What Next TBD: America’s Downtown Ghost Towns

Slate Technology

Slate

Society & Culture, Technology, History

4.6 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2023

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s 2023 – and less than half of all Americans have returned to the office full time. That means U.S. downtowns from San Francisco to New York are emptier than they’ve been in decades. Offices are actually trending away from policies that mandate returning five days a week. So, how can cities get creative – and develop some new ways to boost the local economy? Guest: Henry Grabar, Slate staff writer If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Amicus—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I made you think you was real.
0:02.0	My name is Caden Sinclair.
0:04.0	Some people call us American royalty.
0:06.0	We were Liars.
0:08.0	A new series on Prime Video.
0:10.0	We were happy. We wanted for nothing.
0:12.0	Based on the best-selling novel.
0:15.0	Something terrible happened last summer,
0:17.0	and I have no memory of what or who hurt me.
0:20.0	No one in my family will tell me.
0:22.7	When you're left for dead, you want answers.
0:25.2	We Will Liars. New series, watch now, only on Prime Video.
0:33.6	When was the last time that you, like, took a stroll through an American city's downtown?
0:42.8	Well, in April, I was in Chicago, and I actually went around downtown Chicago with the specific ambition of diagnosing what was going on in downtown Chicago.
0:58.0	That slates Henry Gribar.
1:00.1	He writes about cities and infrastructure, and he used to live in Chicago.
1:04.3	But this story is not about his time as a resident.
1:08.6	It's about something happening in American downtowns right now, a kind of hollowing out,
1:14.6	one that has left office vacancy rates higher than they've been in decades.
1:19.8	Henry's walk in Chicago is just the start of our story.
1:23.5	It was the kind of aimless walk that you take, I feel like you only take as a reporter where you're like, all right, I'm just going to get to the bottom of this and chat with some people.
1:32.2	What did it look like?
	...

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