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Remote work’s toll on cities
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Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#12Remote work has the potential to make neighborhoods more dynamic. With more people at home, there's more demand for nearby coffee shops, entertainment, food options. I prefer the decentralized neighborhood approach to the hub and spoke model where you commute to a big city from the boring suburbs.
The big problem with that is that zoning laws in america compartmentalize everything and you don't have many places with intertwined shops/markets with residential areas.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#13Remote work will change, not devastate, American cities. It's pretty silly to live a split life anyway. Homes empty half the day and offices empty half the day; not an efficient way to use space.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#14[deleted]
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#15[flagged]
You mean the car-oriented suburbs?
They are related. The car-oriented cities that serve as only a destination for car-oriented suburbs. With huge highways cutting up neighborhoods that lead directly into a downtown that is mostly parking lots. See the example of Tulsa, Oklahoma that is fully encircled by massive freeways and half the surface is just parking lots.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#16Yes, more city housing is the answer.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#17My long-term prediction: Rural areas and exurbs will up-class, housing the higher-paid remote workers. The remaining non-farming rural poor will be priced out of these properties and will have to live in cities, in ever smaller apartments and eventually pods. The nice services that often are only available in cities currently will distribute more evenly geographically, negating a lot of the benefits of city life.
This will have some positive effects, like having the countryside and its adjoining natural environments better curated, along with the large underclass masses living more resource-efficiently. The main downside will be that cities will be even more of a concentration of crime and other social ills, combined with worse public infrastructure due to reduced city tax revenue.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#18Cities exist to serve people's needs. The 2 existing models are a relic of a low technology past: suburbia with long car commutes to downtown, and dense cities built around facilitating mass daily movement to the office through subway/public transportation. Instead, we need self-sufficient neighborhoods catering to different lifestyles and needs (some higher density and walkable, others still car-centric but encouraging shorter car rides) with limited need for long car rides or large investments in mass public transportation.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#19My long-term prediction: Rural areas and exurbs will up-class, housing the higher-paid remote workers. The remaining non-farming rural poor will be priced out of these properties and will have to live in cities, in ever smaller apartments and eventually pods. The nice services that often are only available in cities currently will distribute more evenly geographically, negating a lot of the benefits of city life. Thi…
There are still huge returns to concentrating nice in-person things besides work in one place. Nobody is attending zoos, museums, or restaurants remotely.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#20Some cities, perhaps. I live in a large (for the Midwest) city in the heartland and previously, being a software engineer around here topped out at ~150k if you had 25 years of experience. (This was literally quoted to me by our most “illustrious” local company, which is just a big government/bigco contracting place).
I got very lucky in finding a highly unusual job paying >>> median wage (but still very light compared to if I moved to the Bay Area). Then the pandemic happened and now in my most recent job search (just completed, I got laid off in November alongside all the other people) pretty much every place offered remote without even asking and I had my pick of pretty much any company I wanted despite my house being literally in a (feed)corn field.
So pretty pumped about some of these very profitable companies finally directing some (prodigious) payroll into my locale. Both selfishly and because I hope it helps inject outside cash locally where it otherwise wouldn’t ever go.