TenantSee Weekly: Reconnecting Work to Place
Lately I’ve been contemplating Enrico Morreti’s 2012 book “The New Geography of Jobs”. In it, Morreti makes the case that urban winners and losers are determined, in large part, based on the extent of geographic concentrations of high-tech employment. San Francisco was perhaps the most prominent example of the thriving economic ecosystems that can emerge when tech employment is aggregated in one region. I believe Morreti’s core thesis remains correct. But his ecosystems are more fragile than we may have anticipated. In fact, it seems they can unravel in much less time than they took to build.
TenantSee Weekly: Can We Talk About Work?
Can We Talk About Work?
Have you noticed that people are very passionate about work? Not necessarily about what they do as much as how and where they do it. These days, talking about work has become a bit like talking about politics or religion. This is especially true in the world of social media, even in the tamer waters of LinkedIn, where if you post about the benefits of working in an office, or you appear curious about the longer-range impacts of remote work, you will most certainly be attacked. The attack comes from people vehemently opposed to return to office mandates, really to any concept of work that does not permit the employee a wide range of freedom in deciding where and when to work. Some of them have financial interests in shifting work patterns, for example as purveyors of coworking solutions. Others are anti-establishment, with echoes of the Occupy movement. The more reasonable voices in favor of remote work are academics like Nick Bloom. They conduct research and study work patterns, adding valuable balance to the discussion.
