At the lowest tier for just floating desk space the cost of WeWork and these other coworking spaces is kind of ludicrous if you consider the free alternatives - working from home, a laptop-friendly coffee shop or even the library.

So when they say they have "plenty of cushion in a downturn" that's probably very true. When the tech market is bad the number of freelancers explodes. Loss of larger anchor startups can probably be augmented pretty easily by dropping the fees for freelancers a bit and doing business in volume.