Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay
Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay
the place I work has tried RTO policies several times now - with very limited success. well over 90% of all white collar jobs can be done from wherever you can get internet so your VPN software will function. the customer facing part of the business has to be there 100% of the time, they dont have a choice, that’s how the business model is designed. I go in a few days a week but honestly dont ever actually need to be there.
the really interesting bit, which the article didnt touch on (not much of an article to begin with) is that there is a commercial real-estate bubble. the big buildings in the downtown business district/cores of most cities, that real-estate isnt worth much if there’s no one renting the space. businesses that used to rent the space no longer need to because all of their employees work from home now. the people who invested in those big buildings are not seeing a return on their investments - and they are unhappy. that is, imho, a big driver behind the RTO movement.
Bingo, it’s not that there’s a lack of people that want to live downtown, it’s that there’s not enough space to accommodate everyone so it’s not financially realistic to most people who want to.
The suburbs thing usually becomes something people want while they have kids at home.
it’s that there’s not enough space to accommodate everyone so it’s not financially realistic to most people who want to.
There’s plenty of space, it’s used incredibly poorly due to free parking, zoning regulations, and running highways through cities. The financial component is simply there aren’t enough of these spaces and they aren’t dense enough (and they could stand to include a lot more public and social housing, but people oppose it because they don’t want “those” people in their neighborhoods).
That’s not to say that reforming suburbs to make them more livable wouldn’t be a part of the solution too.
You can have walkable neighbourhoods without living downtown in a big city. Small villages are the original way to have walkable lifestyles. It’s how everyone lived centuries ago. There’s still plenty of those around, they just get overlooked.
Suburbs exist mainly for the purpose of commuting into the city for work. If people stopped doing that then they could leave the suburbs.