Business

The Last Days of Suburban Office Parks

Published

3 years ago

July 9, 2022

Instances Insider explains who we’re and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes collectively.

The scene is acquainted to anybody who has watched “The Workplace” or labored a 9-to-5 within the final 50 years. Cubicles. Poor lighting. And, out the window, a view of a car parking zone and sprawling inexperienced grass. That is the picture of the traditional suburban workplace constructing, whose reputation rose in postwar America.

Partly due to the period of distant work, lots of these parking heaps and cubicles at the moment are empty. In an article that seems in at the moment’s Sunday Enterprise part, Emily Badger, who covers cities and concrete coverage for The Upshot, explores, as she places it, the “lonely final days” of suburban workplace parks. Under, she shares how workplace closures would possibly have an effect on native economies and considers whether or not the identical destiny is coming for Massive Tech campuses. This interview has been edited and condensed.

How did you get the concept for this story?
All people is accustomed to the phenomenon that downtowns emptied out through the pandemic. Earlier this yr, I got here throughout information from a researcher named Tracy Hadden Loh on the Brookings Establishment. She was information suggesting that there are some markets across the nation the place emptiness charges are literally greater in some suburban neighborhoods than they’re in what actual property people name the central enterprise district.

That received me considering, “Oh, yeah, there’s this entire different type of workplace in America that hasn’t gotten as a lot consideration.” It was the predominant approach that we constructed workplace house on this nation within the postwar interval up by way of the mid- to late Nineties. Everyone seems to be accustomed to these things: Both you labored there, your dad labored there otherwise you watched the film “Workplace House.” It’s ubiquitous, however it hasn’t actually been entrance of thoughts. I assumed, “What on earth is going on to those locations, which had been already sparsely populated, once you layer distant work on prime of that?”

I’m stunned that few of them had been revamped when open idea got here into vogue.
One of many campuses that I centered on was the company headquarters of Toys “R” Us in Wayne, N.J. There are a whole lot of very giant firms in America which have their places of work in these areas. However then there’s additionally simply a whole lot of native accountants’ or attorneys’ places of work — your Dunder Mifflins. These buildings had been serving their goal — practical workplace house that was accessible to individuals. It simply so occurs that now we arrive on the pandemic, and a whole lot of timelines have come into alignment. These buildings at the moment are 30, 40, 50 years outdated; they’re turning into type of out of date. The character of the economic system has modified — now, what we name information work is dependent upon having all these collaborative areas and areas the place employees stumble upon one another, versus cubicle farms. You then layer distant work on prime of that.

Did you journey to those campuses?
I grew up in Chicago, and I used to be there earlier this spring, driving by way of the suburbs on one of many expressways. You see this panorama of boxy company workplace parks, one after the opposite, lined up alongside the freeway. All of them have massive company logos on the skin of the constructing which can be designed to be learn by drivers. The parking heaps are all empty. That’s one other factor that received me considering that this can be a actually attention-grabbing and really notably American type of place, and one thing attention-grabbing is going on in it proper now.

How do these closures have an effect on the economies of the cities the buildings are in?
A part of what’s attention-grabbing about these areas is what’s taking place not simply within the workplace parks themselves, however to the id of the encompassing communities. Many locations are tied to “Oh, we’re the house of the company headquarters of Allstate.” Native communities draw a whole lot of their tax income from these places of work. To take these issues away or to ponder altering them into one thing else, like condominium buildings, entails nearly a radical rethinking, not simply of those areas, however of the id of the neighborhood round it.

How do you suppose these places of work examine to Massive Tech campuses? Are they subsequent?
Apple constructed this sprawling suburban campus. A lot of different tech corporations, notably in Silicon Valley, have performed this additionally. In some ways, they’ve the identical issues as this older technology of places of work in that they’re remoted, they’re car-dependent and so they’re not related to the encompassing communities. In some methods they’re deliberately designed to not be related. Numerous these locations have fake foremost streets constructed into them so that you’ve got that feeling that there are actions taking place there apart from work. In that approach, They’ve extra facilities, however they nonetheless have the underlying concept that this can be a closed-off house.

