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One of the core theories of the office market circa 2025 is the flight to quality. Workers, either hybrid staff who spend ample time at home or those prodded back into traditional five-day workweeks, have grown used to the comforts of home and bored with drab, standard office spaces. They need something spectacular to justify a commute or keep them happy, so companies increasingly seek out top-flight officesClass A or Trophy assets, as a broker would saywhich has pushed landlords and developers to spend millions on office renovations and solely focus on building new, top-of-the-line workspaces. That same dynamic, where the top-of-the-market bustles with activity while less desirable, Class B spaces sit largely vacant, has also been reshaping how coworking company WeWork manages and thinks about its portfolio of offices. In March, the company announced that it was increasing the cost of its All Access product in three cities, San Francisco, New York, and London; the $299 basic version of the service, a pandemic-era creation that allows for desk access across the companys network of spaces, has been eliminated, leaving users to upgrade to the $339 Plus version. A significant driver of the change, according to Luke Robinson, the companys regional president for North America, is that the same dynamic has hit the coworking world. In these three cities, the company plans to invest $90 million in refurbishing its top-performing locations with newer finishes and amenities because a sizable portion of the desk demand has migrated to these top-tier locations. 201 Spear Street [Photo: WeWork] You can go get cheap space, but you’re likely in a less desirable building that’s likely dead, that doesn’t have energy, Robinson says. At the end of the day, people that are coming to the office aren’t just coming to sit at a desk. They want the experience that goes along with that, right, somewhat of a vibe. This does sound a bit like the original WeWork marketing message; its just missing the free beer. But its a reality that can be found across urban office markets. Data from office analytics firm CompStak has shown that across the big U.S office markets, rents for Class B (functional space in a good location) and C office (typically older and basic) space barely budged from 2019 to today, rising from $42.45 to $43.50 a square foot. Even rents for regular Class A space, full-service offices in sought-after locations, saw a slight bump during the same time period, from $45.90 to $54.68 a square foot. 30 Churchill Place [Photo: WeWork] The story is much different for Prime Class A space, or trophy space, which started at $60.85 in 2019 and, beginning at the end of 2021, began to skyrocket, hitting $91.41 by the end of last year. WeWorks shifting space utilization mirrors that demand, with newer stock in preferred locations garnering more attention and booking. In New York City, locations at 134 N. 4th Street in Williamsburg, 33 Irving Plaza, and 154 W. 14th Street near Union Square are the companys busiest in New York City. Bookings are up 11% year-over-year, and the locations typically fill up by the time the doors open in the morning (citywide, occupancy is above 80% overall). In San Francisco, locations at 650 California Street, 44 Montgomery Street, and the Salesforce Towerwith a 7% jump in bookings in Marchhave been packed. The companys space at 201 Spear, which opened in August, also tends to fill up, with roughly half the members of that space belonging to a group of AI startups. 123 Buckingham Road [Photo: WeWork] And in London, 123 Buckingham Palace Road, 30 Churchill Place, and 10 York Roadwhich has seen bookings skyrocket 29% this March compared to last yearhave been slammed. The massive shock of instability and uncertainty that has hit the economy in the past few months has pushed more workers, entrepreneurs, and even companies to embrace more coworking, says Robinson. WeWorks internal survey of clients found that 72% of companies plan to expand their workforce in the next two years, with the majority choosing coworking and flex. A recent report from brokerage Cushman & Wakefield also found the coworking inventory in the U.S increased by 13% year-over-year, with strong growth in markets like Nashville and Indianapolis. And the $400 million acquisition of competitor Industrious by real estate firm CBRE earlier this year shows continued confidence in flexibility. If companies are going to act fast, it’ll probably be with us, because you can’t make that big of a mistake, says Robsinon. Sign a 10-year deal too early, then youve got a problem.
