My town already had one Starbucks before the pandemic and still has one Starbucks after the pandemic -- moving people to work from home doesn't change the economics of running a service business like a coffee shop or restaurant. My office building had 25 floors, and probably over 1000 people worked there. That's a lot of foot traffic, probably more than my small downtown sees in a day.
When I work from home I just make coffee or lunch at home - I don't drive down to the strip mall for lunch. But when I go to the office, I eat lunch out with coworkers, and my bus drops me off right in front of the Starbucks so it's easy to stop in for coffee.
I doubt that the employees that the lost jobs from the businesses that served offices were all just displaced to the suburbs, but if you have a reference for that, I'd like to see it.
It will take time for businesses to follow the workers. At the very least I would imagine the distribution of such businesses won't fully adjust until after the pandemic is over.
I think it is too early to say.
And given the shortages in servering labor, we may see a shift in the jobs people have as well.
When I work from home I just make coffee or lunch at home - I don't drive down to the strip mall for lunch. But when I go to the office, I eat lunch out with coworkers, and my bus drops me off right in front of the Starbucks so it's easy to stop in for coffee.
I doubt that the employees that the lost jobs from the businesses that served offices were all just displaced to the suburbs, but if you have a reference for that, I'd like to see it.