How did you are taking a subject that might be dry and discover such an attention-grabbing entry level?
To me, this isn’t an actual property story. It’s a narrative about this concept that has been central to our tradition for 50 or 60 years. We’re not simply rethinking bodily workplace house, however we’re rethinking the concepts behind that house. I all the time wish to know, what’s the historical past of this factor? The place did these concepts come from? I often, in my reporting, discuss to not simply builders and economists, however the historians and, on this case, people who find themselves consultants in structure and panorama structure. It seems that there’s this fascinating origin story about these locations and why they exist. To me, it was clear from the second I thought of suburban workplace parks that this can be a subject freighted with different attention-grabbing points that I may deliver on board in reporting on it.

Was anything stunning about your reporting?
A really central theme in my reporting was the concept of greenery and inexperienced house. It’s this charming concept that plenty of employers as soon as had: Should you’re sitting at your desk and also you gaze out the window and there’s bushes, you should have great concepts that you just in any other case wouldn’t have. One of many issues that was actually invaluable in my reporting was this e-book by Louise Mozingo referred to as “Pastoral Capitalism.” It’s all about these locations. I feel it’s such a enjoyable and attention-grabbing thought, and it makes me replicate on how I spend a whole lot of time working from house now, simply gazing out the window as I’m attempting to determine how you can write issues.

It’s actually attention-grabbing to me, looking back, that this entire thought of the workplace constructing was constructed round this very deeply held perception that lightning will strike you with good concepts for those who can look out the window at bushes as a substitute of, like, the air shaft of the workplace constructing subsequent to you. There may be positively some worth in that, and there’s additionally some worth in with the ability to stroll out of your constructing and run into different individuals. As is the case with plenty of issues, some mixture of all the above might be fairly wholesome.

Business

U.S. Sues Southwest Airlines Over Chronic Delays

Published

2 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

U.S. Sues Southwest Airlines Over Chronic Delays

The federal government sued Southwest Airlines on Wednesday, accusing the airline of harming passengers who flew on two routes that were plagued by consistent delays in 2022.

In a lawsuit, the Transportation Department said it was seeking more than $2.1 million in civil penalties over the flights between airports in Chicago and Oakland, Calif., as well as Baltimore and Cleveland, that were chronically delayed over five months that year.

“Airlines have a legal obligation to ensure that their flight schedules provide travelers with realistic departure and arrival times,” the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said in a statement. “Today’s action sends a message to all airlines that the department is prepared to go to court in order to enforce passenger protections.”

Carriers are barred from operating unrealistic flight schedules, which the Transportation Department considers an unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive practice. A “chronically delayed” flight is defined as one that operates at least 10 times a month and is late by at least 30 minutes more than half the time.

In a statement, Southwest said it was “disappointed” that the department chose to sue over the flights that took place more than two years ago. The airline said it had operated 20 million flights since the Transportation Department enacted its policy against chronically delayed flights more than a decade ago, with no other violations.

“Any claim that these two flights represent an unrealistic schedule is simply not credible when compared with our performance over the past 15 years,” Southwest said.

Last year, Southwest canceled fewer than 1 percent of its flights, but more than 22 percent arrived at least 15 minutes later than scheduled, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines and American Airlines all had fewer such delays.

The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In it, the government said that a Southwest flight from Chicago to Oakland arrived late 19 out of 25 trips in April 2022, with delays averaging more than an hour. The consistent delays continued through August of that year, averaging an hour or more. On another flight, between Baltimore and Cleveland, average delay times reached as high as 96 minutes per month during the same period. In a statement, the department said that Southwest, rather than poor weather or air traffic control, was responsible for more than 90 percent of the delays.

