There are two growing trends that are going to drastically impact the future of our city centers: rising fuel costs and telecommuting. Traditional pundits look at rising fuel costs and forecast the return of well populated urban areas. If it costs an arm and a leg for people to drive to work, food and play then naturally people are going to move closer to everything.
Telecommuting changes the rules of the game. If people can work from anywhere in the world, why would they choose to live in a crowded, polluted urban environment? The telecommuting trend actually points toward a return to more suburban/rural life blend. People can remain near family and friends in a place that gives them the quality/cost of life balance that they want. The internet gives them the ability to still work and participate in the global economy. It even gives them the ability to remain job mobile by actively networking and job seeking from anywhere. And then as long as there is an airport in driving distance they can still get anywhere they need.
Maybe this isn’t directly a real estate story, but it seems to me like these trends point in the direction of smaller and smaller footprint needs. If I was a builder or investor, high rise buildings are becoming a riskier investment by the day other than in certain unique markets (New York, Chicago, LA, etc.). Maybe it really is time to invest in the technology and processes that will eventually drive our operational real estate footprint to zero.