RIP Cambridge, MA: Dense commuter cities are dead as business hubs

Until Monday, March 16, when the whole world collectively lost its head over the Coronavirus pandemic, I worked in the world-class commuter city of Cambridge, MA. I would commute to work by walking to the crowded public bus, take that bus to the crowded subway ("the T"), then take that subway to the crowded center of Cambridge, Central Square, where I worked in a crowded co-working shared space, in a 10x6 office with two other colleagues. After work, I would take the crowded subway to another part of Cambridge (Porter Square), go to my crowded gym, do my workout, then take a crowded bus home.

Other than the walk at the beginning, at no point in that daily journey was I ever more than six feet from the next closest person.

As politicians discuss reopening the cities, talk has turned to what to do with public transportation. The view is that it will include all of the following: More rigorous sanitization of the trains/busses (some of which appeared not to have been cleaned since the Hong Kong flu epidemic of 1968), a requirement that everyone wears a mask, and the one that is the killer: that congestion on the busses and subways and waiting platforms be reduced to allow for 6' between people. Take these givens to their obvious conclusions and you realize that:

• The already slow commute will become multiple times slower, and public transportation to your job will become untenable for many
• The cost of providing a ride will become multiple times higher

For many, the trip in on public transportation already verges on the better part of an hour each way. Imagine you triple that. No one wants to spend up to six hours of their day on public transportation. Those who can will telecommute. Those who can't will probably look for another job (presuming other jobs ever open up after the Coronavirus shutdown).

And that ignores the fact you'll be paying triple the amount to take that six-hour roundtrip,  to make up for the additional services and sparsely filled vehicles. 

So how about just driving in? Nope. that won't work. The city of Cambridge, in their infinitely Green wisdom, has for many years insisted that companies moving to Cambridge not provide sufficient parking for their employees. It's not just that they don't incentivize parking. They actually make it illegal to build parking that would cover 100% of your employees. So now you've created a situation where no one wants to be on public transportation but everyone can't not use it and come to work by car, if you live in a people's republic like Cambridge. 

Cambridge, MA has, in the past few decades, become one of the hottest places in the world for tech. If you want to open a company in biotech, robotics, analytics, etc., Cambridge is the address you want. A massive build-up of the city has resulted, with huge tech centers on sites previously occupied by burned-out warehouses. The cost of Cambridge office space is now a jaw-dropping $63 a square foot, per month. This in areas where you would more likely score your heroin fix a couple of decades ago.

There's no real reason most people need to be in Cambridge, but humans are herd animals and it's what everyone feels is important when starting a tech business.

Well, at least that's how it was a month ago. My guess is that as we move forward, and as things started to loosen up, and as people are asked to return to work, there's going to be a realization that being able to say "Cambridge" on your letterhead isn't as powerful as the ability to get employees to actually show up for work. Suddenly, the nearby suburbs, which are easier to get to by car, where real estate is far cheaper, and where anti-business regulations like not building enough parking for your employees are not even on the agenda, will start to look far more interesting. For the same price as a modest-sized office in Cambridge, you can get an office several times larger, with adequate parking. So everyone can avoid mass transit, everyone can park, and your space will be large enough to ensure everyone has 6 feet to themselves. 

If they sold broadly based futures on commercial real estate by city, I'd be short Cambridge and long inexpensive nearby cities with good freeway access like Burlington and Waltham right now. 

No, the Coronavirus won't last forever. People will eventually come back to their senses. Maybe, eventually, public transportation will return to something resembling the bad old days before March 16, when the whole world hadn't lost its collective mind. But even when things do return to some semblance of normalcy, certain imprints and changes remain. We still have to remove our shoes in airline security. And, I think, we're going to find a real, permanent, move of business outside the traditional dense business hub cities like Cambridge, Boston, Seattle, and others.

Honestly, having commuted into Cambridge for the better part of three decades, there's not enough about Cambridge I'd miss to counterbalance all the positives of a move elsewhere.