“Holding out these chronically delayed flights disregarded consumers’ need to have reliable information about the real arrival time of a flight and harmed thousands of passengers traveling on these Southwest flights by causing disruptions to travel plans or other plans,” the department said in the lawsuit.

The government said Southwest had violated federal rules 58 times in August 2022 after four months of consistent delays. Each violation faces a civil penalty of up to $37,377, or more than $2.1 million in total, according to the lawsuit.

The Transportation Department on Wednesday also said that it had penalized Frontier Airlines for chronically delayed flights, fining the airline $650,000. Half that amount was paid to the Treasury and the rest is slated to be forgiven if the airline has no more chronically delayed flights over the next three years.

This month, the department ordered JetBlue Airways to pay a $2 million fine for failing to address similarly delayed flights over a span of more than a year ending in November 2023, with half the money going to passengers affected by the delays.

Business

California drops zero-emission truck rules after inaction by Biden's EPA

Published

3 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

California drops zero-emission truck rules after inaction by Biden's EPA

California government’s plan to phase out heavy-duty diesel trucks and diesel locomotives has been derailed.

The ambitious plan aimed at reducing local pollution and global greenhouse gases required special waivers from the federal government. The Biden administration hadn’t granted the waivers as of this week, and rather than face almost certain denial by the incoming Trump administration, the state withdrew its waiver request.

That means the far-reaching regulations issued by the California Air Resources Board in 2022 to ban new diesel truck sales by 2036 and force fleet owners to take them off the road by 2042 won’t be enforced. Known as the Advanced Clean Fleets rule, the idea was to replace those trucks with electric and hydrogen-powered versions, which dramatically reduce emissions but are currently two to three times more expensive.

“While we are disappointed that U.S. EPA was unable to act on all the requests in time, the withdrawal is an important step given the uncertainty presented by the incoming administration that previously attacked California’s programs to protect public health and the climate and has said will continue to oppose those programs,” CARB Chair Liane Randolph said in a prepared statement.

Environmentalists reacted with deep disappointment.

“To meet basic standards for healthy air, California has to shift to zero-emissions trucks and trains in the coming years. Diesel is one of the most dangerous kinds of air pollution for human health,” Paul Cort, director of Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign, said in a prepared statement. “We’ll be working tirelessly in the coming years — and calling on Gov. [Gavin] Newsom, state legislators, and our air quality regulators to join us — to clean up our freight system and fix the mess [U.S.] EPA’s inaction has created.”

The trucking industry is pleased at the result, but hopes to continue working with California on environmental issues.

“This rule was flawed, and was not reflective of reality,” said Matt Schrap, chief executive at the Harbor Trucking Assn. “Ideally this is an opportunity to take a step back and look at a program that would be more sustainable.”

Trucking representatives had filed a lawsuit to block the rules, arguing they would cause irreparable harm to the industry and the wider economy. Train operators said no zero-emission locomotives exist on the commercial market.

Schrap said “the most important thing is the EPA could have issued the waiver and they didn’t.”

The EPA said it acknowledges California’s withdrawal of the waiver requests “and as a result is taking no further action on CARB’s prior requests and considers these matters closed.”

President-elect Donald Trump is a champion of the fossil fuel industry, making it unlikely that his administration would have approved the California waivers. The state could, however, pursue waivers at some point in the future.

Under the federal Clean Air Act, California is allowed to set its own air standards, and other states are allowed to follow California’s lead. But federal government waivers are required. Most of California’s waivers have been granted, including approval in December of a California ban on new sales of gas-powered cars and light trucks by 2035.

Business

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos to Attend Trump’s Inauguration

Published

10 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos to Attend Trump’s Inauguration

Bezos, Zuckerberg and Coke at the inauguration

Corporate America had already raced to donate big sums to Donald Trump’s record-breaking inaugural fund. Now some of its leaders appear eager to jockey for prominent positions at the inauguration next week.

It’s a new reminder that for some of the nation’s biggest businesses, forging close ties to a president-elect who is promising hard-hitting policies like tariffs is a priority this time around.

Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are expected to be on the inauguration dais, according to NBC News, alongside Elon Musk and several cabinet picks.

The presence of Musk isn’t a surprise, given the Tesla chief’s significant support of and huge influence over Trump. But the other tech moguls have only more recently been seen as supporters of the administration. (Indeed, Bezos frequently sparred with Trump during his first presidential term.)

It’s the latest effort by Bezos and Zuckerberg to burnish their Trump credentials. At the DealBook Summit in December, Bezos — whose Amazon has faced scrutiny under the Biden administration and whose Blue Origin is hoping to win government rocket contracts — said that he was “very hopeful” about Trump’s efforts to reduce regulation.

And Zuckerberg recently announced significant changes to Meta’s content moderation policy, including relaxing restrictions on speech seen as protecting groups including L.G.B.T.Q. people that won praise from Trump and other conservatives. On the inauguration front, Zuckerberg is also co-hosting a reception alongside the longtime Trump backers Miriam Adelson, Tilman Fertitta and Todd Ricketts.

Both tech moguls have visited Mar-a-Lago since the election, with Zuckerberg having done so more than once.

Coca-Cola took a different tack. The drinks giant’s C.E.O., James Quincey, gave Trump what an aide called the “first ever Presidential Commemorative Inaugural Diet Coke bottle.”

More broadly, business leaders want a piece of the inauguration action. The Times previously reported that the Trump inaugural fund had surpassed $170 million, a record, and that even major donors have been wait-listed for events.

Others are throwing unofficial events around Washington, including an “Inaugural Crypto Ball” that will feature Snoop Dogg, with tickets starting at $5,000, The Wall Street Journal reports.

It’s a reminder that C.E.O.s are reading the room, and preparing their companies for a president who has proposed creating an “External Revenue Service” to oversee what he has promised will be wide-ranging tariffs.

David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser who’s hosting a pre-inauguration event, told The Journal, “This is the world order, and if we’re going to succeed, we need to get with the world order.”

In other Trump news: The president-elect is expected to appear via videoconference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which starts on Inauguration Day, according to Semafor.

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING

Investors brace for the latest inflation data. The Consumer Price Index report, due out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, is expected to show that inflation ticked up last month, most likely because of climbing food and fuel costs. Global bond markets have been rattled as slow progress on slowing inflation has prompted the Fed to slash its forecast for interest rate cuts.

More Trump cabinet picks will appear before the Senate on Wednesday. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the choice for secretary of state, is expected to field questions about his views on the Middle East, Ukraine and China, but is expected to be confirmed. Russell Vought, the pick to run the Office of Management and Budget, will most likely be asked about his advocacy for drastically shrinking the federal government, a key Trump objective. And Sean Duffy, the Fox Business host chosen to lead the Transportation Department, will probably face questions on how he would oversee matters including aviation safety and autonomous vehicles, the latter of which is a priority for Elon Musk.

Meta plans to lay off another 5 percent of its employees. Mark Zuckerberg, the tech giant’s C.E.O., told staff members to prepare for “extensive performance-based cuts” as the company braces for “an intense year.” The social media giant faces intense competition in the race to commercialize artificial intelligence.

A new bill would give TikTok a reprieve from a ban in the United States. Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he planned to introduce the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act, which would give the video platform 270 additional days to be divested from its Chinese parent, ByteDance before being blacklisted. It’s the latest effort to buy TikTok time, as the app faces a Jan. 19 deadline set by a law; President-elect Donald Trump has opposed the potential ban as well.

A question of succession

JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock, the giant money manager, just reported earnings. (In short: Both handily beat analyst expectations.)

But the Wall Street giants are likely to face questioning on a particular issue on Wednesday: Which top lieutenants are in line to replace their larger-than-life C.E.O.s, Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink.

