Pretty Vacant

It sure doesn’t seem very long ago that the availability of new, tiny apartments was the talk of Boston. Designed for young professionals, with units as small as 450 square feet, they came without parking. Who needed a car when there was Uber? Years away from starting families and needing more room, 20-somethings spent most of their time working downtown and enjoying the city’s vibrant nightlife.

Then came Covid, remote work, and a quick migration away from the infection-spreading city. WeWork went wrong and commercial real estate has yet to recover.

If office building vacancies have turned Boston into a ghost town, why is the traffic just as bad as it was before the pandemic?