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E-Commerce
When Trump first landed in the White House in 2016, even he seemed surprised to be there. Without a transition staff in place, the Obama administration team helped shepherd in the new president while positions sat unfilled. Whereas Hillary Clinton had a complete digital site built to usher in her new presidency that would never be seen, Trump had none. But for his second term, Trumps team was more prepared. On the first day of his presidency, he appeared on WhiteHouse.gov with a heros welcome. In a video worthy of Michael Bay, helicopters fly through the mountains before delivering Trump to the White House lawn to herald a new age. Fighter jets thunder overhead. Trump squints into the distance. A bald eagle flies by. [Screenshots: White House/YouTube] The 100 days that have followed have proven blindsiding to anyone who thought Trumps second term would constitute little more than a few tax cuts to the rich. In this brief window, Trump has rewritten the propaganda playbook for the modern political age by marrying well-proven tactics from decades past with a savvy approach to our current media landscape. His approach to governing is as much a practice of world-building as it is policy building. He has woven together imagery, rhetoric, and technology to create an unnervingly convincing (if in large part illegal!) vision of the world he wants to sell (or force upon) his constituents. Trump has leveraged craftily designed aesthetics to position his destructive policies as necessary and his self-concerned personality as heroic, all while he dismantles the institutions in place to question him. A playbook from the pastand present From the earliest days of the presidency, weve witnessed a mass erasure of both the topics and people that the administration doesnt support. It happened in the digital world with the deletion of trans rights pages from WhiteHouse.gov and stories about Navajo Code Talkers removed from the pages of the Department of Defense. In the physical world, the erasure shows up as Trump eliminates civil rights artifacts from Smithsonian institutions and scrubs the Black Lives Matter mural from 16th Street in Washington, D.C. Many of these deletions are part of an executive order around restoring truth in American history. Fascists routinely erase history to write a new one. And when it comes to this, and all of Trumps other communication tricks, theres not much thats original about them. [Screenshot: whitehouse.gov] All the techniques he uses are techniques of the past. The aesthetics are aesthetics of the present, says Barbie Zelizer, the Raymond Williams professor of communication and director of the Center for Media at Risk at the University of Pennsylvania. Shes also co-editor of Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism. Zelizer believes that the entire ethos of Trump’s messaging is anchored in the early Cold War when, in the name of national security, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy declared an all-out war on communism and anyone suspected to be supportive of it. Zelizer points out that Trumps statement from 2016I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any votershas historical precedent from this era. In 1954, pollster George Gallup described McCarthys unchecked appeal to the public with a similar framing: Even if it were known that McCarthy had killed five innocent children, [voters] would probably still go along with him. The key word uniting the messaging of Trump and McCarthy? Enmity. Its us versus them. When he is able to claim accolades for himself or for his administration, it is always based on an assumption that his administration is winning out over the enemy, says Zelizer, who notes there is always an enemy beyond (like China) and an enemy within (like student protestors or the judges upholding our legal system). And whomever the enemy is at any pointif thats democratic leaders, or the media, or universities, take your pickthey’re all substitutes in a rotation. Where Zelizer sees Cold War influence, Edel Rodriguezthe Cuban-born illustrator and leading visual critic of Trumpsees the influence of the UFC and WWE. Without a hint of irony, Rodriguez points to the machismo-laden, fight-first mentality of this programming as parallel to both power-assertive fascist leadership and the greater Trump media strategy. He also admits to their strange appeal. I watch Ultimate Fighting videos because theyre nuts. But its drama. Its something, he says. And on the other side, you have the Democrats doing
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E-Commerce
