What might working from home mean for the geography of work and commuting in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Canada?

Matthias Sweet and Darren M Scott
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Matthias Sweet: Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada
Darren M Scott: McMaster University, Canada

Urban Studies, 2024, vol. 61, issue 3, 567-588

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the precarity of urban society, illustrating both opportunities and challenges. Teleworking rates increased dramatically during the pandemic and may be sustained over the long term. For transportation planners, these changes belie the broader questions of how the geography of work and commuting will change based on pandemic-induced shifts in teleworking and what this will mean for society and policymaking. This study focuses on these questions by using survey data ( n  = 2580) gathered in the autumn of 2021 to explore the geography of current and prospective telework. The study focuses on the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the mega-region in Southern Ontario, representing a fifth of Canadians. Survey data document telework practices before and during the pandemic, including prospective future telework practices. Inferential models are used to develop working-from-home scenarios which are allocated spatially based on respondents’ locations of work and residence. Findings indicate that telework appears to be poised to increase most relative to pre-pandemic levels around downtown Toronto based on locations of work, but increases in teleworking are more dispersed based on employees’ locations of residence. Contrary to expectations by many, teleworking is not significantly linked to home–work disconnect – suggesting that telework is poised to weaken the commute–housing trade-off embedded in bid rent theory. Together, these results portend a poor outlook for downtown urban agglomeration economies but also more nuanced impacts than simply inducing sprawl.

Keywords: commuting; downtown; telework; urban geography; working from home; 通勤; 市中心; 远程办公; åŸŽå¸‚åœ°ç †; 在家办公 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:61:y:2024:i:3:p:567-588

DOI: 10.1177/00420980231186499

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