[eric_cc]

This reads like total denial. COVID was years ago. The city I’m in bounced back and was mostly normal late 2021. I also was interested in the outcome of Portland’s experiment. It has failed. The war on drugs is anti-liberty and I recognize its racist roots. But racism is no longer a big aspect of the war on drugs as of 2023. Again, denial and excuses. The war on drugs AND Portland’s experiment are BOTH failures. I welcome the next attempt at it.

[swalling]

Which city are you in? All of the major West Coast cities have not had downtown office occupancy return to pre-pandemic rates as far as I am aware.

[jdhzzz]

Not the original commenter, but I took the response regarding bounced back to refer to retail commerce, not office occupancy. I would not expect office occupancy to EVER fully recover in the US.

[skissane]

> I would not expect office occupancy to EVER fully recover in the US.

Remote work was already growing, COVID just accelerated a societal change already in progress. Without COVID, we probably would have eventually ended up in the same place as we are now, it just would have taken longer.

And even years before COVID, I think the US was already ahead of many other countries in this transition. I remember my first business trip to the US in early 2008, I went to Oracle’s office in Orlando, it was near-deserted-I asked where everyone was, I was told “they’re all working from home”. Whereas, back in Australia (Oracle included), there was still a very strong culture of “if I can’t see you at your desk then you aren’t working”. Or similarly, even back then many of the US Oracle executives had remote EAs - remote EAs were not much of a thing in Australia at that time

[immanentize]

>racism is no longer a big aspect of the war on drugs as of 2023.

Maybe in some places that might be true, but people are still in jail from the past.