Minneapolis’s empty downtown has struggled due to the continuation of remote work.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is trying a unique strategy to get remote workers to return downtown: insulting them.
“I don’t know if you saw this study the other day,” Frey told an audience of 1,000 at Minneapolis Downtown Council’s annual meeting on Wednesday. “What this study clearly showed … is that when people who have the ability to come downtown to an office don’t — when they stay home sitting on their couch, with their nasty cat blanket, diddling on their laptop — if they do that for a few months, you become a loser!”
The comment was a “complete joke” and the study was made-up, the Minneapolis mayor’s office told Fortune, but there are serious facts to back up Frey’s worry about the impact of remote work on Minneapolis’ downtown economy.
The comment was a “complete joke” and the study was made-up, the Minneapolis mayor’s office told Fortune
Ah yes the typical "what? It was just a joke, why's everyone mad at me?" reaction to saying something only an asshole would say, fuck this guy. So sorry rich people are going to make less money off of their real estate investments, boo fucking hoo, how about adapting to technological and cultural changes better? 🤷♂️
Disclosure: I work from home and enjoy it immensely. I never want to work in an office again.
So sorry rich people are going to make less money off of their real estate investments, boo fucking hoo, how about adapting to technological and cultural changes better?
There is that, and some rich people need to be boiled in their own pudding. But this affects all downtown businesses, even mom and pop shops. People will just flee like urban flight did when people went to the suburbs. What's left? I hear about "well, turn office buildings into residential space," but the logistics of that with fire codes, building codes, and urban planning are not drop in replacements. They can be done, but at great cost.
We're looking at an urban decay beyond what we've planned for. Minneapolis is terrified to become another Detroit or Gary Indiana.
It doesn’t have to all be bad. If the city could get the head out of their ass, they could sort out the codes and get it done. Let people who work downtown live downtown. Shrink the driving and parking infrastructure, turn it into a walkable, bikeable area.
Rents/leases could go way down for the mom and pop shops that can survive in the new design.
Other businesses can move further out where the people are, so the suburbs can become more walkable.
If we made the focus on reducing waste, and making things easy for everyone, rather than how to make rich people richer, theres lots of solutions.
but the logistics of that with fire codes, building codes, and urban planning are not drop in replacements. They can be done, but at great cost.
Most of the buildings were talking about are made to accommodate stricter codes already. The problem isn't really at all the cost of retrofitting them, so much as it is the lower rent/sf price they can charge for it.
Everything else you mentioned is fair, but the only reason people would rather leave urban centers if they don't need to be there is the cost of living there. No matter how you slice it, the biggest obstacle to dense residential city centers is the established expectation of higher ROI on the space and the over-leveraged building owners who can't afford to charge less for risk of defaulting on their properties.
This is what happens when your education is CEO-pandering articles on Forbes and Fortune shoving "the workers are the problem and work-from-home is lazy and will kill your business" agenda so they get more views
Presumably he is invested in getting people back into the office, so you would have thought that he would have tried something a little bit more likely to succeed than insulting people.
Politicians these days are just bad at being corrupt.
This is the guy who showed up to a protest for the murder of George Floyd and everyone switched to chanting "Go home Jacob, go home" and "shame". Dude just sucks.
He seems like an OK mayor for the city tbh but shit has gone downhill under him like the George Floyd thing which Domino'd to chaos over time.
This is probably a cascade from businesses wanting to end their lease on downtown offices, which is due to remote workers, which is why this dude is spazzing. It's directly affecting the city income, budget, planning, etc. Just pushing it more towards chaos.
I see the reasons, but instead of putting everything back maybe try to move forward? I'm no city planner so I have no idea what another solution would be. Cheaper business startup costs to increase local markets?
A city is sort of like a business because there are budgets, income, expenses, etc. When you have no offices being leased, you will, as the city, lose.
Addition: he said it was a joke. It could've been. It could not have been. As I said before, he's done an OK job. I'd feel inclined to belive it was a joke in poor taste. Perhaps a half joke. Idk man. It's not super important in the grand scheme.
Good god. Thank you for bringing a sane, thoughtful take on the situation.
A city is sort of like a business because there are budgets, income, expenses, etc. When you have no offices being leased, you will, as the city, lose.
Yes. There are real monetary issues here and memes aren't going to change that overnight.
People just don’t want to spend what little time we have on this earth commuting, paying $10 for a shitty Subway sandwich for lunch, and listening to Elderly Manager Brian talk about his glory days to a captive audience.
You're 100% correct, and it's kinda sad, really... for so many members of a generation to be so consistently and relentlessly stupid toxic that its name becomes synonymous with "douchebag." What a fuckin accomplishment.
If your business model is being a city that has a bunch of office buildings that workers commute into from surrounding suburbs every day, and then one day, people decide that they don't need to do that commute, kinda dicks up your business model.
Definitely the white centrist boomers living around Minneapolis. It was the time when rent control and replacing the police department with a department of public safety was on the ballot. And Frey was against both of those things.
I remember talking with some of my elderly in-laws who all live in south Minneapolis. They all voted for him. Plus with ranked choice voting, people had to specifically take him off the ballot in order to win.
Yeah.... No. The real losers are the asshats that have to get up, shower, get lunch together, drive to a factory, inhale shit all day, fantasize about unrealistic things like unicorns, homeownership, and retirement, and then drive home.
Source: Me. Am loser, driving, breathing shit, and all with no cat blanket...
Man, if you become a loser in a few months what does that make me since I've been fully remote for six years, and more than 50% remote for eleven years.
