The trend in businesses across the country isn't from private office to open offices. It's from cubicals to open office. Cublicals don't really predate the big

The trend in businesses across the country isn't from private office to open offices. It's from cubicals to open office. Cublicals don't really predate the big white collar office, but they've been around since the 1960s. Before then offices tended to be smaller. But they had bullpens then too. People hated cublicals because they imagined the alternative was a private office. Instead the alternative is no real private space at all. People started believing cublicals are the worst of both worlds. Not as private as an office, but still limits community and collaboration. In the media, cublical farms were considered at best a joke and at worst the tyranny of the modern workplace. What is pushing the trend further is insane real estate prices. Now even executives and high value employees (lawyers, management, etc) are getting pressured to give up offices.