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This is a good thing, whilst centralisation of workforce has it's upsides, it has in many places exceeded that balance with many negative impacts. Whilst thes

by Zenst 7y ago

This is a good thing, whilst centralisation of workforce has it's upsides, it has in many places exceeded that balance with many negative impacts. Whilst these are small steps, for those removed from the overheads of a delayed saturated comute and associated impacts upon health. Equally, one less commuter, helps reduce that saturation and crowing with associated delays, might even be that per person we are only talking a nanosecond level of scale. But when you have many of these small reductions in saturation, and those gains project across a larger scale. You end up with slightly better air quality, slightly less health impacts, slightly less delays. Hopefully this is a trend that tractions as many roles can be shifted in this way and improve quality of life overall. On the flip-side, will we see large corporation office space shifted into the virtual World? Will signs start appearing in offices "Will the last one to relocate, please not turn off this server". Maybe. But the ability to use up an area and then move on, expand and repeat the process has been one trait humans share with many biological organisms. Is this just nature at play thru adaption to the environment,on some level - I'd say yes.

ajmurmann 7y ago
What's the environmental impact of this? Won't this use up way more land and be in general much less efficient?
- Zenst 7y ago
  For many instances - no as you are just removing that long commute. Many places have high priced area's that people commute to from a great distance. In those cases you are removing the commute. For those moving into the countryside, unless your building new houses - your not using up more land. Just shifting and also removing the need for new housing in dense area's, so protecting green spaces were they are more needed. But any swing one way or another can shift that balance. You can look at the extreme of people all shifting to the countryside that the countryside itself becomes a town, a city.... But things tends to balance out. After all, in many area's we are seeing the demise of high street shopping, is that a good or bad thing. But I'm sure many do not want to live in stacked up boxes so small as so they are barely affordable and all other activities reduced to door delivery. Though in many area's, that is kinda what people have already. Then the whole aspect of the population not getting any smaller and such shifts will be more than offset by population expansion.
  - fzeroracer 7y ago
    You aren't really removing the commute. You're replacing the work commute with the grocery/social life/needs etc commute. Which is also far less efficient on a community-level because those smaller towns and suburbs have to be strongly subsidized in order to maintain infrastructure that far fewer people use. Not to mention that by working remote you're also starving those small towns of business growth opportunities by having it be centralized in another state, which means paying for new infrastructure is much harder especially given how tax-averse Americans tend to be.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      Citation? My small town is not subsidized by anybody, far as I know.
      - fzeroracer 7y ago
        Where does the funding for new infrastructure come from? Hospitals? Public services such as police or firefighters? Libraries, if your town has any? Or how about schools? This money comes from the federal government, gets distributed down to the state level which then gets distributed out to the various cities and localities depending on need [1]. A lot of these towns are given grants or loans from the USDA in order to fund various improvements [2]. [1] https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-state-budgets-federal-funding-2015-2018-trump.html https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-state-budgets-f... [2] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/7/1/my-journey-from-free-market-ideologue-to-strong-towns-advocate https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/7/1/my-journey-from...
        JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        We build our own in Iowa. Not sure how that works elsewhere. We build our excellent secondary road system (access to every section in Iowa for agricultural purposes). We build our hospitals. Our library was a local bond issue. And our schools! A new bond issue every few years for schools for a growing population. And lets forget the myth that 'federal funding' is free, or come from somewhere else. It comes from us.

by Zenst 7y ago

ajmurmann 7y ago

What's the environmental impact of this? Won't this use up way more land and be in general much less efficient?

Zenst 7y ago
For many instances - no as you are just removing that long commute. Many places have high priced area's that people commute to from a great distance. In those cases you are removing the commute. For those moving into the countryside, unless your building new houses - your not using up more land. Just shifting and also removing the need for new housing in dense area's, so protecting green spaces were they are more needed. But any swing one way or another can shift that balance. You can look at the extreme of people all shifting to the countryside that the countryside itself becomes a town, a city.... But things tends to balance out. After all, in many area's we are seeing the demise of high street shopping, is that a good or bad thing. But I'm sure many do not want to live in stacked up boxes so small as so they are barely affordable and all other activities reduced to door delivery. Though in many area's, that is kinda what people have already. Then the whole aspect of the population not getting any smaller and such shifts will be more than offset by population expansion.
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  You aren't really removing the commute. You're replacing the work commute with the grocery/social life/needs etc commute. Which is also far less efficient on a community-level because those smaller towns and suburbs have to be strongly subsidized in order to maintain infrastructure that far fewer people use. Not to mention that by working remote you're also starving those small towns of business growth opportunities by having it be centralized in another state, which means paying for new infrastructure is much harder especially given how tax-averse Americans tend to be.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Citation? My small town is not subsidized by anybody, far as I know.
    - fzeroracer 7y ago
      Where does the funding for new infrastructure come from? Hospitals? Public services such as police or firefighters? Libraries, if your town has any? Or how about schools? This money comes from the federal government, gets distributed down to the state level which then gets distributed out to the various cities and localities depending on need [1]. A lot of these towns are given grants or loans from the USDA in order to fund various improvements [2]. [1] https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-state-budgets-federal-funding-2015-2018-trump.html https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-state-budgets-f... [2] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/7/1/my-journey-from-free-market-ideologue-to-strong-towns-advocate https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/7/1/my-journey-from...
      - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        We build our own in Iowa. Not sure how that works elsewhere. We build our excellent secondary road system (access to every section in Iowa for agricultural purposes). We build our hospitals. Our library was a local bond issue. And our schools! A new bond issue every few years for schools for a growing population. And lets forget the myth that 'federal funding' is free, or come from somewhere else. It comes from us.