Column: Will we still commute after the epidemic? - John Kemp
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[January 05, 2021] By
John Kemp
LONDON (Reuters) - In the advanced
economies, the coronavirus epidemic is likely to accelerate long-term
structural changes in the location of work and accommodation and the
transport systems that link them.
But the rate of change will be tempered by enormous inertia in real
estate and transit systems to accommodate a widespread shift in work
from central cities to the suburbs and secondary cities.
The current distribution of land use is the product of the railways in
the 19th century and the automobile in the 20th century, which allowed
people to travel much greater distances from home to the workplace.
While many executives and professionals can afford to live in central
areas of large cities if they want to take advantage of networking
opportunities and cultural facilities, most workers are forced to live
in suburbs and satellite communities where housing is cheaper.
The result is a twice daily commute from home to work and back that is
expensive in terms of money, time and energy - especially in megacities
and other primary cities - and also exacts a significant penalty in
terms of physical and mental health.
Over the last three decades, however, improvements in communications
technology - including email, instant messaging and cheap
video-conferencing - have made remote working more feasible, even for
service sector firms which rely on contact between colleagues and
between suppliers and customers.
WORKING FROM HOME
In Britain, the proportion of the workforce working remotely had been
increasingly steadily, albeit from a low base (“Coronavirus and home
working in the U.K. labour market”, Office for National Statistics (ONS),
March 2020).
Even before the coronavirus epidemic, 5% of Britain’s workforce was
working mainly from home, according to the ONS survey, with 12% of
respondents saying they had worked from home at least one day during the
week prior to the survey, which was conducted in 2019.
Full-time and part-time home working was most common in the traditional
commuter regions of London and the South East, as well as among older
and more senior workers, and those in the highest-paid occupations.
The implication is that working from home, at least part of the time, to
reduce commuting or avoid it altogether was desirable, and many more
employees would have liked the option if it was available.
More widespread use was held back by stigma, with remote working seen as
a privilege reserved for high-status individuals and experienced workers
nearing the end of their careers.
Enforced working from home for many office employees during the
epidemic, however, has proved it is technically feasible and has lowered
the barriers to its social acceptability, which is likely to speed up
more widespread adoption.
COMMUTING PENALTY
London’s workers spent an average of 1 hour 32 minutes travelling to and
from work every day in 2019, compared with an average of just under 1
hour in the rest of the country.
As a result, London’s workers spent an extra 140 hours per year
travelling to and from work compared with their counterparts in other
regions (“Transport Statistics Great Britain”, U.K. Department for
Transport, 2020).
The longest commutes of all were into central London, with round trips
averaging 1 hour and 48 minutes per day, with those travelling by rail
taking journeys averaging a lengthy 2 hours and 18 minutes.
Like other megacities, London relies on public transport to shuttle
millions of workers between the centre and periphery as well as
satellite towns (“Coronavirus and travel to work”, Office for National
Statistics, 2020).
Before the epidemic, two-thirds of Inner London’s workers used public
transport (rail, underground and buses) to get to work compared with
just 15% in secondary cities and less than 10% in the rest of the
country.
Public transport is far more energy-efficient than private cars, which
helps explain why London’s per capita energy consumption for transport
is less than half of that in other regions of Britain.
Nonetheless, commuting still imposes a heavy penalty in terms of fares,
energy consumption and time absorbed, as well as impacting adversely on
physical and mental health.
Even before the epidemic, researchers had identified that crowded public
transport accelerated transmission for respiratory diseases such as
influenza.
LAND USE AND TRANSPORT
Transport improvements over the 19th and 20th centuries transformed the
size and shape of cities. Now improvements in communications technology
are likely to remake them again.
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A general view of a busy westbound platform during an evening of
signal failures at Earls Court tube station in London, Britain,
January 2, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Coombs
Increased remote working implies a reduction in the need for central offices and
their ancillary services, with a partially offsetting increase in demand for
working space in the suburbs, secondary cities and rural areas.
Much of this increased work space will be located inside dwellings, translating
into pressure for bigger homes with more rooms, often further from megacity
centres.
The principal constraint on the more widespread use of remote working is likely
to come from the relative inflexibility of the real estate and transport
systems.
There are roughly 24.4 million dwellings in England, with an average of just
180,000 new dwellings created each year over the last 10 years, an increase of
just 0.7% per year.
In the short and medium term, therefore, the increased demand for working from
home outside central cities will have to be met from an existing housing stock
that is essentially fixed.
The inflexibility of the housing stock explains why the epidemic has depressed
central city home values and rents while sending prices and rents in other areas
surging.
Commercial real estate faces a similar problem. There is an emerging oversupply
of work space and services space in central cities, with not enough in other
areas.
Conversions to non-commercial use in central areas and the construction of more
space in other areas will take years.
WORST OF BOTH WORLDS?
In response to the epidemic and pressure for more remote working, commercial
real estate owners and employers have promoted the concept of “hybrid” working.
Business surveys show employers envisaging workers spending 60% of their time in
the office, while employee surveys generally show a preference for working in
the office 40% or even just 20% of the time.
Hybrid working is often portrayed as a compromise that offers the best of both
worlds. But it could easily provide the worst of both.
Employees would still need to live close enough to the central workplace to
commute two or three days each week, foregoing the advantage of relocating
further away in search of cheaper accommodation and more space.
Employees would also have to find more space to work from home, pushing up their
housing costs, while continuing to pay commuter fares at least some days each
week, which would probably work out more expensive.
In a hybrid model, employers would see their need for office space decrease by
40-80%, but only if they can implement a “flexible working” model (i.e. hot-desking),
which will be controversial after the epidemic.
Commercial real estate owners would still see demand for space decline
significantly, with the oversupply of space likely to persist for years,
depressing rents.
Finally, transit system operators would see a big decline in the number of daily
commuter journeys, reducing their economies of scale, and probably pushing up
fares per journey.
The epidemic and enforced working from home have shown the potential for a
revolutionary shift in the location of work and accommodation, but the enormous
inertia of the real estate and transport systems may delay much of the shift.
Related columns:
- Will coronavirus trigger a megacity exodus? (Reuters, Oct. 1)
- Disease X and rethinking the future of cities (Reuters, Aug 27)
- Megacities after coronavirus (Reuters, Aug. 25)
- Must the metropolis mutate for the virus? (Reuters, Aug. 13)
- Coronavirus is dark side of an urban interconnected world (Reuters, May 22)
(Editing by Susan Fenton)
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