When the pandemic brought the economy to a standstill in 2020, downtown economies in cities across the nation fundamentally changed as a vast swath of workers transitioned to remote work to curb the spread of the disease.
About half of all paid workers in the United States worked remotely from April to December in 2020, compared to 5% before the pandemic, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2021 business response survey
As a result, many cities saw plummeting foot traffic in their downtowns. Now, at least 22% of U.S. employees work remotely at least some of the time, according to the bureau.
The prevalence of remote work has caused increasingly more vacant office space. In cities like Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta, loan payments are behind schedule for 30% and 18%, respectively, of office buildings, according to reporting from The Washington Post.