The Internet’s affect on the Built Environment

There’s this underground anarchist art/music/film/philosophy festival called the Bombay Beach Biennale — This past April I had the pleasure of ranting to a packed house at the Museum of Unwanted Architecture. A lot of nascent ideas around the nature of cities, the affect of the Internet on the built environment, the role of platforms and content, and other thoughts came together in an extemporaneous talk, and it’s my favorite to date — If you liked the post on Why Amazon Called everyone Back to the Office, I think you’ll dig this. Mind the expletives, it was an intense weekend.

That was a tweet I posted the other day thinking about how it looked like the demand for office-centric cities was about to drop through the floor. And how the Internet had made so many features of the 20th century American city obsolete — libraries, shopping centers, banks, movie theaters, government services and office buildings. Meanwhile, access to the internet, and the features of this nascent technology are getting better every minute. Now with the promise of AI peaking above the horizon like the morning sun on a new day, we think it’s time to seriously consider the Internet’s affect on the built environment.

If you designed a city today, knowing that most of the services that were only a short time ago exclusive to cities — banking, high paying jobs, news, information, culture, entertainment, etc — were now primarily online, what would that city look like? What’s at the heart of the City? Why do we come together if not for movie premiers, shopping, sharing the news, visiting the bank, talking to our colleagues? If we took a fresh look at places where we come together, would they look anything like what cities do today?

“What if the future of cities wasn’t cities?”

Matai fed my tweet to ChatGPT — what it said stopped me in my tracks:

“If the future of cities wasn’t cities, it could mean that there is a shift towards more decentralized living arrangements, with people choosing to live in smaller, more self-sufficient communities. This could be driven by a variety of factors such as the desire for more sustainable living, the availability of technology that allows for remote work and communication, or a desire for more personal space and independence.

In such a scenario, it is possible that people would be more connected through digital means than physical proximity, and the way we define “city” and “urban” might need to change. Rather than a single, centralized urban area, there might be a network of smaller communities linked together by digital communication and transportation infrastructure.

This shift could have both positive and negative impacts. On the one hand, it could lead to more sustainable living, with smaller communities able to produce their own food, generate their own energy, and reduce their carbon footprint. It could also lead to a greater sense of community and local identity, with people more connected to their neighbors and the places they live.

On the other hand, it could also lead to greater inequality and fragmentation, with some communities thriving while others struggle. It could also make it more difficult to provide services and infrastructure at scale, as smaller communities may not have the resources or expertise to provide certain amenities.

Overall, the future of cities is uncertain, but it is clear that the way we live and work is changing rapidly. Whether or not cities as we know them today will continue to be the dominant form of human settlement remains to be seen.”

I don’t think I could have said it better myself — Which I guess is the point, and maybe means I might not have a job for long :)

Would we need massive subway and commuter rail systems? Huge parking garages and faceless office buildings? 5,000 person night clubs and dangerous car-laden street? Or could we live more intimately and connected. Would we be served better to invest in local agriculture, community spaces? Maybe prioritizing joy and belonging over production and efficiency?

Chat GPT’s concern for inequality and fragmentation is important and touching. But as we’ve been studying the trend towards decentralized cities for several years, I look at this as potential for choice and better equality than we have now.

The old system is that everyone gets the same thing on the federal level, or on the state level — healthcare, guns, education, funding for social services — it’s a one size fits all approach. And it’s creating a lot of tension. Why are we trying to force a single ideology and push a bill onto someone who doesn’t want it. Why can’t we have communities — either in smaller groups, perhaps unbound by geography- bond together and have the services that they collectively fund follow their group ethos? If one group wants to pay low taxes and have no healthcare and limited education, and another group wants to collectivize and share resources for common healthcare and education, why wouldn’t we let that happen? The internet has made it possible to find each other, get to scale, and collectivize outside of geography. The important thing to make this work is individual agency and the fluidity to move between groups.

This goes with my strong belief that the best solution, the equitable, diverse and caring community based on love will win in the end. Trying to force people into this viewpoint wont work, but living our best lives will create something so compelling that it becomes undeniable and brings others in.

So as cities continue to get unbundled, and as the aging urban infrastructure gets less appealing, don’t forget why we are here, why we came together in the first place. We are believers in communities but not attached to urban infrastructure. We dream of cities designed for chance encounters, deep conversations, intangible connection, and somatic experiences you can’t find online.

The city of the future might look more like a bespoke community-development ensconced in nature, holding a dynamic, digitally-connected, educated polis. Perhaps based in one place, but with an online citizenry continuously assembling and reassembling, based on affinity, desire, or purpose. Maybe the city will be distributed across many places with people from around the world, living locally, but sharing culture, connection, and a sense of belonging globally. With conferences, hacker houses, festivals, work-cations and projects like Afropolitan, Zazalu, Kift and Cabin, — maybe it’s happening already.

