Flawed rent and tax forecasts fester wild ‘apocalypse’ predictions

Published

2 years ago

July 10, 2023

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Do you want to believe that New York City is in an urban doom cycle?

Its easy if you just ignore indisputable facts.

Take major crimes, an NYPD metric thats distorted upward by skyrocketing auto theft even as the crimes we fear most murder, shootings, and rape continue to ebb lower from last years totals.

Surprise! Murders are on track to be 40% fewer this year than they were in crime-busting Rudy Giulianis last two years as mayor when they were 673 and 649 respectively.

At the midpoint of 2023, weve had 193 murders, on track for a total of around 400 down from 488 in 2021 and 438 in 2022.

Ah, but there were only 319 murders in 2019!

True, but nobody foresaw the end of the world in 2010 when murders jumped to 536 over 471 in 2009 even though then-Mayor Michael Bloombergs stop-and-frisk was in full force.

As the late, great Yankees skipper Casey Stengel often said, you can look it up.

Misperceptions of crime do have a rational basis, though: an ever-increasing street disorder that might not kill but threatens us in other ways lawless cyclists, open-air drug use, unchecked shoplifting, and raving maniacs who might or might not come at us with knives.

The sense of a city sprung and lurching, beyond the governments will or ability to rein in, creates a mood where actual violent crime may seem more prevalent than it is.

But the supposed inevitability of urban collapse due to remote work another article of faith among New Yorks dark prophets has no visible basis other than suspect computer models.

Never mind that sidewalks are packed, subway riderships up and apartments are in more demand than ever were doomed!

A recent, endlessly cited paper titled Work From Home and the Office Real Estate Apocalypse by three learned scholars Arpit Gupta of NYU and Vrinda Mittal and Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh of Columbia University declared that fewer employees working in offices portend the collapse of property values which in turn portends the collapse of the municipal treasury and, by implication, the end of life on earth as we know it.

The portrayal of a city in its death throes casts a destructive damper on the Big Apple as it continues its fitful recovery from the COVID pandemic.

Dystopian claims take on an aura of unchallengeable truth for those impressed with mathematical equations unintelligible to anyone without a Ph. D.

Who could argue with them?

Well, maybe anybody who ever got a sunburn after a computer model warned of downpours.

The authors are great with numbers but out of touch with Manhattan real-estate reality.

For starters, they rely on Kastle Systems, a security-services provider, to quantify todays supposedly paltry physical office presence a mere 50%, Kastle says.

But Kastles survey has been widely debunked for its inadequate, worst-case sample.

It covers mostly second-tier office buildings but not the superior buildings owned by the citys 10 largest landlords such as SL Green, Vornado Realty Trust, and Related Companies.

Those so-called Class-A and A-plus properties are the heart of Manhattans half-billion-square-foot office inventory.

Theyre much more than half full because theyre leased to companies that require the most office attendance financial institutions and law firms.

The Real Estate Board of New York and the Partnership for New York City report considerably higher occupancy than Kastles up to 90% in some premier locations.

But theyd undercut Apocalypse right at the starting gate.

Sure, commercial landlords are under pressure.

Owners of some older buildings could face bankruptcy.

But even if the overall value of New York City office locations falls 43.9% by 2029 an Apocalypse projection shared by no other analysis would it be the end of the world for the city as a whole?

Maybe it would if there were no actual people involved such as elected officials, landlords, other business leaders, and people just sick of working remotely to arrest the decline.

Just as Tom Hanks as Capt. Chesley Sullenberger shredded investigators attempt to blame him for the crash computers showed could have been avoided Lets get serious you have not taken into account the human factor so does Apocalypse fall apart the moment whats now called human agency is added.

Maybe more employees will come back to offices a trend thats gaining traction as bosses read them the riot act.

Landlords might find that they need as much space as before even if employees only come in three or four days a week.

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Maybe owners will find ways to convert more office buildings to other uses than is currently thought possible.

Maybe another Wall Street boom will impel more companies to expand, as private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice just did by doubling its square footage in a move to 550 Madison Ave.

The assumption of shrunken tax revenue is based on the notion that buildings will lose value due to remote work.

But will they?

SL Green just sold a 49% share of 245 Park Ave. to Japans Mori Trust in a deal that values the nearly 60-year-old property at $2 billion.

