The Ticking Time Bomb in America’s Downtowns

The majority of office-spaces aren't suitable for that, and even those that are aren't viable as market-products - you'd need to basically rebuild from the ground up for most places, which doesn't make sense economically, as if you're going to do that, why not just literally rebuild it after razing the office-tower, resulting in a more attractive, on all fronts, end-product? As for those spaces that are suitable for retrofitting, the lower rent-levels activists clamour for simply don't cover the expense of redoing a high-earning office-space into affordable housing, doubly so as that actually has a knock-on effect on the rent-levels for the remaining office-spaces, bringing it down as companies actively desire to not share spaces with normal tenets.

If you want to retrofit office-towers into affordable housing you'll need massive incentives; rewrite your building-codes and allow certain exemptions for these retrofits; and finally, wring in profiteering with legislation companies are actually afraid of.