As GPT said, maybe it’s time to redefine “urban” and “city” and to question what we have assumed is the only way to live, turning what could be a dark and scary time for cities into a moment of rebirth and a daring dream of what’s possible.

What If the Future of Cities… Wasn’t Cities? was originally published in Kift on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Articles

[Organized by date with newest first]

Title: San Francisco office vacancy rate hits a new record high

Date: April 11, 2023

Outlet: SF Gate

Description: The vacancy rate in the first quarter of 2023 climbed to 29.4%, up from 27.6% in the fourth quarter of 2022 — and far surpassing the previous pre-pandemic high of 19.1% during the dot-com bust in 2003. But this is unlikely to be a record for long.

Link: https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/sf-office-vacancy-rate-hits-record-high-17889017.php

Title: Salesforce lists its remaining space at Salesforce East for sublease

Date: April 11, 2023

Outlet: San Francisco Business Times

Description: Salesforce is ditching the last of its remaining office space at 350 Mission St., listing 104,051 square feet for sublease at the tower known as Salesforce East.

Link: https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2023/04/11/s-f-salesforce-office-tower-sublease.html

Title: Downtown San Francisco Whole Foods Closing a Year After Opening

Date: April 10, 2023

Outlet: The San Francisco Standard

Description: One of the largest supermarkets in Downtown San Francisco — the Whole Foods Market at Eighth and Market streets — intends to shut down at the close of business Monday just a little more than a year after the store opened.

Link: https://sfstandard.com/business/downtown-san-francisco-whole-foods-market-closing/

Title: American offices are half-empty. That could be the next big risk for banks.

Date: April 10, 2023

Outlet: CNN

Description: Investors and regulators, on high alert for signs of trouble in the financial system following recent bank failures, are now homing in on the downturn in the $20 trillion US commercial real estate market.

Link: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/10/business/commercial-real-estate-banks-offices/index.html

Title: A $1.5 Trillion Wall of Debt Is Looming for US Commercial Properties

Date: April 8, 2023

Outlet: Bloomberg

Description: Almost $1.5 trillion of US commercial real estate debt comes due for repayment before the end of 2025. The big question facing those borrowers is who’s going to lend to them?

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-08/a-1-5-trillion-wall-of-debt-is-looming-for-us-commercial-properties#xj4y7vzkg?leadSource=uverify%20wall

Title: Blackstone Sells OC Office Towers With a Big Price Cut

Date: April 7, 2023

Outlet: Commercial Observer

Description: Office trades for 36% less than what Blackstone paid to acquire it in 2014.

Link: https://commercialobserver.com/2023/04/california-blackstone-office-loss-sale-price-cut

Title: Adams Orders New Round of Budget Cuts That Could Erode City Services

Date: April 4, 2023

Outlet: NYTimes

Description: The Police Department, schools and CUNY won’t be spared in latest round of New York City budget reductions.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/nyregion/nyc-budget-cuts-eric-adams.html

Title: San Francisco could be on the verge of collapse. What should California do about it?

Date: April 1, 2023

Outlet: San Francisco Chronicle

Description: Experts say post-pandemic woes stemming from office workers staying home instead of commuting into the city could send San Francisco into a “doom loop” that would gut its tax base, decimate fare-reliant regional transit systems like BART and trap it in an economic death spiral.

Link: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/downtown-san-francisco-17852552.php

Title: Cities are struggling. San Francisco could be in for the biggest ‘doom loop’ of all

Date: March 30, 2023

Outlet: San Francisco Chronicle

Description: San Francisco could be facing a ‘doom loop’ scenario leading to a fiscal calamity for the city.

Link: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/city-economy-doom-loop-17846412.php

Title: Cash flow from Blackstone portfolio no longer covers debt payments: Moody’s

Date: March 28, 2023

Outlet: The Real Deal

Description: Ratings agency downgrades debt, citing 11 properties’ “declining performance”.

Link: https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2023/03/28/blackstone-owes-47-more-on-portfolio-than-its-worth-moodys/

Title: Commercial Property Debt Creates More Bank Worries

Date: March 21, 2023

Outlet: Wall Street Journal

Description: Large number of office defaults could force banks to mark down value of these and other loans.

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/commercial-property-debt-creates-more-bank-worries-b36184ba

Title: More than 800 stores are closing across the US in 2023. Here’s the full list.

Date: March 10, 2023

Outlet: Business Insider

Description: More than a dozen major retailers are expected to close at least 800 US stores in 2023. Amazon, Bath & Body Works, Macy’s, Walmart, and Big Lots are among the chains shutting down stores. Bed Bath & Beyond is planning to close 416 locations — the most of any retailers on the list.