Thats hardly a catastrophic plunge from the towers last sale price of $2.2 billion in 2017 when the market was at its peak.

Comptroller Brad Lander reported last week to some surprise that office-building values actually increased from 2021 to 2022 to 97% of pre-pandemic levels.

He wrote that even if office values were to fall by 40%, it would cost the city no more than $1.1 billion in annual property tax revenue by 2027 a mere 3% of all property tax collections, only 1% of the overall budget and well within the range in which tax revenues can ordinarily vary.

For all its intimidating graphs and equations, Apocalypse works the same sensationalist street as alarmist, headline-grabbing forecasts by credentialed experts that turned out to be bogus.

There was no population bomb that caused global famine as foreseen by Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne Howland Ehrlich in 1968; no Great Depression of 1990 as predicted by best-selling economist Ravi Batra in 1987; and no World War III with Japan as envisioned by geopolitical analysts George Friedman and Meredith LeBard

Therell be no real estate apocalypse, either.

Hold the taps for New York City, psychos, and all.

Theres nothing certain about our future, of course.

But one day well look back on the Doom Loop and marvel that it panicked so many of us who are glad to be here and plan to stay.

UK

Widow has ‘no regrets’ over assisted suicide of husband despite ‘ongoing’ police investigation

Published

2 hours ago

April 17, 2025

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Widow has 'no regrets' over assisted suicide of husband despite 'ongoing' police investigation

A woman who is under police investigation after assisting the suicide of her husband at Dignitas in Switzerland has told Sky News she has no regrets.

Louise Shackleton has spoken publicly for the first time since her husband’s death in December, as parliament prepares to vote again on legislation to introduce assisted dying in England and Wales.

Mrs Shackleton surrendered herself to police after returning from Switzerland having seen her husband Anthony die. He had been suffering with motor neurone disease for six years.

“I have committed a crime, which I have admitted to, of assisting him by simply pushing him on to a plane and being with him, which I don’t regret for one moment. He was my husband and I loved him,” she said.

“We talked at length over two years about this. What he said to me on many occasions is ‘look at my options, look at what my options are. I can either go there and I can die peacefully, with grace, without pain, without suffering or I could be laid in a bed not being able to move, not even being able to look at anything unless you move my head’.

“He didn’t have options. What he wanted was nothing more than a good death.”

The law in the UK prohibits people from assisting in the suicide of others, but prosecutions have been rare.

In a statement, a North Yorkshire Police spokesman told Sky News: “The investigation is ongoing. There is nothing further to add at this stage.”

The next vote on the assisted dying bill for England and Wales has been delayed by three weeks to give MPs time to consider amendments.

The legislation would permit a person who is terminally ill with less than six months to live to legally end their life after approval by two doctors and an expert panel.

‘He was at total peace with his decision’

Mrs Shackleton says she saw her husband “physically and mentally” relax once on the flight to Switzerland.

She said: “We had the most wonderful four days.

“He was laughing. He was at total peace with his decision.

“It was in those four days that I realised that he wanted the peaceful death more than he wanted to suffer and stay with me, which was hard, but that’s how resolute he was in having this peace.

“I was his wife, we’d been together 25 years, we’d known each other since we were 18. I couldn’t do anything else but help him.”

‘We need to safeguard people’

She said the hardest part of the journey came after her husband’s death.

“There was this panic and this fear that I was leaving him,” she said. “That was a horrific experience.

“If the law had changed in this country, I would have been with family, family would have been with us, family would’ve been with him. But as it was, that couldn’t happen.”

Opponents to the assisted dying bill have raised concerns about the safety of vulnerable people and the risk of coercion and a change in attitudes toward the elderly, seriously ill and disabled.

They say improvements to palliative care should be a priority.

“I think that we need to safeguard people,” said Mrs Shackleton. “I think that sometimes we need to suffer other people’s choices, and when I mean suffer I mean we have to acknowledge that whilst we’re not comfortable with those, that we need to respect other people, other people wishes.”

Anthony, who died aged 59, was a furniture restorer who had earned worldwide recognition for making rocking horses.

“I think the measure of the man is that nobody has ever said a bad word about him in the whole of his life because he was just so caring and giving,” his widow said.

‘This is about a dying person’s choice’

She said she had chosen to speak publicly because of a promise she had made him.