Raymond Ward wants to see solar panels draped over every balcony in the United States and doesnt understand why that isnt happening. The technology couldnt be easier to usesimply hang one or two panels over a railing and plug them into an outlet. The devices provide up to 800 watts, enough to charge a laptop or power a small fridge. Theyre popular in Germany, where everyone from renters to climate activists to gadget enthusiasts hail them as a cheap and easy way to generate electricity. Germans had registered more than 780,000 of the devices with the countrys utility regulator as of December. Theyve installed millions more without telling the government. Here in the U.S., though, there is no market for balcony solar. Ward, a Republican state representative in Utah who learned about the tech last year, wants that to change. The way he sees it, this is an obvious solution to surging power demand. You look over there and say, Well, thats working, he told Grist. So what is it that stops us from having it here? His colleagues agree. Last month, the Legislature unanimously passed a bill he sponsored to boost the tech, and Republican Governor Spencer Cox signed it. H.B. 340 exempts portable solar devices from state regulations that require owners of rooftop solar arrays and other power-generating systems to sign an interconnection agreement with their local utility. These deals, and other soft costs like permits, can nearly double the price of going solar. Solar modules on the balconies of a building in Erfurt, Germany, in January 2025 [Photo: Martin Schutt/picture alliance/Getty Images] Utahs law marks the nations first significant step to remove barriers to balcony solarbut bigger obstacles remain. Regulations and standards governing electrical devices havent kept pace with development of the technology, and it lacks essential approvals required for adoptionincluding compliance with the National Electrical Code and a product safety standard from Underwriters Laboratories. Nothing about the bill Ward wrote changes that: Utahans still cant install balcony solar because none of the systems have been nationally certified. These challenges will take time and effort to overcome, but theyre not insurmountable, advocates of the technology said. Even now, a team of entrepreneurs and research scientists, backed by federal funding, are creating these standards. Their work mirrors what happened in Germany nearly a decade ago, when clean energy advocates and companies began lobbying the countrys electrical certification body to amend safety regulations to legalize balcony solar. In 2017, Verband der Elektrotechnik, or VDE, a German certification body that issues product and safety standards for electrical products, released the first guideline that allowed for balcony solar systems. While such systems existed before VDE took this step, the benchmark it established allowed manufacturers to sell them widely, creating a booming industry. Relentless individuals were key to making that happen, said Christian Ofenheusle, the founder of EmpowerSource, a Berlin-based company that promotes balcony solar. Members of a German solar industry association spent years advocating for the technology and worked with VDE to carve a path toward standardizing balcony solar systems. The initial standard was followed by revised versions in 2018 and 2019 that further outlined technical requirements. The regulatory structure has continued to evolve. Ofenheusle has worked with other advocates to amend grid safety standards, create simple online registration for plug-in devices, and enshrine renters right to balcony solar. Politicians supported such efforts because they see the tech easing the nations reliance on Russian natural gas. Cities like Berlin and Munich have provided millions of euros in subsidies to help households buy these systems, and the country is creating a safety standard for batteries that can store the energy for later use. Balcony solar systems feature one or two small photovoltaic panels and a microinverter; they generate enough power to charge a laptop or power a small fridge. [Photo: Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images] Meanwhile, the United States has yet to take the first step of creating a safety standard for the technology. U.S. electrical guidelines dont account for the possibility of plugging a power-generating device into a household outlet. The nation also operates on a different system that precludes simply copying and pasting Germanys rules. The U.S. grid, for example, operates at 120 volts, while that countrys grid operates at 230 volts. Without proper standards, a balcony solar system could pose several hazards. One concern is a phenomenon called breaker masking. Within a home, a single circuit can provide power to several outlets. Each circuit is equipped with a circuit breaker, a safety device within the electrical panel that shuts off power if that circuit is overloaded, which happens when too many appliances try to draw too much electricity at the same time. That prevents overheating or a fire. When a balcony solar device sends power into a circuit while other appliances are drawing power from the circuit, the breaker cant detect that added power supply. If the circuit becomes overloadedmagine turning on your TV while a space heater is running and youre charging your laptop, all in the same roomthe circuit breaker might fail to activate. This was a concern in Germany, so it developed standards that limit balcony solar units to just 800 watts, about half the amount used by a hairdryer. That threshold is considered low enough that even in the countrys oldest homes, the wiring can withstand the heating that occurs in even the worst of worst-case scenarios, said Sebastian Müller, chair of the German Balcony Solar Association, a consumer education and advocacy group. As a result, Ofenheusle said there havent been any cases of breaker masking causing harm. In fact, with millions of the devices installed nationwide, Germany has yet to see any safety issues beyond a few cases where someone tampered with the devices to add a car battery or other unsuitable hardware, he said. Another issue in the U.S. is the lack of a