Link: https://www.businessinsider.com/stores-closing-in-2023-list

Title: Empty Office Buildings Squeeze City Budgets as Property Values Fall

Date: March 3, 2023

Outlet: NYTimes

Description: A looming hit to tax revenues puts pressure on Congress to deliver relief.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/business/pandemic-city-budgets.html

Title: Return To Office Plans For Every Fortune 100 [March 2023]

Date: March 1, 2023

Outlet: Build Remote

Description: In early 2020, the office was turned off like a light switch. Anyone who could work from home was instructed or recommended to do just that. This was a temporary measure to fight a pandemic. But the temporary shift from in-office work to remote work turned into a massive, unintentional experiment to test where and how work could be done.

Link: https://buildremote.co/companies/return-to-office/

Title: Amazon Pausing Construction of Washington, D.C.-Area Second Headquarters

Date: March 3, 2023

Outlet: Wall Street Journal

Description: The company will hold off on breaking ground on the project’s second phase

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-pausing-construction-of-washington-d-c-area-second-headquarters-b62ef6df?mod=mhp

Title: Blackstone Defaults on Nordic CMBS as Property Values Wobble

Date: March 2, 2023

Outlet: Bloomberg

Description: Blackstone Inc. defaulted on a €531 million ($562 million) bond backed by a portfolio of Finnish offices and stores as rising interest rates hit European property values.

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-02/blackstone-defaults-on-531-million-nordic-property-backed-cmbs?leadSource=uverify%20wall

Title: PIMCO’s Columbia Property Trust defaults on $1.7B of office loans

Date: February 22, 2023

Outlet: The Real Deal

Description: PIMCO-controlled Columbia Property Trust has defaulted on $1.7 billion of loans tied to seven office buildings across the country.

Link: https://therealdeal.com/national/2023/02/22/pimcos-columbia-property-trust-defaults-on-1-7b-of-office-loans/

Title: Office Landlord Defaults Are Escalating as Lenders Brace for More Distress

Date: February 21, 2023

Outlet: Wall Street Journal

Description: Delinquency rate for office loans that back commercial-mortgage-backed securities remains low, but it is heading higher

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/office-landlord-defaults-are-escalating-as-lenders-brace-for-more-distress-894938c0?mod=mhp

Title: One of the biggest landlords in Los Angeles just defaulted on $755 million in loans for two skyscrapers as remote work keeps offices vacant

Date: February 14, 2023

Outlet: Fortune

Description: Office vacancies have increased across the country since the pandemic made working remotely more routine.

Link: https://fortune.com/2023/02/14/remote-work-los-angeles-office-building-default-brookfield/amp/

Title: What Would It Take to Turn More Offices Into Housing?

Date: December 27, 2022

Outlet: NYTimes

Description: Vast amounts of empty real estate are a crisis for building owners. But some politicians and business leaders hope they can be converted into something new — and transform downtown neighborhoods.

Link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/business/what-would-it-take-to-turn-more-offices-into-housing.html

Title: Millions at stake as downtown S.F. properties appeal tax bills

Date: December 23, 2022

Outlet: San Francisco Examiner

Description: A growing number of San Francisco’s commercial property owners are appealing the assessed value, including some high-profile companies looking for tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks. If all of the current appeals were granted, the difference would be more than $300 million in reduced property taxes.

Link: https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/the-city/millions-at-stake-as-downtown-sf-properties-appeal-tax-bills/article_0e421550-7d6f-11ed-acc4-4bf3f6b5ae63.html

Title: How a ‘Golden Era for Large Cities’ Might Be Turning Into an ‘Urban Doom Loop’

Date: November 30, 2022

Outlet: NYTimes

Description: What seemed like a transitory step to avoid infection has become a major force driving the future direction of urban America.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/opinion/covid-pandemic-cities-future.html

Title: These Young Workers Are ‘Romanticizing’ the Return to Office

Date: November 27, 2022

Outlet: NYTimes

Description: As many others chafe against employer mandates, creators on TikTok — some new to the workforce — are trying to show that the office can be fun.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/business/tiktok-office-influencers.html

Title: In New Forecast, New York City Projects $2.9 Billion Deficit

Date: November 16, 2022

Outlet: NYTimes

Description: The stock market’s weak performance is projected to cost the city billions of dollars in pension fund obligations in the coming years.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/16/nyregion/budget-deficit-nyc.html

Title: How do Rising Interest Rates Affect the Housing and Rental Markets?

Date: November 2, 2022

Outlet: ManageCasa

Description: We know interest rates affect home prices. Property managers, landlords, property investors and renters are all wondering what effect if any, rising interest rates will have on rent prices. If it represents the biggest cost to landlords and tenants going forward, then we must discover ways to keep rent prices from rocketing upward further, for the sake of tenants, and for landlords who could see rising churn rates, vacancy losses and backlash from renters.

