[gg3]

I build telecommuter infrastructure, and have been seeing a trend toward increased use of telecommuting.

Your employer provides a laptop and an office-type phone, and saves the monthly cost of the square footage that would have been spent to pay for your office or cubicle. Payback time on this is less than a year, in some cases less than a month.

$50 a month (or less if you shop around) gets you a dedicated phone line with DSL and saves you the cost of gas plus maintenance on your car. The net savings depend on how much you would have spent driving to work, plus the value of the time saved.

If you're an independent contractor, for less than the first-cost of a decent used car, you buy: Three compact PCs (one for MacOSX, one for Windows, one for Linux), one set of keyboard/mouse/monitor and an inexpensive box that switches these between the three PCs, a VOIP phone, a decent analog phone with one-touch buttons, a headset that will work with either, and a piece of home-office furniture to house all of this that can be closed up at the end of the day so it blends in with your decor. With this setup, you're ready to work for any employer regardless of their preference in computer OS and telephone system.

Yes, employees do get more done at home, and more and more studies are backing up that conclusion, not to mention bottom-line results for companies that try it.

Who's eligible? Every person who works in an office or cubicle, whose job uses only the senses of sight and hearing. That means most of the people who work in highrise buildings.

Who isn't? Anyone who has to physically handle their product in any way, whether to make it or to hand it over to the buyer, or whose job depends on the senses of smell, taste, or touch.

The exodus of office-jobs from downtown areas will create enormous vacancies in highrise real estate, which in turn will make it feasible for certain types of manufacturing operations to relocate into the central cities. This shift will also be encouraged by the price dynamics of transportation of manufactured goods. This shift will cause a change in the demographic composition of the central city area workforces, and that in turn will cause a shift in the demographic composition of city populations.

The result of all this will be that cities are occupied by industry and by manufacturing workforces, and suburbs are occupied by telecommuting office-workers. Rural areas will still be devoted to agriculture, which will expand into areas in which suburbs are contracting.

[Leanan]

After TSHTF, I don't think we'll have many office workers, telecommuting or not. Historically speaking, only a small percentage of the population were members of the "chairborne division." Once cheap oil is gone, we are going to have to shift back to actually making things, not just shuffling paper. Probably most of the population will be involved in agriculture, as was the case in the U.S. a hundred years ago. Most of the rest will have jobs that require their physical presence: doctors, tailors, teachers, mechanics, storekeepers, cops, etc.

[EnemyCombatant]

I live in Atlanta.

It's because Atlanta is a village, not a city. There is no 'real city'.

Eveything is spread out and everybody wants a huge house in the suburbs. Yer they don't want public transportation to go out to their county. So everybody drives their huge SUVs with their 'support the troops' bumper stickers.

Funny, I don't see any bumper stickers opposing depleted uranium. Wonder why?

[accept_death]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ararboin', 'M')y commute is zero minutes and I think that's good.

[smallpoxgirl]

I feel for ya. Detroit and Atlanta are probably in a close race for the city with the worst sprawl. I was born in Atlanta. Very happy not to live there now. Miles and miles of interstate. 7 lanes in each direction. Bumper to bumper. Nothing moving.

This is my vision of hell.

[EnemyCombatant]

Do you live in Detroit now?

I was born in Detroit and live in Atlanta.

LOL

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnemyCombatant', 'D')o you live in Detroit now?

[formandfile]

Getting a good commute in Atlanta is tricky..but like most other places youll sacrafice in one area to gain in another. I now live a mere 30 second walk from a MARTA rail transit station (whereas recently i was in the 15 minute walk zone) and am situated where my principal work location (the aforementioned transit agency) and college are within 4 rail stations of me. The gain is an easy commute, the sacrafice is higher rent and less square footage. Totally acceptable for me. Let everyone else pay the same rent for a house 30 miles outside of the perimeter and spend the difference in gasoline and auto insurance.

[ArimoDave]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('accept_death', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ararboin', 'M')y commute is zero minutes and I think that's good.

[k_semler]

$2.439/Gal 87 octane here. Hmm, seems like CA prices have come to Pullman WA!

[BitterSweetCrude]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnemyCombatant', 'I') live in Atlanta.

It's because Atlanta is a village, not a city. There is no 'real city'.