compatible safety device called a ground fault circuit interrupter, or a GFCI. They are typically built into outlets installed near water sources, like a sink, washing machine, or bathtub. Theyre designed to minimize the risk of electric shock by cutting off power when, for example, a hairdryer falls into a sink. Yet there are no certified GFCI outlets in the U.S. designed for use with devices that consume power, like a blender, and those that generate it, like a balcony solar setup. Germanys equivalent of a GFCI, called a residual current device, can detect bidirectional power flows, said Andreas Schmitz, a mechanical engineer and YouTuber in Germany who makes videos about balcony solar. Some people have raised concerns about the shock risk of touching the metal prongs of a plug after unplugging a balcony solar device. German regulators accounted for that by requiring the microinverterwhich converts currents from the panel into electricity fed into the homeshut down immediately in an outage or when it is suddenly unplugged. Most of them already have this feature, but any U.S. standard will likely need to formalize that requirement. The lack of an Underwriters Laboratories, or UL, standard is perhaps the biggest obstacle to the adoption of balcony solar. The company certifies the safety of thousands of household electrical products; according to Iowa State University, Every light bulb, lamp, or outlet purchased in the U.S. usually has a UL symbol and says UL Listed. This assures customers that the product follows nationally recognized guidelines and can be used without the risk of a fire or shock. While some companies have sold plug-in solar devices in the U.S. without a UL listing, the companys seal of approval typically is a prerequisite for selling products on the wider market. Consumers might be wary of using something that lacks its approval. Utahs new balcony solar policy, for example, specifies that the law applies only to UL-listed products. Achim Ginsberg-Klemmt, vice president of engineering at the plug-in solar startup GismoPower, has been working on creating such a standard for more than a year and a half. In 2023, the Department of Energy awarded his company a grant to work with UL to develop a standard. GismoPower sells a mobile carport with a roof of solar panels and an integrated electric vehicle charger. Unlike rooftop solar, the system doesnt need to be mounted in place but can be rolled onto a driveway and plugged in, generating electricity for the car, house, and the grid. Were basically taking rooftop solar to the next level by making it portable and accessible for renters, Ginsberg-Klemmt said. The product is in use at pilot sites nationwide, though a lack of standardized rules for plug-in solar has forced the company to negotiate interconnection agreements with local utilitiesa time-consuming and sometimes costly process. GismoPowers product avoids one of the biggest technical challenges with balcony solar by plugging into a dedicated 240-volt outlet, the kind typically used for dryers. Such an outlet serves a single appliance and uses a dedicated circuit, sidestepping the risk of overloading. But it runs headlong into the same obstacle of lacking a compatible UL standard. Ginsberg-Klemmt is working with researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, other entrepreneurs, and engineers at Underwriters Laboratories to develop such a standard, but it hasnt been easy. We have found so many roadblocks, he told Grist. One major sticking point is that any standard must comply with the National Electrical Code, a set of guidelines for electrical wiring in buildings that does not allow for the installation of plug-in energy systems like balcony solar. The rules are issued by the National Fire Protection Association, a nonprofit trade association, and adopted on a state-by-state basis. The code is updated every three years, with the next iteration due later this year for the 2026 edition. Ginsberg-Klemmt and his working group submitted recommendations for amending the code to allow plug-in solarand every one of them was rejected in October. Jeff Sargent, the National Fire Protection Associations staff liaison to the National Electrical Code committee, told Grist that this is the first time the organization had received public comments about plug-in solar systems. For now, it cannot consider amendments to allow their use until a compatible ground fault circuit interrupter exists, he said. Once thats available, he said, the association can ensure that outdoor outlets can be safely used for balcony solar. Electrical standards are constantly evolving, and it often takes more than one cycle of code changes to allow for new products, said Sargent. Ginsberg-Klemmt said his group will continue to pursue other avenues to amend the codes. Until that happens, a UL standard for plug-in solar is unlikely to go anywhere. But interest in plug-in energy solutions isnt going away, and decision-makers will have to adjust to that reality eventually, Ward said. It happened in Germany, where people across the political spectrum have embraced the technology. Ward believes the same thing will happen here. The way he sees it, Its just a good thing if you set up a system so people have a way to take care of as much of their own problems as they can. This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.
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