Employees' not returning to downtown offices has had a domino effect: Less foot traffic, less public-transit use, and more shuttered businesses have caused many downtowns to feel more like ghost towns.With demand for housing in cities skyrocketing, the most obvious next step would be to turn empty offices into apartments and condos.And while city planners are reimagining downtowns, the impact on cities' bottom lines has been devastating; in New York, for instance, the value of commercial real estate declined by 45% in 2020, and research suggests it will remain 39% below prepandemic levels.A study led by Arpit Gupta, a professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business, characterized the value wipeout as an "apocalypse."A recent NBER paper suggests the new space requirements of remote workers — space for a desk or office, or to accommodate the extra time spent at home — have helped cause housing costs to skyrocket."