Link: https://managecasa.com/articles/rising-rates-and-the-rental-market/

Title: The New World: Envisioning Life After Climate Change

Date: October 26, 202

Outlet: NYTimes

Description: Scientists increasingly agree on how much warming the planet will experience. This is what it might look like.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/26/magazine/visualization-climate-change-future.html

Title: The Return of the American Downtown

Date: October 26, 2022

Outlet: NYTimes

Description: Reporters and photographers from The New York Times visited 10 cities across the country to examine how the pandemic and its aftershocks have tested and reshaped America’s downtowns.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/26/us/us-cities-downtown-chicago-seattle.html

Title: Snap, makers of Snapchat, shutters its 33,000 square-foot downtown San Francisco office

Date: October 24, 2022

Outlet: SFGATE

Description: The company, which has struggled through layoffs, restructuring and an industry wide dip in advertising dollars over 2022, says the closure comes as part of a shift toward remote work.

Link: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/snapchat-closes-san-francisco-office-17530730.php

Title: Remote Work Is Here to Stay. Lean In, Employers.

Date: October 22, 2022

Outlet: NYTimes

Description: Fully in-office workers are the least satisfied with their working arrangements: they report significantly worse employee experience scores compared to hybrid and full-time remote employees, most notably for work-life balance and work-related stress and anxiety.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/22/opinion/remote-work.html

Title: Airlines Cash In as Flexible Work Changes Travel Patterns

Date: October 21, 2022

Outlet: NYTimes

Description: Remote work and hybrid work have allowed Americans to travel more and combine personal and professional trips. Carriers expect the new habits to endure, despite economic uncertainty.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/business/airlines-flex-work-travel.html

Title: Downtown SF faces 1,300 expiring office leases by 2024

Date: October 17, 2022

Outlet: The Real Deal

Description: Tech accounts for “lion’s share” of deals set to lapse.

Link: https://therealdeal.com/sanfrancisco/2022/10/17/downtown-sf-faces-1300-expiring-office-leases-by-2024/

Title: Yes, S.F. could turn empty downtown offices into housing. Here’s what it would take

Date: October 17, 2023

Outlet: San Francisco Chronicle

Description: If creating housing from office space is such a good idea, then why hasn’t it happened in San Francisco? It also looked too expensive and difficult in Calgary, Alberta, at first.

Link: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/empty-offices-housing-17510576.php

Title: NYC Office Market Improves But Availability Remains High

Date: October 3, 2022

Outlet: Commercial Observer

Description: Demand for New York City office space is improving, but vacant blocks in older buildings remain a drag on asking rents and availability rates across Manhattan, according to Colliers’ third-quarter market report.

Link: https://commercialobserver.com/2022/10/nyc-office-market-improves-but-availability-remains-high/

Title: How much will downtown S.F.’s struggles hurt the city budget? Supervisors want to know

Date: September 13, 2022

Outlet: San Francisco Chronicle

Description: San Francisco supervisors are trying to determine how tax revenue will be affected by the city’s lagging recovery from the pandemic.

Link: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/How-much-will-downtown-S-F-s-struggles-hurt-17439862.php

Title: Urban Migration Slows in 2022 for Many Major US Cities

Date: September 3, 2022

Outlet: Bloomberg CityLab

Description: New data suggests that the pandemic-spurred flight from big coastal metros is reversing as employers push workers to return to the office.

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-03/pandemic-migration-out-of-big-cities-like-nyc-la-is-reversing-in-2022

Title: NYC Office Leasing Report Q2 2022

Date: July 5, 2022

Outlet: Unclear

Description: NYC Office Leasing Report Q2 2022 discusses local market conditions. Asking rents are $55.11 SF, vacancy is 16.9%.

Link: https://rentnyoffice.com/nyc-office-leasing-report-q2-2022/

Title: Why Americans Are Leaving Downtowns in Droves

Date: April 25, 2022

Outlet: The Atlantic

Description: The rise of remote work has snipped the tether between home and office, allowing many white-collar workers to move out of high-cost cities.

Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/metro-areas-shrinking-population-loss/629665/

Title: How cities can bounce back

Date: September 7, 2022

Outlet: The Great Refactoring

Description: Digital disruption finally made it to the physical world. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the trend to the digitization of public spaces. But it didn’t play out the way we all expected.

