Quote:
Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
The interesting aspect to this is while urbanists are continuing along the same old line of thinking that it's always best to cram everybody into the downtown areas as it's the central location from which to do business, there is another trend that has been developing for a long time with the advancement of communication technologies. There is an increasing number of people who are able to take advantage of working remotely, where costs are lower than the downtown core of a large city and presumably the surroundings are more desirable to them, while still being able to be in touch via VPN, "the cloud", etc., etc.
While there is obviously still value in urbanist thinking, and there will always be those who prefer that type of setting, one must postulate on whether the trend in the future might be for a more spread-out workforce that can work effectively from essentially "anyplace" in the country that they may want to live, i.e. Lunenburg, the valley, Trenton, Baddeck, or wherever, for those who may have tired of the "rat race" of the daily commute in traffic, busy subways, etc., associated with big city living.  |
Actually, the best and most innovative companies in the world are actually moving in precisely the opposite direction you're describing.
Google banned working remotely (ie from home).
Yahoo just made this move, following Google's lead.
Twitter discourage working from home as the company believes "there are significant tangible and intangible benefits when employees are working under the same roof."
Thus:
Quote:
"Teleworking: The myth of working from home"
Yahoo has banned its staff from "remote" working. After years of many predicting working from home as the future for everybody, why is it not the norm?
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21588760
|
These companies realized that you actually *want* everyone crammed together, because then work sites are more likely to be clusters of innovation and out of the box thinking, where people collaborate more, share ideas, and thus spur innovation.
Similarly, in terms of being an "urbanist", there's a reason why Google has offices in *cities* like Silicon Valley, San Fran, DC, New York City, Toronto, etc, and not Boise, Idaho; Dupo, Ill., or somewhere else in the middle of nowhere. It's why Twitter employs 1500 people in downtown San Fran and not Eureka. Why Tumblr and Etsy are in downtown NYC and not in Buffalo.
It's also why Amazon just set up a massive office right smack in downtown Seattle:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/us...l?pagewanted=2
Part of this, is also about innovation-- cities are clusters of educated workers, collaborators, public and private sector stakeholders, better access to capital; trade connections, travel networks, etc. The other part of the equation is that cities simply have more of what employees want, and so locating downtown can help attract and retain the best most talented workers. It's about forward thinking and building the best workforce.
We don't often do that in Nova Scotia.
That's why Google is Google and Sobeys is Sobeys.