Yet its not so much fear that is driving the new geography, but the growth in “work from home.” Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom suggests that remote workers will constitute at least 20 percent of the workforce, more than three times the pre-pandemic rate.In a recent survey of over 5,000 employed adults, four in ten American workers expected some level of remote work flexibility post-pandemic. McKinsey & Company reports that more than one-half of surveyed employees would like their employers to adopt more flexible hybrid working models. More than one quarter of employees indicated that “they would consider switching employers if their organization returned to fully on-site work.”

Of course, many people will come back to work in great cities like New York, but likely not near pre-Covid levels. Tech is particularly vulnerable. Studies from the National Bureau of Economic Research and from the University of Chicago suggest that on-line could become the norm for one-third of the workforce, and as high as 50 percent in Silicon Valley.Leading tech firms, including Facebook, Salesforce, and Twitter, now expect a large proportion of their workforce to continue to work remotely after the pandemic. This may just be the beginning: Some three quarters of venture capitalists and tech firm founders, notes one recent survey, expect their ventures to operate totally, or mostly, online.

To many urbanists, not to mention investors in high-end office and luxury towers, this shift may be terrifying but it’s somewhat inevitable; both the Partnership for New York and Bay Area Council survey predict a significant decline in office use.