Link: https://thegreatrefactoring.com/2020/09/07/how-cities-can-bounce-back/

Graphs

Date: March 8, 2023

Outlet: The Washington Post

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/08/economy-recession-consumer-debt-loans/

Saving rate vs. consumer loans, custom graph using FRED data

Savings rate: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT

Consumer loans: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CONSUMER/

Papers & Reports

Title: The Remote Work Revolution: Impact on Real Estate Values and the Urban Environment

Author: Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh

Date: November, 2022

Link: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30662/w30662.pdf

Many papers here:

https://wfhresearch.com/research-and-policy/

We are rapidly approaching the most important transition in human history and several factors are coming to shake the collective belief system that we’ve been laboring under and enable the transition to a new way of existing.

Those key factors are:

1) The coming economic collapse brought on by the shift from physical cities to digital cities and the resulting shift in value. We will move from value attributed to physical locations -commercial and residential properties- which held a monopoly on access to physical resources that are now being digitized and made available everywhere- particularly employment, culture, and information.

2) The Artificial Intelligence ascension will result in the obsolescence of millions of jobs and the increased availability of information, content and digital resources and the movement from a finite number of resources to an infinite universe of resources.

3) We’re going to need a way to track and manage this expansive digital universe in a digitally native way that won’t be controlled by an individual, a company, or a state. That’s where the blockchain comes in. NFTs, Crypto currencies and distributed ledgers aren’t get rich quick schemes — they are new ways of collectively managing large complex systems

4) And if we’re stuck in the way of thinking that’s been handed down for hundreds or thousands of years, we will not be able to manage the transition that we are experiencing as a society. We need to let go of the old beliefs, power structures, and the physics of society that we have taken for granted as the only way to live. That’s why we are seeing the rise of psychedelics and consciousness expanding practices. It’s necessary for us to break out of our old mold of thinking to embrace this moment of massive change.

In short, an economic collapse is going to shake up the structure of society throwing up the pieces of the chessboard and creating the opportunity for change. AI will come in to create an infinite amount of digital goods and services moving from the finite to infinite and from scarcity to abundance. A decentralized and fully digital system is needed to be able to track and manage this new universe of digital goods and services. And the adoption of psychedelics will allow us to tolerate and embrace this incredible metamorphosis — not just to survive, but to evolve and thrive.

Exciting times indeed.

With its recent demand that employees come back to the office (BTO), Amazon just tipped its hand and showed how bad the brewing real estate catastrophe is about to get — and it’s worse than you could imagine.

They didn’t share any real data on productivity, or offer a reasonable business explanation — but CEO, Andy Jassy, did tie the move to supporting the local community: “this shift will provide a boost for the thousands of businesses located around our urban headquarter(s)”

So why did Amazon execs take this incredibly unpopular position, telling their employees that they were going to have to give up their cozy pants, time with their family, self-styled work environments, and jump back into the commute, the grind, and spend many more hours, and thousands of dollars more than they currently do, to get the same job done?

Why are they forcing workers to use an expensive resource they clearly don’t want? I don’t buy that they have a heart of gold and are going to sit on billions in capital, millions in operating expense, and make employees unhappy just to save the corner deli.

Maybe Andy Jassy and Jeff Bezos saw something coming, something potentially existential to our economy and to Amazon itself, that the general public is blissfully unaware of?

If Amazon embraced remote work and flooded the market with 10 million square feet of office space in Seattle — a greater concentration than any other company in any US city — it’s unlikely they would find a buyer today. They would write them off as losses as Brookfield has done in LA and a large part of Seattle would go dark. Vacant buildings are not attractive — and other companies would follow suit. Tax revenues would drop and services would get cut, triggering an exodus from an expensive city with declining services. A few cycles of this and it might start to look like systemic collapse in Seattle.

But this isn’t just about an empty downtown. It’s about the value of every home that has been propped up by its geographic access to high paying jobs and a bustling city. The real issue is what happens when home prices get reset. And the question is how low would they go?

If prices were reset to the beginning of the current boom, 2012, homes would lose half their value. But 10 years ago there were still high paying jobs in Seattle. Now with workers able to live anywhere, you’re competing with houses in the country, small towns, and other states, and even other hemispheres. You’re competing with homes that don’t have the overhead of being in Seattle. The cut could be deep.

And if this happened in Seattle, why not San Francisco? Austin, Chicago, Boston, Nashville, and every city that relied on businesses that are now remote? We might have dozens of cities that look like Detroit with its abandoned urban core. Even with their more diverse economies, this could extend to New York and LA — Mayor Adams is already taking defensive measures against a wave of empty office buildings hitting the market.

So if Amazon embraced remote work, closed its offices, and this cascaded across the country, on top of Commercial Office losses — enough on its own to set off a panic — there could be a much bigger impact on the 43 trillion dollar residential market. We’ve seen this before on a much smaller scale in 2009 — underwater home values, life savings wiped out, loan defaults, lenders and financial institutions collapse. An economy and consumer base left shell shocked.

