1.22.25 - What Doom Loop? Healthy Office Rentals and Tax Assessments Show Manhattan’s Strength.
In 2022, Columbia University professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh argued that the rise of remote work would put cities into what he called “an urban doom loop.” The value of office buildings would plummet, taxes paid by those buildings would slide and cities would be forced to cut services, sending residents and businesses fleeting.
In June of the following year, he and two colleagues wrote a paper arguing the doom loop had already begun for New York City and drawing parallels to the fiscal crisis of the 1970s.