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Downtown Crime

I've been working from home since the Great COVID Pandemic of 2020 but I still live downtown and regularly partake in downtown amenities such as restaurants, cafes, groceries, fitness facilities, medical, dental, Rogers Place (for hockey and concerts), casino, movies, LRT, Royal Alberta Museum, Art Gallery of Alberta, etc which are all within a 15 minute walk from where I live and I wouldn't have it any other way.
 
Just to be the contrarian: I'd kill to be working from an office where I can get to interact with humans. Been working from home since 2018 and I can't stand it anymore, it was fun for the first year or so, but especially after moving here, no knowing anyone and then being slapped with a pandemic, I started to absolutely DESPISE IT. Hybrid? OK, fully remote? Kill me, will ya?

If y'all have a decent office job DT that will force me to work from there, floating around, please send my way. 😂
 
I also prefer to work in an office for several reasons. First, it gives a better separation between work and non work life and so allows better focus on work when I am working, which is important for the type of work I do.

Although fortunately, I don't have child care or family commitments at home. Second, the space I live in is smaller and would not work well for working at home.

Third, I would also find it isolating and boring to be working at home all day, most days and enjoy regularly getting out for lunch, etc... which is easier to do downtown.

Fortunately, I do not have a long commute, so that is not a big deal for me. But as a plus, my commuting time does give me a chance to unwind and transition from work to non work life.
 
Gus Haynes said:
Sample sizes and all that, but of my coworkers who work hybrid arrangements (i.e. downtown and at their respective homes), none of them cite "safety" as their reason for wanting to work at home. They all cite getting a break from annoying coworkers and wasting time commuting to and from work. I'm in that camp: I like downtown, I come downtown for entertainment/movies/restaurants/etc, but I wouldn't come into the office at all if I had any choice.
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I think these, along with companies desire to have lower rent costs is the main driver behind leaving downtown. People hate commuting, but they want their large single family homes that we have subsidized on the outer ring of our city. Blaming "safety" is a convenient excuse when the fact is the benefits of being downtown are now outweighed by lower costs and fewer commutes. IMO, this was inevitable when we completed the Henday and someone from the north end can commute to an office in South Common as quickly as they can get downtown, its just a slow change. I agree that we seriously need to consider how to make downtown more appealing to change the conversation, but I will always take a company's press releases with a grain of salt. With how long it takes to move, I bet APAGA was already working on this move before safety even entered the public conversation.
 
Cheap, easy, quick - the tenents of a great society.
 
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Many are Downtown as well as there, but an industry assoc. and government lobby is best near the leg and city hall... or in most cities.
 
IanO said:
Many are Downtown as well as there, but an industry assoc. and government lobby is best near the leg and city hall... or in most cities.
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I would have thought the same, but I just checked and Ontario's Professional Engineers association is located in the outer half of Toronto, and BC's is located in Burnaby. Neither are located centrally or even in their capital cities. Don't know if that perception matches reality.
 
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