I think part of the equation is that less people are going into the office so values of buildings are going down, less people in downtown the less money that goes to all the restaurants/shops/stores during the week.
I can't speak for other cities since I don't live in them but Boston has never really recovered from the pandemic in terms of office workers.
Because that’s what feeds local businesses especially shops and service oriented jobs. I’m not saying I care that happens because remote workers can do that closer to their home so it’s a net zero game, but not in the eyes of business owners downtown or the mayors of said downtowns.
People being downtown are people more likely to spend money downtown then someone who lives in the suburbs and doesn't come to downtown. Therefore more sales taxes collected, more businesses in downtown, etc...
For Boston in particular, governmental borders are close to downtown. The city is composed of several unconsolidated abutting Towns and Cities. The City of Boston[1] mostly extends from downtown to the south-west. So MIT/Harvard are Town of Cambridge, not City of Boston. Downtown-vs-suburb revenue tensions extend into the city.
For analogy, imagine the historical City of New York (Manhattan and Bronx) never consolidated with the City of Brooklyn and the city and towns of Queens County, to form a City of Greater New York. WFH Queens would be as bad for Manhattan as WFH New Jersey. Not only loss of going-to-work-associated revenue, but little home-associated. As it is, the mayor vocally pushed for back-to-office (real-estate interests are powerful in NYC, transit budget income, CRE better-vacant-than-cheaper dysfunction, etc).
Because then transit, services, restaurants, stores, dry-cleaners, gyms fail, and the taxbase collapses (every city has a different mix of commercial vs residential property tax vs sales-tax).
DowntownRecovery.com project mapped this (using cellphone user data, at least)
It's not just downtown that matters, it is the total population living in the city. People working from home will live away from Boston or other major cities. If they need to work in a downtown office the same people will be forced to live in Boston or close by.
