This episode of Cities After… is the first of a two-part series in which Prof. Robles-Durán will explore a post-covid urbanization trend taunting real estate developers and municipal governments across the globe: the adaptive reuse of vacant office spaces into homes. As businesses struggle to lure employees into the full-time occupation of their corporate cubicles and housing prices continue to rise, some champion the rezoning and transformation of office space into residential property as a win-win scenario for cities, while others forewarn the trend as a fiscal and economic catastrophe in the making. Robles-Durán takes a different stance on these positions in this two-part series, first, by unfolding a brief history of a few influential urban ideas from the end of the industrial revolution to the present—particularly functionalist and modernist principles—and, second, by discussing the effects and socio-spatial consequences of these trends.