I don't know about biotech, but my brother works in a lab with lasers and he's still WFH 3-5 days/week. Experiments are done in the office, but planned and analyzed at home.
For the purpose of this conversation, there's no practical difference between "work from home only some of the time" and "never work from home". If you have to be in the office two days a week, that implies both the purposeful existence of an office and a need to live somewhere that's not a zillion miles away from that office.
There definitely is impact. Shops can't survive being only open 2/7 of the time. As in things like coffee shops, restaurants, etc and this cascades. Even malls are impact as people might buy random things at lunch or after work.
Coffee shops and lunch restaurants--the places people going to an office might frequent--sure. But other shops will still exist (or if they don't, it will be because of Amazon, not because of WFH). As for reduced foot traffic, that problem will solve itself if commercial rents plummet; look at the storefronts in any depressed town or dying mall and marvel at the weird, low-traffic uses that empty storefronts get put to when landlords get desperate ("Sure, you want to open a store for bouncy-ball enthusiasts that's only open on Mondays? Keep the pipes from freezing over and it's yours."). And if there are 2/7ths as many Starbucks, that'll still leave two Starbucks within eyeshot at any given moment.
> And if there are 2/7ths as many Starbucks, that'll still leave two Starbucks within eyeshot at any given moment.
It doesn't work. It'll go to 0. None can cover the costs.
> But other shops will still exist
You might be surprised the number of people that sneak out during work or during "breaks" and/or before/after work. Have seen people with all sorts of things from the shop in the office that isn't food.
