Post-Pandemic Urban Form: Tentative Signs of Office Recentralization in Charlotte

abstract:Pandemic-era disruptions to the geography of work have led some observers to suggest that the city's critical role in production may be coming to an end. While little is currently known about the magnitude of the diffusion of workers into lower-cost and high-amenity areas, there still has been much speculation on an associated diffusion of workplaces in response. We explore the changing geography of office space in Charlotte using the Adams–Muller model of intra-urban evolution to identify several trends. First, office space consumption in central business districts (CBDs) has been stagnant, and suburban space consumption has declined since Q2 of 2020. Second, we find a trend of new office space construction and consumption in new districts which are adjacent to CBDs. Our case study of Charlotte indicates that some recentralization of office space is underway, and observations suggest that similar shifts are likely to be occurring elsewhere. While this work is in the exploratory stages, should these trends be verified as robust, it appears that cities like Charlotte may have begun a new evolutionary phase in the Adams–Muller context.