A city centre designed around people arriving every weekday morning and leaving every evening is now serving a population that does that half as often. The effects are working through slowly and they are large.
Commercial property
Office vacancy in many large cities is well above historical norms and has stayed there. Leases signed before the shift are expiring and being renewed for less space, or not at all. Building values have fallen accordingly, with consequences for the lenders holding the debt.
The businesses around offices
Lunch places, dry cleaners, gyms, and everything else that served the commuting population. A shop viable on five days of traffic is not viable on two and a half, and many have closed.
The customers did not disappear; they are spending in the neighbourhoods where they live instead. Suburban and residential high streets have generally done better.
Transit
Systems funded by fares from commuters face revenue shortfalls, while still needing to run. Several have cut service, which makes commuting less attractive, which reduces ridership further.
The conversion question
Turning empty offices into housing is the obvious response and is harder than it sounds. Office floor plates are deep, plumbing is centralised, windows do not open. Conversion works for some buildings and is uneconomic for most.
What is emerging
Mixed use as the default for new development, so districts have residents as well as workers. Fewer, better offices as companies consolidate. And city governments adjusting tax bases that depended on commercial property values that are not coming back.
The long view
Cities have absorbed larger changes than this. The adjustment is slow, uneven, and largely happening through leases expiring rather than through anyone deciding it.