I read an interesting article recently in Conversation (conversation.com) entitled “Why COVID 19 won’t kill cities”. The article is America centric but it got me thinking. Two experts, John Rennie Short and Michael J Orlando make a very constructive argument explaining that the demise of cities has been predicted before following the introduction of the telephone in 1876, the personal computer in 1971 and following the horrors of 9/11. From a UK perspective we could add the Blitz and the more recent terror attacks in London.
My thought after reading the article is that today it is not only COVID 19 that may cause our cities to die, but a myriad of other influences and changing attitudes that all together could tip the scales.
Even before we all were required to partake in the biggest home working experiment the world has ever seen, large corporations such as Nat West and Lloyds banking group were rationalising their property portfolios, many of which are situated in city centres. Post COVID, this trend seems to be accelerating.
With the added impact of COVID 19, both employer and employee attitudes appear to be changing. Research by Hays show that 55% of employers predict staff will transition to a new era of predominantly flexible working within six months. 51% of staff would like to be working in a ‘hybrid’ model in the future with only 22% wishing to be based fully in the workplace.
A study by CoreNet Global saw 58% of real estate professionals say that the traditional nine to five, Monday to Friday work pattern is a thing of the past and an Adecco Group study showed that 77% of UK employees say a mix of office-based and remote working is the best way forward post COVID-19.
The figures though convincing are not that straight forward with significant divides between the generations, with 34% of Generation Z wanting to work predominantly from the office as opposed to 21% of generations X and Y. Knowledge based workers are also much more inclined to want to work from home with an HSBC study showing 89% of employees consider flexible working to be the biggest motivator to their productivity levels within the workplace.
A new study from Illuminate Ventures showed that 85% of MBA students are considering Entrepreneurship after graduation. This alongside estimates that a half of the global workforce will be gig workers in the future does not bode well for the large corporate glass castles seen in the city centres across the world.
Yet another impact to city centre working is the commute. The commute to and from work was already a key negative even before the additional strains of traveling in close proximity with others became a reality during the pandemic.
The retail industry was also seeing significant changes in shopping behaviour with online sales growing significantly and many stores closing their city centre flagships. Many house hold names, such as Debenhams, Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Burton and Miss Selfridge all disappearing from our high streets. Many of the brands however have survived by being bought over by online powerhouses such as Boohoo. The younger generations especially are very comfortable with buying on the internet.
So in summary could these multiple impacts finally gang up and kill off the city centre? Are some city centres more susceptible to than others? With the hard financial truth of a post COVID economy, I would not like to have to bet either way. This is a hugely important topic when it comes to developing work strategies that are fit for the future and we will be carrying out our own research over the coming months to delve deeper into this subject. In the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts and comments.