I suspect that almost all work that can be done remotely can be done even more cheaply the more remote you make it (not outside-the-city, but outside-the-continent). I also suspect that it’s not all that long before many or most mid-level fully-remotable jobs become irrelevant entirely. Partially-remotable jobs (WFH 80% or less of the time, where the in-office human connections are (seen as) important part of the job) don’t actually let people live somewhere truly cheap.
I think you’re also missing many of the motivations for preferring a suburban area near (but not in the core of) a big city—schools and general sortation (having most neighbors in similar socioeconomic situation).
I made the text quite general, but focused on the US in my examples—in the US you cannot hire non-US citizens even for remote positions so this argument does not really apply here. I meant specifically doing cost of living arbitrage in a given country. Maybe that was not clear enough in the essay, my bad then.
I also have to disagree on the irrelevance argument—many sales jobs, high-finance jobs (given as examples they involve quite a lot of contact with external parties) can easily be done remotely with work trips to clients if needed and they will be there for quite a long time before we can replace most employees with AI. Most other white-collar jobs require zero actual face time. We have seen it work during COVID, you cannot argue that companies suffered then as revenues and profits were going higher in that period.
I generally believe that we have still decades before AI can fully replace white collar workers, but that is a topic for another debate.
Here in your last argument I must partly agree—initially the movement of people will be somehow restricted by such constrains, but with time smaller communities should spring up across the whole country—with future generations less inclined to move into cities we should see it happen.
I suspect that almost all work that can be done remotely can be done even more cheaply the more remote you make it (not outside-the-city, but outside-the-continent). I also suspect that it’s not all that long before many or most mid-level fully-remotable jobs become irrelevant entirely. Partially-remotable jobs (WFH 80% or less of the time, where the in-office human connections are (seen as) important part of the job) don’t actually let people live somewhere truly cheap.
I think you’re also missing many of the motivations for preferring a suburban area near (but not in the core of) a big city—schools and general sortation (having most neighbors in similar socioeconomic situation).
I made the text quite general, but focused on the US in my examples—in the US you cannot hire non-US citizens even for remote positions so this argument does not really apply here. I meant specifically doing cost of living arbitrage in a given country. Maybe that was not clear enough in the essay, my bad then.
I also have to disagree on the irrelevance argument—many sales jobs, high-finance jobs (given as examples they involve quite a lot of contact with external parties) can easily be done remotely with work trips to clients if needed and they will be there for quite a long time before we can replace most employees with AI. Most other white-collar jobs require zero actual face time. We have seen it work during COVID, you cannot argue that companies suffered then as revenues and profits were going higher in that period.
I generally believe that we have still decades before AI can fully replace white collar workers, but that is a topic for another debate.
Here in your last argument I must partly agree—initially the movement of people will be somehow restricted by such constrains, but with time smaller communities should spring up across the whole country—with future generations less inclined to move into cities we should see it happen.