A new analysis from The Corn’s research department finds that downtown construction in the region is being met with what economists are calling “an unusually high volume of speculative negativity” — that is, complaints about buildings that do not yet exist, will not exist for some time, or, in several cases, are not being built at all.
The findings are based on The Corn’s proprietary Speculative Negativity Index, which aggregates community Facebook group commentary on local development proposals and weights it according to how much the commenter appears to already know what the finished building will look like.
This quarter’s reading is severe. Among the developments currently being negatively reviewed in advance:
- A new restaurant, location and cuisine undetermined, which several residents have already declared “won’t last.”
- A residential building of an undisclosed number of storeys, which one community member confirmed will be “way too tall.”
- An empty lot on which nothing has been announced, but which residents agree will probably be condos.
- A coffee shop that opened six months ago, which residents continue to discuss as if it is being built.
“I drove by the construction yesterday and saw nothing,” one longtime resident wrote to a local community group, in a post that was widely shared. “Mark my words: it will not be good.”
A second resident concurred. “I opened the paper to read about the new development,” she said, “and I was disappointed to find nothing but speculation. Which I then added to.”
The Index also tracks a secondary metric, the Pre-Emptive Disappointment Ratio, which measures the proportion of complaints made before a development has broken ground. This quarter, that figure stands at ninety-one percent.
A representative of the local development office, reached for comment, expressed cautious optimism that some of the buildings would eventually be built, and that the community would then be able to dislike them based on what they actually were. She declined to speculate further.
The Corn will publish the next Speculative Negativity reading in the autumn issue, or earlier if a new restaurant is announced.