“I felt that my husband’s journey shouldn’t be in vain. We discussed this on our last day and my husband made me promise to tell his story.

“He told me to fight and the simple thing that I’m fighting for is people to have the choice.

“This is about a dying person’s choice to either follow their journey through with disease or to die peacefully when they want to, on their terms, and have a good death. It’s that simple.”

Entertainment

Gossip Girl and Buffy star Michelle Trachtenberg died as a result of complications from diabetes, medical examiner says

Published

4 hours ago

April 17, 2025

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Gossip Girl and Buffy star Michelle Trachtenberg died as a result of complications from diabetes, medical examiner says

Gossip Girl actress Michelle Trachtenberg died as a result of complications from diabetes, New York City’s medical examiner has said.

The 39-year-old, who was also known for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harriet the Spy, was found dead at her home in New York City after officers responded to a 911 call on 26 February.

According to a source quoted by Sky News’ US partner network NBC, she had recently received a liver transplant.

At the time of her death, officials said no foul play was suspected, and the medical examiner’s office had listed her death as “undetermined”.

Trachtenberg’s family had objected to a post-mortem, which the medical examiner’s office honoured because there was no evidence of criminality.

But the medical examiner’s office said in a statement on Thursday it amended the cause and manner of death for the actress following a review of laboratory test results.

Trachtenberg was best known for her role as Dawn Summers in Buffy, the younger sister of the title character played by Sarah Michelle Gellar between 2000 and 2003.

Between 2008 and 2012, she played Georgina Sparks on Gossip Girl – the malevolent rival of Blake Lively’s Serena van der Woodsen and Leighton Meester’s Blair Waldorf.

She also starred in the movie 17 Again, where she portrayed daughter Maggie O’Donnell, comedy film Eurotrip and the 2005 teen film Ice Princess.

In 2001, she received a Daytime Emmy nomination for hosting Discovery’s Truth or Scare.

Environment

New off-road concept that ditches screens proves it: Genesis GETS luxury

Published

4 hours ago

April 17, 2025

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New off-road concept that ditches screens proves it: Genesis GETS luxury

Genesis' X Gran Equator Concept may point the way to a production vehicle

Luxury is a tough concept to pin down, but being constantly connected to work, kids, and telemarketers ain’t it. Genesis gets it, and its latest ultra-luxe off-road concept ditches screens in favor of the view out the windshield – and it’s got enough off-road chops to promise two things about those views: they’re real, and they’re spectacular!

Genesis calls its new X Gran Equator concept an elegant overlander for the modern explorer that marries on-road sophistication with off-road resilience. Whatever they call it, the 4×4’s dashboard is delightfully free from sweeping touchscreens, mood lighting, and any hint of telephonic integration.

Indeed, the interior looked so much like something from the 90s that I double and triple-checked the date on the press release. But don’t take my word for it, check it for yourself.

It’s fantastic

If you zoom in, you can see screens in the instruments. High-definition roll and pitch displays, altimeters, and probably other outdoorsy, overland-y things that the sort of people who want to do that in what would surely be a very well-appointed six-figure SUV for a similarly very well-heeled buyer.

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And that buyer? They wouldn’t miss the screen, because the screen doesn’t matter. The real show is out the front windshield – and if someone from the office calls to interrupt the vibe, you won’t even know. I know I’d pay extra for that … and I can’t imagine I’m alone.

This is how Genesis explains it:

Inside, the X Gran Equator Concept orchestrates contrast between analog architecture and digital technologies, crafting a space that feels both functional and evocative. At the center of the cabin is a four-circle display cluster on the center stack, inspired by the vintage camera dials. The interior design features contrasting colors and shapes, with a preference for geometric over organic elements. The dashboard’s linear architecture and absence of decorations focus the driver’s attention on the journey, while swiveling front seats and modular storage solutions enhance practicality.

GENESIS

Genesis didn’t provide pictures of those swiveling seats or modular storage compartments on this concept, but the X Gran Equator Concept will make its in-person debut April 18th at the Genesis booth during the 2025 New York International Auto Show.

After the show, the company will move the concept to a display at Genesis House New York in the Meatpacking District, where it will stay “in residence” until the end of July. If you’re out that way for either event, take a picture of it and tag Electrek on Instagram!