Downtown organisations at a crossroads: Strategic and structural change needed

Abstract

After briefly discussing the past effectiveness of downtown organisational models, the analysis explores the abilities of our large downtown organisations in the US to deal with some of the major problems they now face in the post-COVID-19 world. Downtowns need to become much more multifunctional and true central places for their communities in a manner that decreases the presence of office space while increasing the amount of space allocated to housing, entertainment and leisure activities. There are, however, a host of other key problems that are connected to the office space issue. Downtown activities associated with social connections and interactions will be as — or even more — important than those associated with work in the future. This analysis scopes out the strong challenges these problems pose and recommends some solution paths for dealing with them. Many ‘same old’ strategic, organisational and operational options will not be viable. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.