^ You’re oversimplifying, but yes the zoning regs are probably unnecessary in most cases. Office space is generally going to be the highest and best use anywhere that would have demand for office towers, and so by permitting it that’s what you get. Only allowing office space leads to vacant land where the demand doesn’t exist.

The office parks are a function of low land values and lack of planning prohibitions, and the problem with them is that real life isn’t SimCity and they don’t just “densify” later.

As for nursing homes, it depends on acuity. If it’s independent/assisted living then perhaps people are part of the community, but in a true nursing home the only community they’re a part of is the one inside the building. In a dementia wing they are not even allowed to come and go freely, for obvious reasons. The more important consideration for locating these things is access - can employees get to and from work, can families easily visit - so being near a highway is best. And to that point, remember that these are commercial facilities, with a lot of people coming and going. They aren’t appropriate for residential neighborhoods.

^ Chicago has plenty of smaller scale nursing homes and other types of senior housing tucked into its neighborhoods (as I'm sure many other cities do), so I'm not sure I follow what you're talking about.


Anyway, today we went to a small family gathering for my niece's sweet 16 up at my sister's house in far nothern exurbs of Chicagoland. As we were driving up there, my wife remarked "this feels so weird, all four of us in the car driving somewhere together".

She was right, we hadn't done that since early March. Then I realized it was the 1st time I was more than 10 miles from our home in roughly 3 months.

Weird indeed.

I think you’ll find that most are assisted living (lower acuity) and a lot are converted. It’s difficult to build new ones economically, because they tend to be at least 80-100 bed facilities in order to be profitable.

We also might have different things in mind when we say “residential neighborhood”. You can put a huge nursing facility in the Upper West Side or Lincoln Park because, while these are technically residential areas, they are very urban. You can’t put one on a side street in Wilmette, it needs to go over next to the Edens somewhere.

New York Gov. Cuomo speaks on coronavirus and George Floyd protests — 6/9/2020

• Video Link

i fully approve of this coronavoiding waste of time in cleveland lol —

— probably nsfw:

https://twitter.com/H_Ram/status/127...951399424?s=20

Updated June 5th, 2020

No New COVID-19 Reported Deaths on Wednesday

The city reported no new coronavirus deaths on Wednesday for the first time since March 12th. While we still have a long way to go in the fight against the virus, this is certainly a happy change from the 500+ daily fatalities the city faced in mid-April.

How is there not a thread on the protests/riots that have been ongoing for the past 2 weeks across the country? Maybe there is and I just can't find it? Just seems odd to come to a forum about cities and not see any mention of it at all...

Go to the Current Events forum in General Discussions - Skybar.

Ok, thanks. It still seems absurd to not have any discussion going in the City Discussion forum. Seems like intentional erasure of a very important topic. We can go on and on about COVID and how it might impact cities in the future, but we can't talk about the impacts of the largest civil rights demonstrations in 60 years? A global movement that seems to have gained some real footing and has potential to create real change isn't worthy of discussion in this highly visible portion of the forum? I mean, even immediate impacts- like the destruction of parts of Minneapolis- seem appropriate for this part of the forum.

:shrug:

It'd get real political, real fast and the moderators, to their credit, don't have a whole lot of tolerance for that outside of the Current Events subforum.

Hell, we can barely maintain rational discussions about most city issues in this subforum.

It can get political real fast hence why discussion of protests should go to CE. People have a hard time leaving political views out of any conversation. At least with COVID, it's a non political issue even if politicized but can me moderated easier.

Find an article about the riots damage and post it, I don't see why it wouldn't be allowed to stay.

Lots of city/urban related stuff discussed on here is highly political.

Food shortages are starting to show up at restaurants here. Beef and cold cuts are hard for fast food places to get.

But Italy and Spain have largely reopened, why would there be a shortage of prosciutto or iberico ham?

Really? That doesn't seem to be the case on my end of the continent.

I don't know, but I should ask the CEO's of Gwendolyn's and Le Métro because they are definitely dropping the ball. The next time I have my servants take me through the drive-thru, don't think I won't ask to speak to a manager.

There was a DJ out and a dance party in London Fields today. It was jam packed. People are so over social distancing here.

I can't wait for the massive increase in cases, followed by the inevitable jump in hospitalizations and finally deaths.

Sorry, but the thought of being in a jam-packed, crowded festival right now gives me the fucking creeps. I don't mind a decent-sized group, but I'd say personal space is something we should all be thankful for in this day and age.

Exactly why restaurants are not likely to be packed full any time soon. Exactly why bars, even when opened up, aren't likely to be full. Same reason why concerts and amusement parks and sporting events aren't likely to be anywhere near capacity in the near to mid-future.


Aaron (Glowrock)

Half full restaurants don’t work. They need to be able to operate normally, and soon. The hypochondriacs can stay home, and if the ones that rely on an older clientele fail that’s also fine.

Your first statement is correct, your second statement is false. If even 10%-20% of consumers continue to stay at home (don't go to restaurants, take vacations, etc) we will be in a steep recession.