BTO isn’t about productivity or morale, or the local community as Jassy says. It’s about trying to stave off a massive blow to the consumer base that could be life-threatening to Amazon’s retail business.

But Amazon can’t hold off history for long. It’s clear that the Internet is providing a viable alternative to the office building in terms of work and collaboration. It’s as simple as a new model emerging, making the old one obsolete. What actually is happening is the decentralized cities of the Internet are disrupting centralized cities of 20th century America. Software is eating the world and cities are next.

There is hope. These decentralized cities could be more beautiful, and more humane than cities of the past ever could. Now that you no longer have to live where you work, we are seeing a new wave of hybrid-cities and virtual neighborhoods connected by the Internet, and spread across geographies. These communities are fluid, and have the benefit of being physically present anywhere that suits them, with a lighter footprint than their predecessors. Not based on scarcity or gated access, they can be more inclusive and foster tighter knit communities. Self-sufficient, self governed, and situated in natural environments, they can be more sustainable, transparent, and equitable. Kift, the community we started, is one of these, using funds raised on the internet to build networks of properties for creative urban expats looking for more than housing — a new way to live.

It will not be an easy transition to make. There will be a tremendous amount of pain and grief. To those invested in centralized cities, and whose businesses rely on the wealth built up around them, this is an existential crisis. To those looking to make change, especially climate and social, it’s an opportunity. This scenario could play out over the next couple of years in a slow bleed, but for the CEO of Amazon to make such a quick and unpopular move with employees, it looks like the dominoes are already starting to fall.

Here is a collection of references for those interested in digging in.

The Real Reason Amazon Just Called Everyone Back to the Office — you won’t believe how scary it is. was originally published in Kift on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Since covid hit, I’ve known dozens of people who tossed their careers aside and decided to do something radical — pursue an activity that they love, but has little hope of long-term economic benefit.

Back in 2009 I remember amidst the waves of layoffs, everyone was scrambling to learn to code, to make mobile apps or start tech companies, in hopes of making it big. This time around it seems like people are trying to make it small.

I talked to a few people who recently exited well-paying jobs in the corporate world to pursue their passions — here’s what they had to say.

Henry worked in a drug discovery lab during covid and quit to move into a van and rock climb full time while making the little money he needed to live on doing permaculture gardening projects on the side.

“I really couldn’t stand the thought of a nine to five grind and a 7+ year path to a PhD. Now I get to spend all my time outside climbing in Yosemite and Red rocks, tending to plants and hanging out with friends. It’s really not a bad trade if you ask me.”

Lisha was a school teacher, covid made her rethink her priorities, she wanted to spend more time in her beautiful home in Coachella Valley and work with plants. She quit her job and now airbnb’s her guest house and runs a thriving native plant nursery, by appointment only, on the property. “It’s two side hustles but it’s what I love, I get to meet interesting people and work with native plants all day. I have no one to report to and I couldn’t be happier”

Carly was a writer at one of the biggest tech companies in Silicon Valley. She said it was an easy job and the pay and benefits were great, but she just wasn’t feeling fulfilled. “I left to follow my bliss and write the story of my life. I don’t spend a lot, I live in a big house with 15 of my friends and somehow manage to make ends meet. It’s not just about making a living, it’s about living.”

Sante and his big husky live in a tiny Volkswagen van, on the back of it in big stick in letterbox-letters it says “I’M NOT IN YOUR RUSH”. When I talked to him he had a dripping wetsuit, a surfboard, and speargun hanging off his van. We were camped on the beach in Baja. “I’ve been really focused on running a couple men’s groups, helping people through personal transformation. It’s incredibly powerful, nothing like I could have experienced in the corporate world. I code as well, but only on my own start-up and projects I’m passionate about. And obviously I’m here, doing what I love spending time with people I care about.”

So what’s different this time around? A couple factors, covid and remote work broke the cycle of work/consumption. Impressing people to get ahead. Gone are the days of “hard clothes” –getting dressed up to go to the office. Being home gave people a little more time and freedom to do what they want. Pulled out from “the rush” people had time to think about what they were rushing for, and many times, it seems, they were rushing for something they didn’t actually care about.

I think the other factor, the real elephant in the room is what the outcome of this next tech cycle will be. It’s so hard to predict, but it certainly feels like the turn of the 20th century when 90% of all jobs were eliminated by the Industrial Revolution — only to be replaced by wholly new jobs that no one could have imagined before. It’s hard to tell someone they should put a couple years into learning current design tools when midjourney just showed a taste of what’s to come from AI. Can you just put your nose to the grindstone answering customer service calls when you can pretty much bank on an AI chat taking that job in the near future? I asked a Professor of Education at Stanford, Ben, if he was worried teachers would lose their jobs to individualized AI lesson plans — he shot back, “the real question is, with AI, will we really need all this education?”