Also, here's the problem as defined by Minneapolis:
Gen Z prefers laptop diddling and nasty cat blankets to going out
What does "going out" entail? Visiting a bar and overpaying for drinks in a noisy bar? Overpaying at a restaurant that doesn't even have plates?
Gen Z doesn't have any money. Going out requires money. So unless they're gonna subsidize meals at restaurants, people will stay home and diddle on their laptops because at least that doesn't cost money.
I graduated into a job market still largely crushed by the dotcom bubble bursting, had my entire life and career path destroyed by the GFC, then another destroyed by covid.
Let me just spend a third of my monthly food allowance on food I can make better myself to please the downtown economy god, I guess lmfao.
so does corruption in science. once again, you have capitalism to thank for that. Publication pressure everyone's heard of, but journals don't like to publish papers that simply refute or fail to reproduce another lab's results - and without that, it's not science, it's just fantasy; without it, there can be no path forward.
I can't read this article, but I've seen (and posted) other articles about this. Governor Walz responded with "I guess I'm a nasty cat blanket person then". The DFL isn't a sack of shit, but Mayor Frey sure is. And he got re elected last time because he's about as conservative as can win here and the downtown businesses threw a bunch of money in his campaign.
The whole back to the office argument is stupid. Rather than trying to force people back businesses should realize this is an opportunity to decrease their outgoings. Sell the giant waste of space office in an expensive part of town, and just carry on doing what you're already doing.
I made them put that I am a permanent homework in my contract so they can't make me go back into that office. But they still maintain the physical building which is mad. Now they're just getting the worst of both worlds, their employees are removed yet their paying for a building. About a year before the lockdown they replaced the expensive staffed canteen with vending machines, and that pissed everyone off. They still haven't undone that yet so why should I go back?
Because of how property tax works in the U.S, denser areas pay more property tax and cost less in relative terms with regards to infrastructure, so it's a pretty safe bet that he's going to be losing money here.
Except for when the city goes bankrupt, he's not personally on the hook - the tax payers get to absorb that loss instead.
Property tax in the U.S is pretty dumb in general to be honest. Should probably replace it with LVT tbh
There is a growing resentment from traditional labor which cannot work remotely against the knowledge labor force which is able to work remotely. If the educational divide between GOP and Dems is fleeting, he's betting on his party's historic strength.
Working remotely has let me support local businesses more than before. I'm helping out a community I want to live in, not one I'm forced to commute to and just work in.
Sorry, you aren’t spending your money the right way. Private equity groups such as Blackstone have rigged the economy in their favor through capital investment and regulatory capture. They are entitled to your money and major entirely foreseeable shifts in the way the peasants toil are no excuse for them not getting it.
If "downtown" were a carless urban greenscape, it would be thriving, particularly if folks had control over their own busy schedules. Instead, this idiot presides over a traffic-jammed, smog-filled, noisy, ugly, colorless concrete jungle and he's sad it's dying? Yeah, because most cities are hideous blight zones.
Oh, the loser who was on the Minneapolis city council for years before becoming mayor and then doing shit-all for a couple years before multiple cops in his city murdered George Floyd? The city that had so many civil rights violations that they're now operating under a consent decree? Why should I care what that guy says?
Frey really wants workers downtown proping up the commercial real estate market and paying that 12% - 15% downtown restaurant tax mpls has when we get lunch.
Or maybe he just wants less votes because nearly everyone likes wfh except the owner class, and they like it for themselves, just not for their indentured servants.
..and run companies from home, we are nurses, doctors, lawyers, customer service, support techs, and logistics. We work 8, 10, 12+ hours to help build companies we will never benefit from. Jacob, we don't give two fucks about you either. What's your point?
I've been a loser my whole life but so has everyone else. It's time for use to steer the ship. 🚢 ⚓
Its a shame, because by and large it looks like his politics don't suck. But the guy just can't help but get sucked in by corporate real estate tycoons because... that's how you get the money to run for Mayor, I guess.
Ways to get me to support your downtown economy: insulting me? Lol. I live in a red state and recently got a remote job... so glad I can spend less money on the local economy by staying at home. Instead of being forced to spend money at local businesses, I spend it on people/businesses near or far away that share my world views, who I -want- to support. No longer who I -have- to support. Screw the conservative economy.
these guys who criticize typically have always had the choice to remote work in their entire careers, have nice corner offices, can just meet with executive all career looking and do fun things. etc
I'm more of a dog person, and I'm diddling myself. Besides that I'm still way more productive than my colleague that enjoys excessive socializing at the office coffee machine.
While still a stupid thing to say, I am concerned that this quote was mildly taken out of context. It was made at a business luncheon, where he was addressing downtown business owners. I believe "you" in "you become a loser" meant "if people work from home, you downtown business owners become the losers here." But yeah, "nasty cat blanket" is a classist and elitist statement from someone who has a stereotype image in their head.
Link to that part of the speech, sorry it's from a FOX affiliate.
The comment was a “complete joke” and the study was made-up, the Minneapolis mayor’s office told Fortune, but there are serious facts to back up Frey’s worry about the impact of remote work on Minneapolis’ downtown economy.
Really now? It's all bullshit, but its really real too you know!
When it comes to capitalism, I'm happy to be a loser. Proud, even. What you don't see, very often, however, is people actually firing themselves like this guy just did...
This guy seems like the type that pretends to be on the left, but will switch to the Republicans at the first sign of trouble. He is absolutely hated by his entire left-leaning constituency. Including by all his city reps you can see in the video, their faces clearly show they think he's an idiot.