* Teleworkers can decrease traffic congestion - can they also change neighborhoods?
Now that I’ve become a full-time teleworker, one thing I don’t miss at all is the daily commute to work. I’ve never been someone who likes driving, so giving it up was easy.
I’m not alone. Zero commute is a familiar telework benefit – not just for the employee who stays home, but also for other commuters on the road who benefit from decreased traffic congestion. Research that attempts to quantify just how much congestion relief could be expected seems scarce, but a Washington Post article published last year cites Laurie Schintler, a George Mason University assistant professor, who estimates traffic delays in the Washington, D.C. region drop 10% for every 3% of commuters who work from home.
That stat got me thinking: What if someone took the research one step further and studied the effect of increased telecommuting on neighborhoods? If more people are working from home, does that change the neighborhood dynamic?
Even after just a limited time as a teleworker, I’d say yes. On my block alone I know of two other people who work full time from their homes. One has a sales job, and the other is a public relations consultant with clients around the country. When the overnight delivery people stop their trucks on the street outside my door, I no longer assume it’s a delivery for me – like I did when I first started working from home. It’s more often for one of my neighbors across the street.
Knowing there are doors I can knock on if I need someone, whether it’s to borrow printer paper or take a coffee break, makes me feel less isolated as a teleworker. For me, one of the nice things about having fellow teleworkers nearby is the opportunity to go out to lunch on occasion. Lunching with coworkers is one of the things I miss most about working in our corporate office. If I get really ambitious, I could even schedule exercise time with my work-from-home PR neighbor. She’s asked me in the past if I’d like to take a break during the day and walk with her. I like the idea of getting out and taking a walk during the day, now I just have to go ahead and find the discipline to do it.
If other teleworkers around the country are likewise lunching, exercising and taking deliveries in their neighborhoods, does that make suburbs, subdivisions and side streets more dynamic that they used to be during daylight hours? And will residential and urban planners begin to factor these conditions into their design plans?
I’ve had an interest in urban design since I was an architecture major in college. It’s been 15 years since I graduated, but I remember learning about the latest wave of planned communities that began to crop up in the 1980s and balance traditional-style houses laid out in proximity to downtown-like amenities, such as a post office, grocery store, restaurants and public transportation.
These pedestrian-friendly communities were conceived of as sort of the anti-Levittowns. Built in the 1950s in response to post-World War II housing shortages, Levittown came to epitomize the American suburb with its simple, mass-produced houses laid out on a tract of land on Long Island, N.Y.
Instead of sprawling acres of cookie-cutter houses, many of today’s planned communities combine different sized dwelling types within walking distance to schools, recreational facilities and commercial properties. The resort community of Seaside, Fla., https://www.seasidefl.com/communityHistory.asp is one of the earliest examples of this so-called New Urbanism movement. Kentlands in Gaithersburg, Md., https://www.kentlandsusa.com/ and Celebration, Fla., https://www.celebrationfl.com/ are others.
I think teleworkers fit right into the spirit of these New Urbanism communities, which have been designed to bring more life and activity to residential areas. Urban planners provide the backdrop, which teleworkers help animate. Meanwhile, many of these planned communities include provisions for supplying broadband Internet service. In addition to fueling consumer adoption of broadband, the easy availability of broadband could help encourage more people to telework.
What do you think? Do your neighborhoods encourage or stymie telework adoption? I’d love to get your thoughts – just drop me a line at abednarz@nww.com
