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Remote work’s toll on cities

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21–30 of 250 posts

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#21
post #17

My 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…

all of these things have already been happening for a long time. no jobs == priced out

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#22
> cities must let developers convert office buildings into housing

This is an Activist piece - not an Analysis piece. You cannot trust facts reported in an article that's advocating change.

It cherry picks a number of facts in order to further the arguments.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#23
post #8
post #2

Remote 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.

I would love more concentrated neighborhoods like I’ve seen in many places across Europe many other places across Europe dont have this or most people arent conveniently located but my point is that this doesn't seem to be an option at all in the US, unless you are in a nice development within one or two cities. not an option in the suburbs anywhere to my knowledge.

I would be surprised to find this in suburbs, though Boulder might fit.

Some wfh people have easily found it in resort mountain towns in USA, which have similarities to European resort mountain towns (outdoor activities, walkable, size constrained by geography).

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#24
post #8
post #2

Remote 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.

I would love more concentrated neighborhoods like I’ve seen in many places across Europe many other places across Europe dont have this or most people arent conveniently located but my point is that this doesn't seem to be an option at all in the US, unless you are in a nice development within one or two cities. not an option in the suburbs anywhere to my knowledge.

That's correct. US zoning laws have banned the construction of dense urban neighborhoods and required car-centric suburban neighborhood plans since about World War II. Mandatory density limits and setbacks and numbers of parking spaces and square feet per occupant and other zoning regulations make it illegal to build anything other than low density suburbs.

Many people still want to live in a dense, walkable neighborhood, though; supply is just fixed at ~1940 levels forever. The few prewar walkable cities that still function such as New York and San Francisco are very expensive as a result. Housing that was built for and occupied by working class people for generations is now too pricey for all but the rich.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#25
There was a lot of worry about this with London during the pandemic, to the extent that the politicians seemed to be putting the interests of Pret a Manger (a sandwich chain) ahead of health measures.

In the end it seemed likely that commercial landlords were a driver behind the politicians - if people no longer come to the city, who will rent my extremely expensive office space?

British workers were made to feel like they were letting the country down, not coming in to the city, not spending money in city-centre shops, personally responsible for bankrupting business owners.

Meanwhile my local sandwich bar and my local coffee shop were getting a bunch more trade. As were my local tradespeople, as I used what I saved on train travel to pay for work on the house.

The effort to drag people back to workplaces was massively short-sighted in a country where politics and earnings are massively london-centric, where public transport is often straining to meet demand for commuters, and commuting by car jams roads and pumps out tons of unnecessary CO2.

The hollowing out of big city centres should be considered a victory. Spread the wealth, cut unnecessary travel. And give commuting time back to families.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#27
post #2

Remote 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.

Then you run into local zoning. I for one would love more mixed zoning in neighborhoods on city boundaries, but too many entrenched interests at the moment

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#28
post #2

Remote 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.

Then you run into local zoning. I for one would love more mixed zoning in neighborhoods on city boundaries, but too many entrenched interests at the moment

Zoning may change with more people working from home and wanting things closer.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#29

Some 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 compar…

I'm both excited for you and worried that over the medium to long term, companies will adjust the pay down to match people's locales and such salaries will be lower over time from more competition.

But as I said, excited for you as it currently stands :-)

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#30

Some 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 compar…

Would the salaries be different for different remote locations though? If salaries were level then this would be a good thing for workers and for cities as well. Cities may as well get more decongested, rents may drop enough to become affordable and so on
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