I can understand why governments would push for something like this after 9/11, though it of course goes without saying that this is a totally unacceptable violation of someone’s basic rights. It also goes without saying that governments always want more control over their citizens, but what exactly are they so worried might happen, right now, in 2025 or the near future?
If you’re talking about Toronto and Ottawa, as far as I heard, a huge part of the reason is Downtown businesses are struggling now that way fewer people are commuting Downtown.
But the solution to this is not RTO. If your DOWNTOWN of all places isn’t self sufficient I don’t know what to tell you other than your municipal policies are failing. Just let people live in the office buildings. “Oh they’re too wide and you’ll have to make the units narrow strips that only have a tiny sliver of window on one side” Do that then. Tons of people would still live in those because Downtown should be the most desirable place to live.
Some people would be willing to live like that. But the rents per ft^2 or m^2 would be abysmally low. And renovating the buildings would still be very expensive. It may be physically possible to turn those deep floor plate cube farm skyscrapers into housing, but it isn’t financially possible. The money would be better spent tearing the buildings down entirely and just building entirely new residential buildings from scratch.
Ok so how exactly have all these companies all agreed to do this at the same time. That’s not strange to you?
In the worlds of the immortal George Carlin: it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.