Remote working is killing city centres...but what's the alternative?

[Eastie77]

Reading today about Pret cutting almost 3,000 jobs and articles about the death of city centres due to the lack of office workers. My company has announced that all employees can work from home for another year. I honestly doubt our central London office will re-open or at least in the form it took before, ie they may just keep renting part of it for occasional client meetings.

The government is pushing workers back into the office but realistically people are not going to go back while they have the option to WFH and companies have realised they can save on office costs and get the same output from their staff. I am happy to WFH but I really feel for all the local businesses that relied on office workers and are now facing closure. I work close to our office and 6 independent coffee shops and small cafes have closed😔 Not sure what the answer is.

Local High St is booming but the Eat Out scheme has really impacted.

And given that the economy is going to suffer I am even less likely to go out of my way to spend money. It's a vicious circle

The Paradox of Thrift

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift

On my half hour lunch break at home, I am not going to drive to the town centre, find somewhere to park, go to a café and get a sandwich

Doesn't it depend where you live? I have a coffee shop & park at the end of my road & the high street is 10 mins walk plus I have flexi time so can take a longer break if needed. It's what I do pre Covid so I can get errands done, catch up with friends etc, pick up shopping.

@looperb

On my half hour lunch break at home, I am not going to drive to the town centre, find somewhere to park, go to a café and get a sandwich

Doesn't it depend where you live? I have a coffee shop & park at the end of my road & the high street is 10 mins walk plus I have flexi time so can take a longer break if needed. It's what I do pre Covid so I can get errands done, catch up with friends etc, pick up shopping.

I wonder if the difference is that you said it is what you did anyway 'pre covid'.

For me I did a mix of office and WFH pre covid but never spent any money on coffees etc on my WFH days and the money I used to spend in the office isn't being transferred locally.

And given that the economy is going to suffer I am even less likely to go out of my way to spend money. It's a vicious circle

This is the biggie, consumer confidence is low so the big push is stimulus. Most of Sunak’s policies are to get us spending.

I don’t have lovely cafes nearby, just dodgy takeaways with a 2/5 hygiene rating🙃 so I am spending less on eating out completely. I’d have to drive into the city centre which isn’t far, but parking is a faff.

I live in rural North Wales. I think the increase in WFH is great.

My DH was doing 75% of his hours WFH before covid and had just found out he will now be 100% WFH going forward which is great as he no longer has to commute 3 hours one day a week.

I am also optimistic for my DD future as she will have a far greater choice of careers beyond NHS, teaching, outdoor ed or poorly paid seasonal work without having to leave her childhood home (is that's what she wants).

And... We are lucky enough to still have some lovely independent coffee shops, so hopefully they will do well out of this change.

@PourMeADrink I think everyone is different, on my office days I sometimes would buy lunch from the (subsidised) canteen. I get out more on my wfh days as it frees up my days off.

If people have pension funds with diverse investments it doesnt matter if some area (commercial property/Pret) goes down as long as other areas compensate (IT stocks, online food deliveries ). So a rebalancing of economic activity is fine. If we bank the savings it is not helpful but if we switch spending it will work out in the end. City centres can be redeveloped over time (as they have throughout history) to suit changing needs.

@chomalungma - I know economics is fascinating and I know it isn't an exact science with different views within. Buying stuff we don't need so that we move money around will eventually (if not already) have a massive impact on the planet. An activity that is a bit shortsighted too.

I know what the poster means by yoga for cats. It's like as if some people dream up ways of relieving people of their money .

No remote working is killing those city centres too expensive for people to live in - most cities where people live are doing well.

GrumpyHoonMain a valid point, for example my town centre is doing OK it seems.

I suspect the great university re-start experiment in the midst of this pandemic is all about economic massaging. Manchester expects approx 100,000 students in the city. Leicester 40,000. University of London over 160,000.

It's one hell of a health risk, though, especially in halls and large shared houses, in older air-conned libraries, labs and libraries, and in student unions and eateries.

I guess time will tell.

they buy a complete new set of uniform for their DC every September even if they don't need it..just because

Schools need to play their part here by not changing their uniform every 5 minutes just because they want to change the colour or put a new logo/stripe on it.

