Imagine a New York City Not Dominated by Real Estate

“Zoom showed society a different way of relating and working. . . . Are those people going to come back from the Hamptons, from Aspen, from Florida? . . . If you were to see a 15 percent decline of people coming back to New York City, that would have a devastating impact . . .

To my private-sector friends, I say, you have to be part of this. . . . Say to your workforce, ‘ By Labor Day, everyone is back to the office.’ We need that volume to support the restaurants, the shops, the services. . . . It’s not just about your business. It’s about all the spin-off economic activity that your workers bring to the surrounding community.”

You probably missed Andrew Cuomo’s July 28 remarks to the Association for a Better New York, one of his last gubernatorial acts before announcing his long-overdue resignation. Cuomo has resigned as governor (I know I just wrote that, but it’s fun to repeat it), but the speech was a revealing sign of how deeply concerned New York’s political and economic elite are about the economic impacts of remote work — and how few solutions they have beyond forcing people back into offices they no longer need.

Manhattan skyscrapers may not go the way of Borders bookstores, your local newspaper, and other businesses ruined by online alternatives. But it’s clear that Zoom poses a major threat…