Canada

One problem is that condos downtown did not reduce in price. During Covid, it was common to see half-empty buildings. People were willing to pay +2k in rent to cut on commute time and costs. It is nice to have a bunch of options at walking distance, but it is hard to justify paying that price just to be close to a coffee shop.

On the other hand, friends in the suburbs rarely do activities that benefit "small local business", it is always a chore to go out in sprawls areas with barely no sidewalk or proper transit infrastructure. I don't see the government investing in more density or better mobility to help those business. But you can count on them to force you to use that oil.

Basically, that's the main driver. All these office buildings and businesses around them start losing money when people can work from home. And since we have no imagination here, there's no talk of repurposing them for something genuinely useful. Like imagine if the government started a program to turn them into vertical farms so cities could start producing some of their own food locally.

Time to change with the times. We didn't keep changing laws to support whale oil when alternatives were found. Maybe a bad example as we do change laws to support fossil fuels all the time but i think my point remains. If you aren't selling office furniture, shift to selling home office furniture. The architects could, idk maybe design housing instead of offices. And tbh if your restaurant is only afloat because it was the convenient nearby choice, maybe it isnt that good.