Going Remote

How the Flexible Work Economy Can Improve Our Lives and Our Cities

Matthew E. Kahn

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9780520384316
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520384323
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

A leading urban economist's hopeful study of how shifts to remote work can change all of our lives for the better.
 
As COVID-19 descended upon the country in 2020, millions of American office workers transitioned to working from home to reduce risk of infection and prevent spread of the virus. In the aftermath of this shift, a significant number of workers remain at least partially remote. It is clear that this massive experiment we were forced to run will have long-term consequences, changing the shape of our personal and work lives, as well as the urban landscape around us. How will the rise of telecommuting affect workers' quality of life, the profitability of firms, and the economic geography of our cities and suburbs? Going Remote addresses the uncertainties and possibilities of this moment.

In Going Remote, urban economist Matthew E. Kahn takes readers on a journey through the new remote-work economy, revealing how people will configure their lives when they have more freedom to choose where they work and how they live. Melding ideas from labor economics, family economics, the theory of the firm, and urban economics, Kahn paints a realistic picture of the future for workers, firms, and urban areas, big and small. As Kahn shows, the rise of remote work presents especially valuable opportunities for flexibility and equity in the lives of women, minorities, and young people, and even for those whose jobs do not allow them to work from home. Uncovering key implications for our quality of life, Going Remote demonstrates how the rise of remote work can significantly improve the standard of living for millions of people by expanding personal freedom, changing the arc of how we live, work, and play.

Index

Abadie, Alberto, 133

adaptation, varying capacities for, 23, 115

affordable housing, Facebook’s program for, 124

African Americans: disproportionate residence in city center neighborhoods, 57; housing choices, racial wealth gap and, 56–57; preference for living in cities with high percentages of black residents, and limited job and education opportunities, 82; and rising real estate prices in superstar cities, lack of gain from, 130–31; and WFH, access to more affordable housing through, 57

African Americans, in large postindustrial cities: increased opportunities with WFH, 10, 15–16, 81–83; as large pool of potential workers, 80–81; lost manufacturing jobs, 79; reasons for limited opportunities, 79–81

African American unemployment: companies’ increased interest in diverse workforce and, 81–82; effect of WFH on, 81–83; lack of local high-paying technology and finance jobs, 80–81, 82; and lack of working role models, 79–80, 81; move of jobs to suburbs and, 79; reduction of, through WFH, 79–80; and spatial mismatch hypothesis, 79

Airbnb: and exurban families’ access to city culture and amenities, 57; and visits to environmentalist worker communities, 61

air travel, low-cost: and decentralization of firms, 91, 97; and scientific and academic collaborations, increase in, 97; and visits to potential new homes, 166

Amazon: corporate campus, recently built, 1, 92; decentralization of, 97–98, 101; hiring of African Americans and, 81; Housing Equity Fund of, 127; HQ2 in Virginia, 82, 92; move into Seattle politics, 123; and Seattle’s economic boom, 119; Seattle’s efforts to tax, 14, 122–24; and shopping malls, effect on, 91; and WFH’s effect on productivity, monitoring and adjusting as needed, 129–30

American Time Use Survey, 36–37

Apple: corporate campus, recently-built, 1, 89, 93; and rising rents in Seattle, local anger about, 121

Arizona, California residents and businesses moving to, 135

Atlanta: percentage of commuters using cars, 31; suburbs with cheaper housing in, 53, 54–55, 57

automakers in Detroit, funding of programs in response to 1967 riots, 125–26

Baltimore: concentration of poor people in city center, 86; and deindustrialization, failure to recover from, 169, 170–71; disadvantages of minority children raised in, 172; Great Fire, redevelopment following, 132; high number of low-income residents, as challenge, 95; housing in, as investment, viability of, 171; increased job opportunities with WFH, 82; lack of high-paying technology and finance jobs, 80–81; large African American population in, 10, 80; low housing prices in, 169, 170; poor housing, health risks of, 57; population decline, 15–16, 95, 169, 186; as postindustrial city, 13, 169–70; potential benefits from new WFH residents, 15–16, 80, 169, 171–73, 186; quality-of-life challenges in, 170–71; and WFH at Johns Hopkins University, concerns about effects of, 94–95; and WFH commuters to Washington, DC, 170; and WFH power couples, 76–77, 78. See also cities, postindustrial

beautiful places: ability to move to, and increase in inequality, 163; attractiveness as locations for firms with WFH workers, 180; availability of information on, 166; large number in US, 163, 177–78; marketing of, to WFH workers, 166; possibility of moving to, with WFH flexibility, 163; risks faced by early movers to, 177; with room for new WFH workers, examples of, 178–79. See also climate, p...

Table of contents

• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: No Going Back
• I · Workers
• II · Firms
• III · Locations
• Conclusion: The New Geography of Jobs
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Recommended Reading
• Index