[macNchz]

Here in NYC I've been to a couple of coworking spaces in the past 6 months and was surprised to find them downright bustling, I had trouble finding a quiet space to work. There are definitely serious problems in commercial real estate here, but the coworking situation was unexpected to me.

[bart_spoon]

The thing about coworking is that, for employees at least, it is an actual solution to some of the problems with remote and in-office work, as opposed to the "hybrid" model which manages to be the worst of all worlds. With coworking, you can still have more flexibility to live where you'd like as opposed to being bound to a specific office and the often high COL and long commutes that come with it. Coworking allows one to still separate their home from their office, which some prefer, and it also allows employees to get out of the house and engage with others, socialize, and engage with their community/city, but you aren't forced to do this at your work which will always be tainted by the financial implications of the employee/employer relationship that loom over it all.

[blevin]

One succesful mode of applying coworking spaces seems to be less for heads-down focus time and more for periodic get-together time for teams. These spaces seem not very good as a full-time micro-office due to the noise issues you mention... but as a place to go whiteboard or empathize they seem quite useful. Bonus if there are nearby interesting excursion options, food courts, recreation, etc. and multiple easy-ish commute options. Part of economic development seems to be exploring options for how to dis- and re-aggregate services like this, providing more and smaller transitions across the tradeoff landscape.

[lazide]

Makes sense. I'm in the middle of finding a standalone office so I can do actual meetings and be productive, but it's tempting to keep the co-working space for exactly what you describe. One day here, another day there type of thing for when those things are helpful.

[dehrmann]

My take is that people move to NYC to be in NYC, so they're more likely to want these interactions. Also, their apartments are tiny.