Dror’s Substack | Substack

Instead, competition in the office world shifted to aspects that were previously overlooked or unimportant: interior design, community, social vibe, digital experience layer, sustainability, network vs. single location, symbolic value, and activism.

And the "who else" can now be isolated. I don't need to live in a city of 8 million people in order to be close to 5,000-50,000 cool/smart/specialized people that are relevant for me and my work. It is now possible for all of us to live in a much smaller town, enjoy each other, and have access to enough big-city-caliber services to be happy and pro... See more

The same thing will now happen to cities. A lot of the old dimensions have become "good enough" — you can access a decent job, get Amazon deliveries, have your artisanal coffee, give your kids good education.... in so many different places, easily.

What's interesting in the current moment, with the internet truly giving talent a CHOICE, is that cities will become more important because — working from home makes it even more necessary and fun to live in a relatively dense area.

All these things are no longer "deal breakers", even if differences in quality persist between cities. The real differentiation then shifts to other dimensions of the "product": How walkable it is? How beneficial is the tax system? Who else is there?

Within cities, medieval land uses will also make a comeback: more offices and workshops will be located within homes. More commercial activities will be in pop-up fairs rather than evergreen locations. And all this will happen in the context of other Medieval fixtures: plagues, fragmentation of trade and supply chains, bigotry, lower economic mobil... See more