[O]ne area of urban life where the pandemic is poised to leave a far bigger mark is on the places where we do business. The ongoing shift to remote work challenges the historic role of the Central Business Districts — neighborhoods like New York’s Midtown and Wall Street, Chicago’s Loop, or San Francisco’s Financial District — as the dominant centers for urban work1. 

These signature skyscraper and corporate tower districts that define the skylines of great cities, and are often synonymous with downtowns, will have to adapt. But far from killing them off, the shift to remote work will ultimately change their form and function in more subtle ways2.

The biggest and most enduring change in our economic geography ushered in by the pandemic turns out to be far less in where and how we live, and much more about how and where we work.

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Perhaps the best historical analogue to what the CBD is going through today is deindustrialization. Few, back in the dark days of the 1970s or ‘80s, would have predicted that the old manufacturing areas of the city would ultimately be repurposed and reused not just as arts and creative districts but as tech and knowledge hubs — or that they would become the epicenters of the gentrification that has become a defining feature of superstar cities today. Central Business Districts have attributes — their location, density, transit connectivity and more — that enable them to adapt to this new reality. The bigger challenge is to ensure that as they come back, they become more equitable and inclusive communities.

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• 1. When my research team and I looked at the leading startup neighborhoodsin the U.S. in 2016, not one was a CBD as traditionally defined. Many were urban mixed-use neighborhoods like San Francisco’s SOMA and the Mission District, and New York’s SoHo and Chelsea — higher-amenity neighborhoods that were key to attracting new residents to live in central cities. Some of these neighborhoods, like those south and east of Midtown Manhattan, sit just on the border of what we think of as the traditional business districts. But instead of being office-centric, they’re defined by a mix of live, work and play in a walkable setting. That’s because what drives innovation and startup entrepreneurship is not the density of jobs or offices but the density of talent — talent that can mix and mingle, and combine and recombine amid the clash, clamor and collisions of street-level density. The CBD can be remade along these lines.
• 2. Given their strategic locations at the very center of major metro areas, Central Business Districts are perfectly positioned to be remade as more vibrant neighborhoods where people can live and play as well as work — a leading-edge example of what many urbanists are now calling 15-minute neighborhoods. And with conscious and intentional action on the part of urban leaders and assistance from the federal government, these CBDs can be rebuilt in ways that are more inclusive and affordable.