Until, of course, many of those employers realise what a lot of other employers have already realised - that you can get equally effective performance and output from workers in India or the Philippines for a fraction of the cost. Then it will be sad for all the people who used to service the city centre workers, sad for the people working from home, and sad for the country in general, when there are no jobs

Loads of companies that did this 5 to 10 years ago have brought the work back. For this model to work alot of time and effort (cost) has to be given. It's cheap for a reason!

@BarbaraofSeville

It's ok, The Guardian has written it for them.

Leave home. Forget the NHS. Save Pret

The top comment on that:

An economy based on living in a house you can't afford, travelling to work on a train where you can't get a seat, to do a job in a city where you don't need to be, and then pay through the nose for an overpriced sandwich and a coffee, is basically stupid and probably doomed, isn't it?

An economy based on living in a house you can't afford, travelling to work on a train where you can't get a seat, to do a job in a city where you don't need to be, and then pay through the nose for an overpriced sandwich and a coffee, is basically stupid and probably doomed, isn't it?

Sad but so true!

@user1497207191

An economy based on living in a house you can't afford, travelling to work on a train where you can't get a seat, to do a job in a city where you don't need to be, and then pay through the nose for an overpriced sandwich and a coffee, is basically stupid and probably doomed, isn't it?

Sad but so true!

And so very Thatcherite. Took nearly three decades and a pandemic for people to wise up the Pyramid Scheme UK PLC.

@JamieLeeCurtains

I suspect the great university re-start experiment in the midst of this pandemic is all about economic massaging. Manchester expects approx 100,000 students in the city. Leicester 40,000. University of London over 160,000.

It's one hell of a health risk, though, especially in halls and large shared houses, in older air-conned libraries, labs and libraries, and in student unions and eateries.

I guess time will tell.

What's the alternative though? I would not want to pay for an online degree if I was a young person.

I'd join the open university if I did as they have all the experience in how to do it well.

Well I certainly wouldn't pay £9250 a year for an online degree (for just the tuition), no.

I'd do, as you mention, an OU course or a very good and much less rip-offy European university degree that is taught in English. And that is probably superior tbh in its experienced online content.

There is a desperation from the govt about getting nearly a million students back into private halls, high streets and university facilities.

@JamieLeeCurtains - I never thought of EU universities for online courses taught through English. Can you suggest one as a good example? Thanks

I think there’s just as much desperation from the students.

I really believe some people on MN have never been young, but beamed straight into middle age. I saw on another thread someone saying that there was no need for “physical” university, and everything could be delivered online. Yes, a lot of it probably could. But half the students wouldn’t sign up, and the other half would go mad sitting isolated in their bedrooms.

[quote jewel1968]@JamieLeeCurtains - I never thought of EU universities for online courses taught through English. Can you suggest one as a good example? Thanks[/quote]
There's a few in the Netherlands

... such as Leiden University. You can opt for distance learning (least expensive) or blended (still cheaper than UK), depending on subject.

I'm thinking about doing some 'degree top-up' studies with Leiden, as it produces excellent quality online materials - some of the distance stuff is actually free in my subject. (I have a PhD but it's very out of date).

Also look at Germany and Scandinavia.

@IrmaFayLear

I think there’s just as much desperation from the students.

I really believe some people on MN have never been young, but beamed straight into middle age. I saw on another thread someone saying that there was no need for “physical” university, and everything could be delivered online. Yes, a lot of it probably could. But half the students wouldn’t sign up, and the other half would go mad sitting isolated in their bedrooms.

I've been teaching a university course online over the past few months.

My colleagues and students are pretty unanimous in deciding that it is grim and depressing, as well as an inefficient way to 'deliver' (even the word is dehumanising!) education. As an emergency stopgap it's just about OK, but I really feel sorry for students looking at more than a few months of sitting in their bedrooms staring at a screen, at what should be one of ht emost exciting periods of their lives.

I think this period must be the very first time in my life that I'm almost relieved to be middle aged! To be starting out on adult life - whether in work or university - in this era of Zoom 'interaction' would be sad.