work from home

Austin Leads Working at Home Commute Share: 2022

Wendell Cox — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 17:49:45 -0400

The just released American Community Survey indicates that 28.0% of the commuters in the Austin metropolitan area work from home, which is the highest figure among the 56 major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 population). Austin displaces last year’s leader, San Francisco.

The table below lists the 10 major metropolitan areas with the largest work from home shares in 2022. Each of these metropolitan areas has been rated as a tech hub by industry publications.

WORK FROM HOME MARKET SHARE: 2022
Major Metropolitan Area	Work from Home
Austin, TX	28.0%
San Francisco, CA	27.0%
Raleigh, NC	26.1%
Washington, DC-A-MD-WV	25.4%
Seattle, WA	25.4%
San Jose, CA	24.4%
Denver, CO	23.7%
Portland, OR-WA	23.3%
Charlotte, NC-SC	22.3%
Phoenix, AZ	21.7%
Source: American Community Survey: 2022

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a founding senior fellow at the Urban Reform Institute, Houston, a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.

Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985) and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.

30-Minute Commute Access: Theoretical and Actual

Wendell Cox — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 15:05:53 -0400

For some years, the University of Minnesota’s Accessibility Observatory has produced major metropolitan area job access estimates for the average worker, at various trip lengths and modes. Estimates are provided for all the nation’s 53 major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 million), with the exception of Grand Rapids, Rochester and Tucson.

The data indicate auto access to jobs is far greater by car than by transit. This is shown below at the 30-minute job access level, which is slightly more than the average one-way work trip travel time of 28 minutes (about 60% of US workers reached work in 30 minutes), according to the American Community Survey (not counting people who work at home, who have no work trip travel time). At the median, cars can access, on average, 57.7 times as many jobs (5,770% as many jobs) as transit within 30 minutes.

The following table shows auto 30-minute access to jobs in relation to 30-minute access by transit, in terms of auto commuters per transit commuter. The table also indicates actual commuting patterns, express in the actual number of 30-minute auto commuters per 30-minute transit commuter, again from the 2019 American Community Survey. There is a strong correlation between the modeled 30-minute job access and the actual 30 minute commute data (0.686, statistically significant at the 99% level of confidence).

View or download a PDF of the table (link opens in new tab)

Finally, transit ridership has plummeted during the pandemic and has recovered far more slowly than other modes of transport, including driving and air (which are now between 80% and 100% of their pre-pandemic levels as well as Amtrak and transit, which are between 50% and 60% of their previous levels, according to Randal O’Toole. With the future of transit ridership uncertain, especially due to the massive increase in hybrid and remote working and a residual fear of proximity (infection), the car advantage could widen.

Standardizing the Gig Hybrid Work Week?

Wendell Cox — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 11:57:30 -0500

San Francisco Examiner reporter Jeff Elder describes efforts to coordinate hybrid work schedules that involve working part time at home and part time in the office (“Tech industry’s ‘three-day work week’ may change the future of the office forever”). Elder notes that tech workers, in the Bay Area seem to be gravitating toward working at home on Mondays and Fridays, and working in the office Tuesday through Friday.

Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute told the Examiner. “There’s going to have to be some experimentation. We’re going to end up somewhere around three days a week in the office. As we talk to companies, they increasingly say around three days in the office is what they want from employees.”

According to Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University, “In 2022, employees will increasingly be required to come in on set days, with the payoff of working from home on the other days.”

A Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday work in the office week might offer employees an organized period to maximize collaboration, as opposed to less formalized arrangements in which employee attendance would be more random.

Such an arrangement would seem to have potential to maximize Tech employee productivity in the Bay Area, the world’s largest Gig labor market.

Feudal Future Podcast: Cities of the Future

Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 16:16:49 -0500

On this episode of Feudal Future, hosts Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky are joined by Austin Williams and J.H. Cullum Clark. This episode focuses on the future of cities and what it will take to build the new world.

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More podcast episodes & show notes at JoelKotkin.com

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Join the Beyond Feudalism Facebook group.
Learn about Joel's book, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism.

About our guests:

Dr. J.H. Cullum Clark is the Director of the Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative where he is responsible for managing various aspects of the new partnership between the Department of Economics and the Bush Institute and leads the Initiative's work on domestic economic policy and economic growth.
Learn more about J.H. Cullum Clark

Austin Williams is the director of the Future Cities Project, China correspondent for the Architectural Review and has written for a range of publications; from the Times Literary Supplement to Top Gear; from Dezeen to The Economist.

His latest books are "China's Urban Revolution: Understanding Chinese Eco-cities" (Bloomsbury, 2017) and "New Chinese Architecture: Twenty Women Building the Future" (Thames & Hudson, forthcoming, 2019). His previous books include: "The Enemies of Progress", "The Future of Community" and "The Lure of the City". He co-founded the mantownhuman manifesto (featured in Penguin Classics "100 Artists' Manifestos") and the New Narratives initiative. (Kingston)
Learn more about Austin Williams

About the hosts:

Joel Kotkin is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, Executive Director of the Urban Reform Institute, and an internationally-recognized authority on global, economic, political and social trends. His most recent book, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism is now available for order.

Marshall Toplansky is a widely published and award-winning marketing professional and successful entrepreneur. He co-founded KPMG’s data & analytics center of excellence and now teaches and consults corporations on their analytics strategies.

This show is presented by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, which focuses on research and analysis of global, national and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results over time.

How COVID is Shaping the Office of the Future with Gensler's Kirstie Acevedo & Jim Young

Charlie Stephens — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 16:06:00 -0400

In this episode of the Feudal Future podcast, hosts Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky are joined by guests Jim Young and Kirstie Acevedo of Gensler, the largest design and architecture firm in the world. Their conversation covers the future trends and needs of office spaces and what kinds of issues employers are facing in our current world. They begin by discussing how wide-spread the redesigning of workspaces is as folks return to their offices. Jim explains that what companies are looking for the most in these times is flexibility. No one knows what tomorrow may bring, so agility and the willingness to try new things is paramount. Kirstie explains that Gensler bases their design on the science and needs of the client at all times, especially as the desire for safety takes top priority.

Many employees, even at Gensler are making the move to work from home; Jim and Kirstie believe that post-pandemic the workplace will evolve into a place to meet. Employees can come together to collaborate in offices, but continue working from home with increased regularity. Jim explains that they’re not seeing a move away from open collaborative office spaces, but rather a new focus on how to make those environments safer for everyone at work. They’re trying to balance the needs of social distancing alongside the decreased need for people to work 100% of their work time at work.

The episode wraps up with Jim and Kirstie sharing some of the ways offices are planning to reopen, including outdoor spaces, home offices, and digitally immersive workspaces. Kirstie emphasizes the shift towards a local mindset and how office communities can be part of buying, living, and creating locally. Jim expresses an optimism for the future, and what can be created in adversity and unknown times.

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Telework, Telehealth & Real Estate After the Pandemic with Dan Young

Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 13:19:31 -0400

In the second episode of the Feudal Future podcast, Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky talk with guest Dan Young about his vision of the future post-COVID-19. Dan was the former president of the Irvine Company, mayor of Santa Ana, and currently serves on the board of Hoag Hospital.

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Learn more at joelkotkin.com