You know what’s really a problem? How dystopian America is.
The opportunity and jobs are in big cities. But housing makes it impossible for many people to even live near the city. People want to solve this problem, but are blocked because people like that their neighborhood has street parking.
It’s killing America and it’s really killing our ability to become a modern, progressive society.
I think the real problem is the density of opportunity and jobs in cities. I’m hopeful that remote work will break that tyranny to some extent. In five years when the emotions have cooled about return to office and the director of finance provides an analysis to the CFO about how much they could save and increase EPS while improving productivity using 2020/21 data and the CFO takes it to the board, that will be the end of the opportunity density in the cities.
It’s a fundamental problem caused by the necessity to collocate to collaborate, which is largely not true any more. Jobs will diffuse away from cities as the people who live in the city out of obligation and have no desire leave. Some stay because they like it. Regardless the density will reduce. That’s a good thing. The hollowing out of the country into the coastal cities is a flaw not a feature.
Have you been to an urban downtown during lockdown where only jobs requiring in person attendance were encouraged to work in the office? They were literally empty. Now with hybrid they’re mostly empty. There wouldn’t be articles we are responding to if this were not true.
The majority of jobs in an urban core is not heavy industry or medical or teaching. Those are on the outside of the urban core, especially heavy industry is usually not in an urban environment at all in modern times.
In the city of Boston, fully half the jobs are in healthcare and education. Many urban jobs can certainly go remote but I don’t think it’s more than half.
You know what’s really a problem? How dystopian America is.
The opportunity and jobs are in big cities. But housing makes it impossible for many people to even live near the city. People want to solve this problem, but are blocked because people like that their neighborhood has street parking.
It’s killing America and it’s really killing our ability to become a modern, progressive society.