3 ms·

Unconvincing. So the explosion in modern communication technology and advanced worldwide transportation has led to this? Many jobs are now shipped round the w

Unconvincing. So the explosion in modern communication technology and advanced worldwide transportation has led to this? Many jobs are now shipped round the world. Xrays are read overseas. iPhone parts are procured from multiple nations. People work from home--some teams of software developers are scattered over thousands of miles. Meanwhile, there is a growing prospect of transportation becoming even cheaper and more efficient. We've already seen this for goods--containerized shipping was a revolution. Now the Uber-like services and driverless cars hold potential to remake cities. A piece like this needs a rebuttal--or at least a mere mention!--of these developments. Instead the reader is left to figure out how innovations like a video phone in everyone's pocket and worldwide next day shipping have had the exact opposite effect that one would expect?

muraiki 11y ago
Of the few hundred people I know, who work across many industries including health care, automotive and aerospace engineering, and software development, I can think of 3 who are able to work from home full time. What you experience in your particular area might not be the norm in another part of the world (or even just the US).
- massysett 11y ago
  Just because they are not able to work from home does not mean that technology has not affected their work. More importantly for the purposes of this article, technology may still affect the importance of proximity in land uses. A call center worker may not be able to work at home. But thanks to cheap communications the job can be moved overseas, thus reducing the value of land in rich countries. A health care worker may not be able to work at home. But if someone overseas can read the x-rays, there's less need for land in the rich country. Moreover you say you know only three who can work from home full time. Others may be able to work from home part time, which gives them freedom to live farther from work and commute. These are obvious arguments in an age of blanket 4G coverage but this piece doesn't even address them.
notahacker 11y ago
When it comes to the advances in modern communication technology, more money is thrown at building it in one mid-sized, low-rise and incredibly expensive US city than in most of the rest of the industrialised world put together. When even the people trying to "disrupt" traditional bricks and mortar business and supply chains see "miles from Sand Hill Road" as a major factor in their startup's potential to raise revenue and exit, it's hardly surprising that the effects of technological progress haven't been sufficient to counteract the effect of massive population and income increases on the value of an essentially fixed supply of land. Given the weight of evidence of what actually happens to land prices over time, I think the burden of proof is very much on the futurists to make the argument that people owning land where globalised world business is increasingly centred aren't going to continue to cream off significant percentages of productivity increases they generally haven't contributed to.

muraiki 11y ago

Of the few hundred people I know, who work across many industries including health care, automotive and aerospace engineering, and software development, I can think of 3 who are able to work from home full time. What you experience in your particular area might not be the norm in another part of the world (or even just the US).

massysett 11y ago
Just because they are not able to work from home does not mean that technology has not affected their work. More importantly for the purposes of this article, technology may still affect the importance of proximity in land uses. A call center worker may not be able to work at home. But thanks to cheap communications the job can be moved overseas, thus reducing the value of land in rich countries. A health care worker may not be able to work at home. But if someone overseas can read the x-rays, there's less need for land in the rich country. Moreover you say you know only three who can work from home full time. Others may be able to work from home part time, which gives them freedom to live farther from work and commute. These are obvious arguments in an age of blanket 4G coverage but this piece doesn't even address them.

notahacker 11y ago

When it comes to the advances in modern communication technology, more money is thrown at building it in one mid-sized, low-rise and incredibly expensive US city than in most of the rest of the industrialised world put together. When even the people trying to "disrupt" traditional bricks and mortar business and supply chains see "miles from Sand Hill Road" as a major factor in their startup's potential to raise revenue and exit, it's hardly surprising that the effects of technological progress haven't been sufficient to counteract the effect of massive population and income increases on the value of an essentially fixed supply of land. Given the weight of evidence of what actually happens to land prices over time, I think the burden of proof is very much on the futurists to make the argument that people owning land where globalised world business is increasingly centred aren't going to continue to cream off significant percentages of productivity increases they generally haven't contributed to.