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Posted Feb 19, 2022, 3:49 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Toronto
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The Small Cities And Towns Booming From Remote Work
The Small Cities And Towns Booming From Remote Work
26th January 2022
By Mark Johanson
Read More: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article...om-remote-work
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With the pandemic decoupling work and place, it’s now possible to live in areas that haven’t historically offered jobs for certain professionals. For some secondary cities and smaller towns, this presents an opportunity to reverse brain drain, counter aging populations and inject money into city coffers. But for others, this new trend has distorted housing markets, priced-out working-class residents and brought big city problems to small cities that were wholly unprepared for them
- The latter scenario has been particularly prevalent in America’s Intermountain West, which is home to the three states with the highest growth percentages between 2020 and 2021: Idaho, Utah and Montana. Oxford Economics recently named Boise, Idaho, the most unaffordable city for US homeowners, thanks to an influx of new remote workers from high-cost coastal cities such as Seattle and San Francisco. The median home price in this city of 235,000 is now $534,950 (£395,000) – 10 times higher than the median income. --- A similar study from Florida Atlantic University, US, showed that three cities in neighbouring Utah – Ogden, Provo and Salt Lake City – were also among America’s top 10 most overvalued housing markets. Danya Rumore, a researcher at the University of Utah and founder of the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative, lives in the latter. “We used to call it Small Lake City,” she says, “But it’s really starting to feel a lot more like a big city, with the dynamics of the community changing notably.”
- Big-city problems like gentrification, homelessness and air pollution are all on the rise, adds Rumore, while the overheated housing market (exacerbated by short-term rentals) has made it difficult for businesses in the service industry to maintain staff, since employees can’t afford rent. Rumore notes that Salt Lake City, which has a population of about 200,000, is emblematic of other urban centres in the Intermountain West, which are known for having ample natural amenities, good recreation opportunities, access to open space and a high quality of life. --- “With the shift that’s been going on over the last year, we are seeing wealth move into these communities,” she says, noting that many new residents still earn their income in a high-earning area but now live in a lower-earning area. “That’s a major transition that happened overnight that really takes years and years for markets and communities to adjust to.” --- Rumore believes this transition can play out in one of two ways. In the more idealistic scenario, the new arrivals plug into the community, while their wealth and resources lift everyone up. In the scenario she worries may be more common, however, the new arrivals extract from the community, they drive up prices and their purchasing power overwhelms those whose jobs are tied to local companies.
- This trend of migration out of major cities has been somewhat contentious in the US, but it’s taken a different tone across the Atlantic. With a median age of 42, Europe is the oldest continent in the world. For decades, low birth rates and mass migrations to urban centres such as London, Paris and Madrid have left small towns and secondary cities shrinking. For many of them, the pandemic offers a glimmer of hope. --- “There is an unprecedented chance in Europe to save many rural areas,” says Marcus Andersson, CEO of Future Place Leadership, a Stockholm-based consultancy that studied the implications of remote work and new relocation patterns. “Many of them are on the brink of bankruptcy – they can’t survive as functioning places or functioning administrations – and this is a really great opportunity … because they are now attracting the very people they need to attract: those that have kids or are on the way of starting a family.” --- Ireland, where the rural-urban divide dominates politics, has seized the moment like nowhere else in Europe. It made a major push last March to decentralise away from Dublin with a new rural development policy that Rural and Community Development Minister Heather Humphreys said was "the most ambitious and transformational policy for rural Ireland in decades”.
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