The Future of Downtowns

The panel of experts discuss the future of downtowns in American cities as office vacancy numbers remain high and public transportation usage remains low. 

Our panel of experts includes Howard Cure, director of municipal bond research, Evercore Wealth Management; Steven J. Davis, senior fellow, Hoover Institution, and professor of business and economics, University of Chicago Booth School of Business; Tracy Hadden Loh, fellow, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking, Brookings Metro; Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore professor of real estate and professor of finance, Columbia University's Graduate School of Business; and Romy Varghese, politics editor, Bloomberg News. 

Notable Quotes:

 “There’s no one-size-fits-all problem or solution. In some cities and regions, these losses are quite urgent, and are yielding fiscal and operational crises in the very near term. In others, these impacts may take years to fully manifest, in part due to one-time federal financial aid.” - Tracy Hadden Loh

 “Now there is widespread acceptance that remote work is here to stay and now they’re [city officials] focusing on different ways to bring people back into the downtown…It is going to take a really long time for these recommendations [to attract businesses] to be implemented and it’s really going to take a change in mindset because for so long, business came to San Francisco.” - Romy Varghese 

“The stakes are higher now than they were before the pandemic with respect to getting the right mix of the right local policies. Cities that get it right, either by virtue of a well-functioning political system or just being endowed with amenities that people value – those cities are well-positioned to benefit from the shift to work-from-home.” - Steven J. Davis

 “In the long run we are sort of going through this revolutionary change, which will take decades to play out and which will basically call for a major reallocation of space away from office to residential.” - Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh 

“You have a number of vacancies, you’re having turnover come in, and because of that, I think you really have to pay attention to the people who are applying and the quality of the people applying for these jobs.” - Howard Cure

 Be sure to subscribe to Special Briefing to stay up to date on the world of public finance. Learn more about the Volcker Alliance at: volckeralliance.org

 Learn more about Penn IUR at: penniur.upenn.edu 

Connect with us @VolckerAlliance and @PennIUR on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

 Special Briefing is published by the Volcker Alliance, as part of its Public Finance initiatives, and Penn IUR. The views expressed on this podcast are those of the panelists and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Volcker Alliance or Penn IUR.