Some great designer smarter than me said when technology is changing so fast, focus on what isn’t. The human things.

The only thing certain is what’s true inside of us. Our passions and what brings us joy. It’s time to step out of the rat race, focus on how the things we do make us feel, and follow our dreams.

Everyone I Know is Following Their Dreams was originally published in Kift on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Decentralized City: The next decade will see a continued trend toward decentralization in cities. With advances in technology, there is no longer a need for people to be concentrated in a small area in order to work together effectively. This decentralization will be driven by a number of factors, including the increasing cost of living in central urban areas, the need for people to be closer to nature, and the desire for greater personal freedom and autonomy. As a result, we will see the rise of new types of communities, built around shared values and a commitment to sustainable living. These communities will be more self-sufficient, and will make use of advanced technologies to minimize their impact on the environment.

Nuff said. Mic drop. Lets go.

Decentralized City was originally published in Kift on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If I was only thinking about now, it would be easy. I’d be in some spectacular natural spot, with friends — eat, dance, make love, celebrate life. Be purely in the moment without a thought for tomorrow.

But it’s more complicated than that. We’re here for an odd amount of time — too short to really stretch things out — meditate on a mountain top for 1000 years — but too long to just focus on today. There is a Chinese proverb that says “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is today”. We are going to be here in 20 years and what will our world look like, what will our lives look like, what trees will we have planted?

I’m here for the future. I don’t need a big community to celebrate today, that’s what friends are for. Living for today, I wouldn’t need to work through hard problems, difficult communications, collaboration, group decisions. But if we’re going to reclaim, grow, and sustain our collective joy, it’s going to take a community, and that’s why I’m in Kift.

We’re not going to stop the metaverse, AI, or other human advances, but if we’re going to turn around the tech-induced isolation — zoom life, attention economy, doom scrolling, eating alone with Netflix — and climate change — wildfires, hurricanes, extreme heat, rising coasts, and shrinking lakes — we will need to reconnect with nature, each other, and find pleasure and meaning in harmony with the planet, not at its expense.

This is more than solitary work. We need to work together, to support each other, dream together, listen to, and amplify each other. It’s taken 100+ years to get into this situation, and we can’t fix it in a day, but we can collectively start to chart a new course today.

We can prototype a new way to live, not by turning away from the world and technology, but by leaning into it, and using what we have been given to change the course of history, averting disaster by finding meaning, belonging, and happiness.

For the past 100 years, our communities, and how we live, has been based around offices and productivity benefiting faceless corporations. With the global internet, remote work, and the ability to interact with culture and information from anywhere, we can be part of the global discourse, but build our own community and live locally.

If we can step outside the flow of the transactional capitalism we take for granted today, we may find that we have everything we need to make each other happy. To start to make change, we can focus on what has the most impact on our mental health and the climate. Because when we solve one we will solve the other — the environmental disruption we’re seeing is a result of seeking meaning and pleasure in consumerism. We aren’t going to make our own laptops or satellites, but we can work on those things in our lives that most affect the climate and our well-being: Food Systems, Housing, Transportation and the services we consume.

We can use the global availability of the internet to stay connected and work in natural environments where we can grow food and manage waste in partnership with the land – food forests, gardens and composting are a vital part of our existence, not just disposable moments in our day.

We can build from local materials and have a hand in the design, funding, and construction of our homes and shared spaces — not based on subdivision, commuting, offices and retail driving cold productivity, but on multi-use, hyper-local environments and spaces that support warm, human interaction and connection with nature.

Filling a void so many of us have, we can find joy and meaning in sharing with our community what makes us happy — teaching/learning yoga, mindfulness, meditation, personal exploration, exercise, bodywork, cooking for each other, building together, making music, dancing, real conversation — we will discover that happiness doesn’t come from an app, or with expectations of a return, or transaction, but in sharing and receiving from a place of love and gratitude.

This is more than what a group of friends can do. The future is the work of a community. People of different backgrounds, different opinions, ages, economics, different gifts of emotional and intellectual intelligence all figuring how to work together, and what they want, together.

I’m here to support each other to grow individually and as a group. Because as each member of the group grows, the community gains velocity, as the community evolves it can support more people, and as the size of the group grows it collects mass, and combined, the force we share is what makes the change we hope for possible.

This isn’t going to be easy, we’re going to have to learn and unlearn and put in time and effort, the work is the journey, getting our hands dirty — literally and metaphorically. But I’m also looking forward to laying under a pear tree with you, gently picking its fruit, and watching the sun set over a buzzing village, and a green world learning to live a little bit better each day.