Eveything is spread out and everybody wants a huge house in the suburbs. Yer they don't want public transportation to go out to their county. So everybody drives their huge SUVs with their 'support the troops' bumper stickers.

Funny, I don't see any bumper stickers opposing depleted uranium. Wonder why?

[4StringSlinger]

I'm suprised DFW isn't on that list.

[jdmartin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')hina is going to be hurting a lot worse than the USA in the first stages of the global crash, when we stop buying their manufactured goods and the EU stops buying the third world and OPEC countries will not have the disposable cash to give them a market on the same scale. The USA can be self sufficient in nessecities at least for the first few years, and I suspect the EU can come close to self sufficiency if properly motivated. The luxory market is going to die quick and hard when the crash starts.

[Claudia]

I am grateful for this extremely interesting thread. I was especially struck by what nero said several pages back, describing the risk to the suburbs when high commuting costs start to depress home values:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hen the house prices look affordable to people on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, they move in and drive the richer people and middle class folk out depressing the house prices even more. This in effect would be "Suburban blight" a kind of self fulfilling prophesy.

So the question is at what price will the winds of dispersion suddenly change direction. I think that there is a momentum towards dispersion that will require very high gas prices (or a very long time) to counteract. But once the wind starts blowing in the opposite direction (back in to the centre) it will quickly build up to a hurricane.

[ubercrap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')hina is going to be hurting a lot worse than the USA in the first stages of the global crash, when we stop buying their manufactured goods and the EU stops buying the third world and OPEC countries will not have the disposable cash to give them a market on the same scale. The USA can be self sufficient in nessecities at least for the first few years, and I suspect the EU can come close to self sufficiency if properly motivated. The luxory market is going to die quick and hard when the crash starts.

[jmacdaddio]

I think the first thread I started was called "Economics of Long Commutes" (ah, nostalgia). It went on far longer than I anticipated and I was happy to see so many people out there who see things in a similar way, although with their own individual twist.

I entered the workplace in 1995 when long commutes were clearly part of the landscape. My first job in northern NJ had people commuting from Brooklyn and Queens in NYC (30 miles in horrible traffic). I changed jobs in 1996 and my new boss was one of the "Pocono People" who was commuting over 60 miles for a position that was only a couple of notches above entry level, but where he lived the housing was cheap enough to allow his wife to stay home and take care of their 4 daughters (although they were on a tight budget). My next boss "only" had 40 miles to schlep.

Here's the question for those of us on this board who have been in the US workforce long enough to see changes in commuting habits: when did 25, 35, and 60 mile commutes start creeping into everyday life? What factors caused this?

My 2 cents: we've entered an age where lifetime employment is out of the question for most workers, so there is no reason to make a housing decision based on a particular company or job. Since the new labor paradigm rewards job-hopping, individual workers need to be willing to schlep to wherever their new jobs are (if relocation is too disruptive of a choice). Choosing a house within walking distance of the office is short-sighted, choosing a house within commuting distance of several likely employers in your industry is a better long-term choice. Also cheap fuel prices after the oil shocks made it possible for most families to send one or both wage-earners to office parks 30 miles each way in opposite directions. We'll see what happens post-peak.

[MD]

I grew up in a mid-sized city in the 60's. It was then common to commute county-wide, distances up to 20 miles, tops. Today that same community people commute up to 70 miles.

Where I live now, commuting 50+ miles is common.

[Leanan]

I'm afraid I never really noticed when commutes got so long. Probably because my first job was in New York City. People are willing to commute appalling distances there. One of the guys in my office back then commuted three hours each way, every day - from Philadelphia to NYC (Queens). I couldn't believe it. His family was in Philadelphia, and he could have gotten a job there, but he loved NYC, so he spent six hours a day driving.

[boilingleadbath]

One of my brother's freind's dad has a relitivly long commute. (I think it's 3 hours, but I'm not sure) However, he only drives it once a week - he stays in a hotel while he works.
As gas prices rise, I expect to see more of this type of thing. Might soften the decline a bit.

[NeoPeasant]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('boilingleadbath', 'O')ne of my brother's freind's dad has a relitivly long commute. (I think it's 3 hours, but I'm not sure) However, he only drives it once a week - he stays in a hotel while he works.
As gas prices rise, I expect to see more of this type of thing. Might soften the decline a bit.