The Los Angeles Times rejected my piece that I present below. Of course, I'm trying to sell my new 2022 Going Remote book!!
The New New Geography of Jobs
LeBron James joined the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018. He wanted to live and work in Los Angeles. How many of us have compromised as we live in a place because our work is nearby?
Going forward, a silver lining of the pandemic is that more and more of us will have the option to live where we want to live as we engage in WFH on either a part-time or full time basis. How will this new freedom affect our quality of life?
More educated workers are more likely to be working in occupations and industries that are WFH “friendly”. While a surgeon cannot work from home, a book author can. More and more people have learned due to our experience we gained from the COVID lockdown that we can be quite productive while working at home.
WFH workers reduce their weekly commute time. The rise of WFH allows for staggered work hours removing many peak commuters off the roads. The typical WFH worker saves perhaps 5 hours a week in commute time. Will traffic speeds increase for everyone else? This depends on whether more drivers take non-work related trips when road speeds increase.
WFH workers will have increased freedom in their lives to exercise more, to spend more time with children, to participate in family chores and to co-ordinate their leisure time with their nearby neighbors and friends. This opens up the possibility of new civic engagement. On days when a child is sick or bad weather days, the WFH worker can be productive and caring while at home. This opportunity reduces one’s stress and improves one’s mental health.
In 2021 and 2022, economists have used U.S Postal Service change of address data to study migration patterns. We are already spreading out. People have been moving to the exurbs and bidding up home prices there. People will move to areas where they want to be now that they are “untethered” and can live where they want to live. People who love to ski will move to such areas. Those with an aging mother may move closer to her without facing the same labor market penalty as before the rise of WFH. The ability to seek out cheaper housing will allow families to achieve their goals. One economic study argued that when people live in larger housing that this causes them to have more children!
During this time of deep concern about inequality, will WFH be elitist such that those who are not WFH eligible will be left behind and housing will become unaffordable in areas far from the cities? While these are open questions, economic logic offers several insights. First, with the rise of new WFH communities, there will be a local demand for the service economy as construction workers, teachers and restaurants will be in demand. For those non-WFH workers with a taste for the area’s lifestyle, new opportunities will emerge. Second, home prices do not have to soar in the medium term if real estate developers are allowed to build new housing in these places that have plenty of land. American’s NIMBYism could be a key constraint on how the rise of WFH affects our nations’ geography.
Consider California. Our state is suffering from drought right now and features extremely high home prices. Farmers consume over 75% of the state’s water. If some farmland could be rezoned as suburban housing, then water consumption would decrease and the supply of affordable housing would increase as that land is converted into housing. The rise of WFH helps our state to adapt to climate change and to increase the supply of affordable housing!
Third, our cities feature many durable buildings. If many WFH workers “head for the hills”, this opens up new possibilities for those who want to live in a San Francisco or a Boston to find housing there. This possibility only grows if commercial real estate in these areas is converted into residential buildings.
In the medium term, the rise of WFH opens new opportunities for parents of young children. In the past, many women opted out of the workforce to raise children. WFH opens up the possibility of working part-time for one’s firm while the kids are young. A firm that anticipates this dynamic will continue to mentor such young female workers and this will close the gender earnings gap. In the past, women disproportionately entered fields such as being a pharmacist because of the job’s flexibility. WFH opens up the possibility of more flexibility and thus accommodates our diversity.
In the past, African Americans were under-represented in the Tech Sector. Relatively few African-Americans live in tech cities such as San Francisco and Seattle. Few tech companies have headquarters in Baltimore or Detroit. The rise of WFH raises the possibility of the “best of both worlds”. One can live in Baltimore and work and physically appear from time to time at Amazon HQ2 or a future HQ3. Such tech firms will be able to attract a more diverse workforce and depressed cities such as Baltimore will attract role models who boost the local tax base.
A “New” New Geography of Jobs is now emerging. Those firms that recognize this point will build a stronger, more diverse and more loyal workforce. Those places that compete to attract such workers will enjoy growth and an influx of new blood.’. A stronger America emerges as people can live where they want to live and change their schedules to meet their goals and responsibilities.