What does that mean for your town or city?

Check out the paper and have a think:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 11/

Steven Bond-Smith | 🇳🇿 🇦🇺 HI 🤙🏻
In fact, isolated places may lose out. They can’t offer the same benefits to hybrid work as big, well-connected cities. We found this in Sweden: People in WFH-compatible jobs move closer to the big cities
productivity.ac.uk/research/wor... @productivity.bsky.social 10/

That means WFH probably reinforces the dominance of large cities.
Not decentralization. Not a “work from anywhere” world. 9/

If you’re in a small town, WFH doesn’t help much—you’re already close.
But maybe you now take a job in a bigger city.
If you’re in a big city, you might move to the edge and save on rent.

Either way: gains are bigger in big cities. 8/

So, unlike what many people think, working from home doesn’t make small towns more attractive.
It makes big cities more attractive.
(Or at least, their metro areas.) 7/

When we let remote work vary by location, the donut effect gets stronger in larger cities.
Bigger cities = bigger traffic/time costs = more benefit from working from home. 6/

But then people start moving to take advantage of this flexibility.
Further away = cheaper rent + fewer commutes. That’s the donut effect.
This is well known. But… 5/

often they commute.
People further from work… commute less. People closer in… commute more. Makes sense. 4/

You’d probably consider jobs a bit further away than today.
Even if the occasional commute is annoying, remote work (and perhaps a bigger salary) makes it worth it.
That’s the starting point for our model. 3/

If you live far away or traffic is awful, you probably avoid commuting as much as possible.
If you live nearby, working from home doesn’t change much.
Now ask:
Where would you take a job if it only required the occasional commute? 2/