Who’s out:

Daniel Pinto, who had long been Dimon’s right-hand man, said he would officially drop his responsibilities as JPMorgan’s C.O.O. in June and retire at the end of 2026. Jenn Piepszak, the co-C.E.O. of the company’s core commercial and investment bank, has become C.O.O.
And Mark Wiedman, the head of BlackRock’s global client business and a top contender to succeed Fink, is planning to leave, according to news reports.

What Wall Street is gossiping about JPMorgan: Even in taking the C.O.O. role, JPMorgan said that Piepszak wasn’t interested in succeeding Dimon “at this time.” DealBook hears that while she genuinely appears not to want to pursue the top job, the phrasing covers her in case she changes her mind.

For now, that means the most likely candidates for the top spot are Marianne Lake, the company’s head of consumer and community banking; Troy Rohrbaugh, the other co-head of the commercial and investment bank; and Doug Petno, a co-head of global banking.

The buzz around BlackRock: Wiedman reportedly didn’t want to keep waiting to succeed Fink and is expected to seek a C.E.O. position elsewhere. (So sudden was his departure that he’s forfeiting about $8 million worth of stock options and, according to The Wall Street Journal, he doesn’t have another job lined up yet.)

Fink said on CNBC on Wednesday that Wiedman’s departure had been in the works for some time, with the executive having expressed a desire to leave about six months ago.

Other candidates to take over for Fink include Martin Small, BlackRock’s C.F.O.; Rob Goldstein, the firm’s C.O.O.; and Rachel Lord, the head of international.

But Dimon and Fink aren’t going anywhere just yet. Dimon, 68, said only last year that he might not be in the role in five years. And Fink, 72, said in July that he was working on succession planning: “When I do believe the next generation is ready, I’m out.”

The S.E.C. gets in a final shot at Musk

Another battle between Elon Musk and the S.E.C. erupted on Tuesday, with the agency suing the tech mogul over his 2022 purchase of Twitter.

It’s unclear what happens to the lawsuit once President-elect Donald Trump, who counts Musk as a close ally, takes office. But the agency’s reputation as an independent watchdog may be at stake.

A recap: The S.E.C. accused Musk of violating securities laws in his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.

The agency said that Musk had failed to disclose his Twitter ownership stake for a pivotal 11-day stretch before revealing his intentions to purchase the company. That breach allowed him to buy up at least $150 million worth of Twitter shares at a lower price — to the detriment of existing shareholders, the agency argues.

The S.E.C. isn’t just seeking to fine Musk. It wants him to pay back the windfall. “That’s unusual,” Ann Lipton, a professor at Tulane Law School, told DealBook.

Alex Spiro, Musk’s lawyer, called the latest action a “sham” and accused the agency of waging a “multiyear campaign of harassment” against him.

The showdown sets up a tough question for the S.E.C. Will Paul Atkins, the president-elect’s widely respected pick to lead the agency, drop the case? Such a move could call the bedrock principle of S.E.C. independence into question.

Jay Clayton, who led the agency during Trump’s first term, earned the respect of the business community for running it in a largely drama-free manner. It was under Clayton that the S.E.C. sued Musk over his statements about taking Tesla private.

Musk, who is set to become Trump’s cost-cutting czar and is expected to have office space in the White House complex, has called for the “comprehensive overhaul” of agencies like the S.E.C. The billionaire said he would also like to see “punitive action against those individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain.”

In related news: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Capital One, accusing it of cheating its depositors out of $2 billion in interest payments.

THE SPEED READ

Deals

DAZN, the streaming network backed by the billionaire businessman Len Blavatnik, is closing in on funding from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund as the kingdom continues to expand its sports footprint. (NYT)
The Justice Department sued KKR, accusing the investment giant of withholding information during government reviews for several of its deals. KKR filed a countersuit. (Bloomberg)
OpenAI added Adebayo Ogunlesi, the billionaire co-founder of the infrastructure investment firm Global Infrastructure Partners, to its board. (FT)

Politics and policy

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