else?

~~~
nutjob2
It's probably based on the fact that this virus is a coronavirus, and there
are 4 other coronaviruses that are endemic, seasonal and to which we do not
gain a lasting immunity after infection.

Given that the probable mortality rate for people over 70 is 10% or 15% for
this virus, and that any vaccine will not be anywhere near 100% effective for
100% of the population, not living in a densely packed big city is entirely
rational.

~~~
threatofrain
Do the elderly not wish to watch after the younger generations? Because
schools are disease labs.

~~~
nutjob2
If it meant a 1 in 7 chance of dying, then I'd say no.

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m_ke
Biggest change will be the loss of small businesses, even more vacant
storefronts.

If there is an exodus, it will be of blue collar workers to states like
Pennsylvania.

~~~
tartoran
Yes, small businesses will be hit hard and many will evaporate. But we’ll see
lots of regrowth afterwards if landlords lower the rents, which should make
sense if they don’t want to keep their properties vacant.

~~~
vrinstan
Landlords will lower their prices if they have lower costs or if the offer is
greater than the demand. I don't see any of the two happening in big cities.

~~~
tartoran
I am trying to understand what types of lower costs would the landlords need,
property taxes? Those won't go down for sure but would it make sense to keep
their properties vacant? I'm failing to see how this makes any sense. Still, I
don't know much about what landlords have to deal with and how much sense it
makes to them.

The offer will intuitively grow as there are more empty places but they may
want to game that. It may be part of the problem and why we see lots of empty
commercial spaces. If you live in NY it is quite disheartening to see empty
storefronts on main streets, it adds to the depressive landscape. I think they
may have become more than greedy and charged more than what the places were
worth and now in the downturn are in a bind: lower prices and see a lot of the
property generate rent (but that would force them to lower their current
profitable rentals as well) or keeping it as it is.

~~~
klodolph
From what I understand, the situation has become more complicated than the
scenario of “landlord owns property, wants to make money on rent”. It’s now,
“landlord simultaneously rents space to tenants and sells interest in the
property to investors.” Because the landlord is dealing in two markets
simultaneously, the optimal decision for the landlord may look inefficient if
you look at a single market.

The empty storefronts are bad, for sure. But to the landlord, reducing rent in
order to generate additional income may revalue the property and put it
underwater, which triggers clauses in the deals with investors and banks. And
as far as I can tell, the whole thing is driven by how balance sheets can be
presented to investors and banks, as much as it is driven by how properties
can be rented to businesses.

My personal take is that this system killed SoHo. I also don’t understand
anything about real estate ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
coredog64
It's also possible that Covid-19 provides a reasonable cover for a large case
of "big bath accounting". Individual building owners might not want to (or be
able to) reduce rents/returns. But if happens across the ecosystem, then
everyone resets expectations enough that businesses can return.

------
salvagedcircuit
After all of this passes, what I think NYers will finally take from this is
increased personal space, albeit minor increased personal space, and a greater
adoption of contact-less methodology. If anything, it will give NYers more
appreciation for soap and filtration. People will probably buy more house
portable air filtration equipment than ever before. That and the MTA better
finish their NFC payment system pronto and pay for a regular cleaning staff.

------
alexk307
America can barely test everyone who wants a test, I don't see mass anti-body
testing with certificates being handed out.

------
bobloblaw45
Not limited to New York but I think it would be interesting to see if this
experience showed companies how much of their staff can work from home. And if
it creates a new work from home trend for a whole new class of workers that
weren't able to before. It seems it would be cheaper for both employers and
employees.

------
Havoc
Seems a bit far fetched

------
elbelcho
The article doesn't take in account of the possibility of vaccination
available in the next year or so. Yes, people will meanwhile die. Yes, there
will be short-term segregation. But I highly doubt that, once vaccination is
widely available, the city will remain segregated into "safe" zones and poorer
"infected" zones. That sounds dystopian at best.

------
popeispop
I'm not sure the author knows vaccines exist... In 18 months or less there
will very likely have a vaccine, of course it will impact NYC, but it's not
this mad max scenario.

Legit don't know how some people can get published in big websites such as
this with such garbage content.

~~~
Cerium
I would not count on it. There are other coronaviruses and we don't have
vaccines for them. Of course I'm hopeful, but not ready to count the chicken
here.

~~~
adrianN
We don't make vaccines just for fun. It's quite expensive to do so and
vaccinations, however safe, still have a little risk. You don't have to
vaccinate against the other corona viruses because they don't pose a
significant risk.

------
kryogen1c
probably the same thing it looked like after SARS, h1n1, and ebola, and all of
the great pandemics a little further in the past.

which is to say we were already living in that time. its not that people
forget, its that no one wants to remember. things are the way they are wanted
to be. this is what we want.

coronavirus was dangerous in 2019, and still no one cared. our worldwide risk
vs reward function appears to have a time window of about 3 days.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Nothing resembles this. We haven't had nationwide lockdown in a century. We
haven't had folks hanging on published death count; wearing masks in public.

Being negative for the sake of it, is adding nothing to the discussion.

~~~
kryogen1c
negative I surely am, but if I had to place a bet about sweeping worldwide
changes in pandemic mitigations, I know which side id bet on. this is not
negativity for its own sake, we have a clearly demonstrated pattern of
behavior. hows that climate change mitigation coming?

you say a century like its prehistoric - that's barely more than 1 person ago.

EDIT: to further prove my point, you didn't respond to the part of my post
where I said we clearly saw this coming in 2019. it exactly disproves your
point - we DID see national lockdowns, we just didn't care.

~~~
jimhefferon
> we clearly saw this coming in 2019

The overwhelming majority of people, the common person on the street, did not
see it coming.

A week or two before my state got locked down I was at a meeting and for Other
Business I said we need to establish how to hold next week's meeting online.
Everyone there looked down at their hands, clearly thinking they were in the
presence of a nut. Finally someone said, in the tone you talk to your drunk
uncle at Thanksgiving who is a Fox News nut, "Well if a lockdown would ever
happen we can email about it then."

~~~
pjc50
Have you investigated how you get your news as a result? How was Italy at the
time of that meeting?

~~~
jimhefferon
Forgive me, I'm not sure what you mean. I perceive that the difference between
them and me is professional training; I am a mathematician, in the Theory of
Computation, and their training is in areas without the same consciousness
about exponential growth.

The meeting was a Ham Radio club and so draws from a wide range including both
white collar and blue. I didn't mean to talk down about the folks there, who
are generally intelligent and thoughtful, and I only told that story to
illustrate that the typical person was not thinking about hunkering even that
close to the lockdown moment.

