This is a topic I've been babbling on about for years: satellite offices. Essentially what I mean by that is office space located in villages, small towns and suburbs where employees can be connected to their large main offices without having to do the daily commute into large towns and cities.
I see a number of potential benefits to this.
Air quality
If offices are spread out over many different locations, fewer people will need to commute daily to cities, meaning less traffic and therefore less pollution. Many people could even walk or cycle short distances along routes with much cleaner air.
Cost of living
If people are less restricted by good transport links with large towns and cities, they can look for nice areas to live which cost less. The flip-side of that of course is:
House prices
Houses are most expensive in areas with good employment and/or transport links and good schools/other amenities. If there are employment opportunities in areas which are less well connected by roads/transport, more people will consider buying homes in those areas and if that continued, house prices would start to even out a little, making them more affordable in areas which are currently very expensive.
Quality of life
Imagine being able to walk or cycle a short distance on a relatively traffic-free route, perhaps after walking your children to school? Imagine not cramming yourself onto a packed commuter train or losing hours of your week in heavy traffic? And imagine being able to afford a house with a good-sized garden where previously you had to pay more for a house without?
Local business
Away from the large cities, business are struggling. High streets are full of empty shops and those that do survive tend to be the ones we ideally would see less of: bookies; pawn brokers; 'bargain' stores. If there were more employees in more areas, buying their lunch, picking up some groceries or gifts on their breaks or after work, high streets would be revitalised and that would spread the economic benefits out of the cities. But don't worry about them: the cities will be fine.
It just makes no sense to me that instead of using the technology we have available, we are all cramming ourselves into increasingly hectic and polluted cities. Of course there are many jobs that can't be done remotely. But personally, I don't know many people who really have to be physically present at work and many of them don't need to be there every day.
Employers and employees alike lose so much time and money commuting and it impacts on our health too. And our towns and villages would benefit hugely from having some employment opportunities.
For many years now there has been a lot of talk about Smart Cities. To me, it would be wise for cities to connect to other places not just for commuting and the transfer of goods and services but for employment too.
It wouldn't need to cost much: the technology is cheap; the office space would be cheap too. Businesses could save a lot of money by reducing their office space use in the most expensive areas. Perhaps incentives could be provided: e.g. a reduction in rates coupled with an increase in rates based upon numbers of employees commuting?
This needs to happen.
