The Coronavirus Is Changing the
Future of Home, Work, and Life
Daily Beast,
by
Joel Kotkin
Original Article
Posted By: Judy W.,
4/14/2020 7:40:08 AM
The COVID-19 pandemic will be shaping how we live, work and learn about the world long after the last lockdown ends and toilet paper hoarding is done, accelerating shifts that were already underway including the dispersion of population out of the nation’s densest urban areas and the long-standing trend away from mass transit and office concentration towards flatter and often home-based employment.
Amid 20 years of fanfare about how big, dense cities are the future, the country had kept spreading out with nearly all population growth since 2010 occurring in the urban periphery and smaller cities.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
franq 4/14/2020 7:45:50 AM (No. 378914)
It's more a panic than a pandemic.
14 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Pook60 4/14/2020 7:47:50 AM (No. 378918)
Oh brother. More people moving to the southeast telling us how they used to do it in Chicago.
15 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
PChristopher 4/14/2020 8:16:44 AM (No. 378967)
Working from home works well for everyone who doesn't have to manage the people doing it. Oh, sure, these people put 8 hours a day down on their timesheets, but are you actually getting 8 hours worth of work? Probably not. it's probably more like 4 - 6 hours worth. There are too many distractions at home, too many temptations to goof off. Efficient work requires face to face collaboration and supervision. Whoever says it doesn't is either a fool or an academic with an agenda.
8 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
franq 4/14/2020 8:22:02 AM (No. 378977)
Exactly, #4. I flat-out told my manager I did not want to work from home. I do CAD work and doing it across the web is painfully slow. I have 2 large monitors at my desk and doing CAD on a laptop just doesn't cut it. Yes, there are some tricks, but the data still needs to be saved on the company server. Also the concentration factor you mention. All true.
5 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Frenesi1 4/14/2020 8:24:41 AM (No. 378981)
9/11 changed the future too and not for the better. After being attacked, we opened the door to Muslims. Let's hope this guy is wrong.
6 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Clinger 4/14/2020 8:30:32 AM (No. 378989)
We can be an even more divided nation with those who create wealth going to work every day while the money changers sit at home. One hard lesson we should have learned in this debacle is that we placed everything at great risk by undervaluing those who create wealth when we gleefully rid ourselves of the unwashed and thought it was just groovy to be a service economy.
4 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
hurricanegirl 4/14/2020 8:41:56 AM (No. 379005)
I've worked from home for years. All of you people knocking it (for certain types of work) are showing your ignorance, and, NO, I'm not just a "paper pusher." There are ways to hold people accountable and without spying on them for 8 hours a day, too.
If you haven't ever done it, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
7 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
msjena 4/14/2020 8:45:20 AM (No. 379010)
Many of the trends this author cites were already there. So were many of the reasons why the changes he sees happening because of the coronavirus will not happen or will not happen more quickly. Working at home works if there are no young children in the house, if there is enough space at home for some privacy and quiet, if everyone has a computer and internet service at home (not everyone does), if there are no distractions, like noisy neighbors, lawn mowers and construction projects, and if everyone in the home is getting along. Working at the office is a welcome escape for many from problems and demands at home. It is also a way to interact, and sometimes become friends with people other than family members. Online learning was also a trend that has good and bad. The exorbitant price of college may accelerate that one, not the virus.
7 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 4/14/2020 9:36:58 AM (No. 379093)
If work/life balance is important to you, DO NOT WORK FROM HOME. Saw many people putting in 8-10 hour days at work, and then put in 2-4 more hours at home. They would also work seven days a week. The productivity was questionable. Business thought it was great. Its lousy for the individual's health and their family relations suffered.
No way work at home, social distancing, essential businesses, shutdowns, curfews, and stay at home can be the new normal. Public safety is important, but it can be overdone and leads to a loss of rights.
This cannot happen every time a new bug pops up either.
3 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Strike3 4/14/2020 9:52:58 AM (No. 379109)
It's not changing Jack Schiff, except for our growing mistrust of federal, state and local governments. City-dwelling ants will never give up their cities, the government and liberals will never release the control and profits of public education and not everybody can afford a car since car prices have grown exponentially thanks to government regulation and the various Safety Nazi organizations. It won't change my life much because I'm already where I want to be, five minutes from my gun range and surround by God's creations.
5 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 4/14/2020 9:54:36 AM (No. 379112)
The internet, live-streaming, cell phone, and cable TV service providers have sure made out on this deal, no?
3 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
worried 4/14/2020 9:55:27 AM (No. 379113)
I haven't seen too many changes for the better. People in a panic, afraid of catching the virus, distancing themselves from friends and family, letting a microbe determine how they live. That's changes I don't need or want. My only wish is to get back to work and play, return to what we have done for hundreds of years.
3 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
JL80863 4/14/2020 11:09:50 AM (No. 379205)
Name a major historical event that didn't do these things.
0 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
mc squared 4/14/2020 11:12:50 AM (No. 379211)
35 years ago we were all told that AIDS/HIV was going to change the way we lived. If this CV-19 does, it will be to allow more government intrusion in our lives.
2 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
DVC 4/14/2020 11:38:07 AM (No. 379236)
I don't think things will be much changed at all in a year or two. Short term, probably some changes. Longer term, nope.
1 person likes this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
stablemoney 4/14/2020 11:55:46 AM (No. 379267)
I have found some work from home, and some work in the office works pretty well. It is nice to save the 2 hours a day commute on the work from home days. Work from home doesn't work for families. And ditch the laptops. Those are toys, not for serious work.
0 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
whyyeseyec 4/14/2020 1:05:12 PM (No. 379383)
This will be forgotten soon.
0 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Strike3 4/14/2020 1:26:51 PM (No. 379429)
Working from home is only feasible if one lives alone. Between kids or grandkids always opening the door for silly reasons and the wife constantly finding broken things around the house that need fixed immediately and needing meal suggestions sixteen times, the attention span is out the window by 10 am.
2 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
franq 4/14/2020 2:28:51 PM (No. 379491)
Well, #17, our laptops are high end, engineering-grade models. As I said, I don't have dual screens at home, or a CAT 5 connection to the building server. That's why I decline to work at home.
1 person likes this.
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Comments:
I hope these people spreading out don't turn red states blue. They need to be reeducated when they move out of a city. On the other hand, more homeschooling and more working from home are great.