I’m here for the future was originally published in Kift on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It’s 2022 and cities are obsolete. They were once the centers for culture, work, community, knowledge sharing, goods and services. But now, cities are no longer the centers of culture. We find trends happening on TikTok and instagram; our friends are scattered across the globe and we stay connected to them daily on text or social networks. Love it or hate it, you can get anything delivered anywhere, anytime, from online retailers. And now that 40% of all work is being done remotely, cities are no longer the economic hubs they once were. We have to wonder what the next iteration of a city is going to look like.

Cities were never about skyscrapers or subways, parking lots or shopping centers. At their core, cities have been centers for connection, communication and access. We see a new type of geo-distributed city or global village happening around us, and our community, Kift, is taking steps to make sure that we embrace and amplify the city’s true purpose: to connect and share what is most human.

With enabling distributed technology like off-grid renewables, Starlink and Web3 tools, we’re building a new type of non-hierarchical community spread across multiple locations, focused on collective empowerment, decision making and ownership. And we’re using these tools to open the doors of our community and build this next generation of cities, together.

Our project, Kift — a community of remote and in-person workers that brings together vanlife and a network of communal houses in stunning locations across the West — just issued our first NFTs.

Why? So we can collectively purchase property and give our community members agency and a stake in what we are building.

So, what does this mean?

1. You buy an NFT of a wildly unique camper with fun accessories for around $200
2. We put 80% of the money in a non-profit (the rest goes towards operations) and purchase land with it — Hot springs? Farm? Mountain getaway? You decide
3. As an NFT holder, you can live there and any of our other stunning locations for less than $500 a month including fast Wi-Fi and groceries
4. We start to build the future that we want to live in
5. We throw some epic parties

If Web2 was about a few tech barons taking over the world, Web3 is about all of us taking it back. It’s about putting control, and capital, back in the hands of the people who create the value. It’s about living in a non-transactional world and a community unbrokered by a central authority.

Specifically, the treasury from the NFT sale will go towards funding community and real estate development. Each NFT will serve as an initial membership and governance token for the DAO with a vote on which real estate opportunities to pursue — and a 50% discount on Kift membership. On the table are hundreds of stunning locations sourced by the community, including some potential large-scale developments. NFT holders also get access to special membership opportunities and events.

It’s okay to feel nostalgic for cities and the communities they created. But we need to recognize that what they were designed for — pre-internet technology, maximizing profits and conformity — is no longer relevant. We can build a new kind of city taking advantage of current technology and trends, prioritizing what we value most: personal development, creativity, human connection, and a sustainable, healthy approach to living in harmony with nature.

So get your wallet ready if you want to join in creating this new city together - we drop our NFTs on Monday, June 6 at kiftdao.xyz.

What do Kift NFTs have to do with Cities of the Future? was originally published in Kift on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The pandemic has had monumental, long-lasting effects on so many parts of our daily lives, forcing us all to take a step back and reevaluate the way we do things, and at the same time, accelerating many trends — Remote work being one of them. And the remote work revolution has opened doors and accelerated a trend that was previously closed to millions of workers, with an estimated 30+ million people now working remotely in the US.

Now with cities and big campuses no longer the economic hubs of the universe, knowledge workers can choose to work from anywhere — and they are headed in droves to Zoom Towns, and smaller cities like Austin, Reno, and Portland where rent is cheaper and access to nature is closer.

But the lack of fast reliable WiFi has kept many of the most desirable parts of the country inaccessible to the millions of people in the newly minted remote-work category — I’m talking about those dreamy landscapes of the Utah canyons, the NorCal Redwoods, the Nevada desert, remote beaches and mountain tops. Here’s where Starlink changes everything. Now with fast, cheap, reliable internet available across the entire US — even in places previously completely off-the-grid, people are rethinking where they want to take a Zoom call from.

With this new found ability to connect from literally anywhere, #vanlife, which was already surging in popularity, has seen massive new interest. Given the possibility to make city wages without the city rent or commute, and being able to integrate work, travel, leisure and wellness into your daily routine is a draw that’s too strong to ignore.

This is where Kift comes in. We are a community of remote workers, using a combination of camper vans and community houses in the most epic natural places we can find to redefine how we live and work and connect with each other and nature. We see a world where we can be part of a community that isn’t bound by a border, that allows us to live fluid and flexible lives without 30 year mortgages and year long leases. We believe that this can help us live in harmony with the planet and we’ve got some big dreams about what that could look like at scale:

What began as an under-the-radar lifestyle embraced only by an adventurous few, might just be the start of an avalanche that leads to a next generation network of geo-distributed cities. If you want to learn more or find out how to contribute, check out our white paper and join our discord chat.

With Starlink Now Available Nationwide, Get Ready for Geo-Distributed Cities was originally published in Kift on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.