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Originally Posted by the urban politician
^ Now that’s a winner!
Interesting, developers in Chicago still seem bullish on apartments in Chicago despite the job market, empty trains, etc. I hope their bets pay off and there is a huge turnaround in the next year
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For sure it will be interesting. However, realize that a lot of the industries that are being killed off in various cities currently are mainly retail, hospitality, and restaurant. Retail and restaurant have downsized of course, and also moved online. Not all jobs have gone away, but a lot have.
Obviously, this is not good but in terms of this specific conversation I think it's important. While there have certainly been some losses in the "white collar, work from home" jobs, it is not that much in most cities comparatively. Many of these places are even hiring and expanding work force from numbers a year ago (we are, for example in numerous cities and other companies too).
The types of developments that have gone up in Chicago in the last decade, for the most part, are going to be geared mainly towards people in those types of jobs. Obviously not always the case that someone in retail/hospitality/restaurant cannot afford it but on average it's not going to be the case.
Some of these companies have already gone to full work from home, and others might do it still but I think come summer we'll see people going back to the office in larger capacity in various cities. Downtown - who knows what will happen. My guess is in a year or so, things will look a little more normal again. From what I can see though, people are investing in other neighborhoods now especially as they don't need to be right next to their office. There's a reason why downtown doesn't have a ton of properties being sold above their list price for the last number of months, but areas like Edgewater, Portage Park, Norwood Park, Jefferson park, Lakeview, and various parts of the South Side (near Midway, Morgan Park, Auburn Gresham, etc) have seen many properties selling for above their list prices.
Basically, cities like Chicago, NYC, LA, etc will continue to get even more "white collar" from what's happened since March. In no way am I saying that's a good thing, but also I'm sure we'll see those other industries definitely rebound when people think it's safe to basically spend all day outside. My guess for that is beginning sometime in the summer. Then it'll take a bit for an actual rebound after that - summer 2022?
Again, not saying any of this is good but I'm providing a justification for some developments still going up in various parts of town and other cities. There's also an overrating of assuming people who can work from home will basically abandon and work in anywhere USA. A lot of people still want to have the option of living in a place with certain amenities. A handful of my coworkers in NYC have told me they wanted to move to Chicago now, and we are also looking to move back sometime this year.