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Klaus Philipsen
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In a world where much seems to be going backward, it isn’t just the current federal government asking its workers to return to the office. Recent studies show that especially larger firms now require employees to come back.
Remember when people spoke of “telecommuting”—a time when just a phone, a dial-up connection, and a computer fueled futurists’ speculations about how technology would change work? The needle barely moved until the COVID pandemic pushed remote work into overdrive. Suddenly, every software company rushed to develop platforms for online conferencing, screen sharing, and features that supported side chats, recording, and even council meetings and town halls in virtual space. Skype, once the pioneer, was overtaken by Zoom, which became the default word for remote meetings—just as “Xeroxing” once meant copying, or “Ubering” means ride-hailing.
Remote work proved hugely popular among employees. Studies show it increases productivity while lowering employment costs. It also has some environmental benefits from driving less. So why the reversal? Forbes recently mused about this very question and concluded that these decisions are not necessarily rational, fact or data based.
Remote work has never been an option for everyone and has never been distributed equally. Four years after the pandemic, only about one-fifth of the workforce still works remotely, but those who have to be on site don't have a choice. Many jobs still inherently require physical presence, especially when manual labor is involved, a fact creating an inherent inequity.
The debate isn’t only about productivity or personal preference. It has immense implications for office space, workplace design, the functions of entire downtowns and the tax base of cities. Cities and suburbs have long been shaped by commuting—first by streetcar, then by car, bus, or subway. Commutes determined where communities were built. Homes reflected the idea of women staying home, then adapted to women joining the commuting workforce, creating “latchkey kids.” Schools and daycare facilities expanded to offer aftercare, meals, and transportation.
When remote work peaked, transit vehicles emptied, downtown stores and eateries shuttered for lack of customers, and office vacancy rates soared. Suburban homes sprouted makeshift offices, while food deliveries clogged local streets. Now, with RTO mandates, transit ridership is creeping back, main streets are livelier, and lunch spots are filling up again even though office vacancy rates remain high.
The participation of women in the workforce has reshaped the entire economy. If remote work opportunities truly shrink, the ripple effects will be felt everywhere—with not always predictable consequences.
Yet the swings between RTO vs. WFH aren’t the only uncertain factor shaping the future of work. Automation and artificial intelligence are upending long-held assumptions. Not only has manual labor steadily declined, but the very office work that defined modern employment—and, later, remote work—is now about to decline as well, increasingly replaced by AI. In combination with robotics, AI threatens to take over much of the office work humans currently perform just as automation reduced the manufacturing workforce or machines slashed the agricultural one before.
The impacts on housing, towns, cities, transportation, and urban life are only beginning to be explored. To glimpse what may come, a look back is useful. Only about 150 years ago did mass salaried employment, the separation of work from home, and commuting become common. Before then, work and life often happened in the same place: farms, shops with living quarters above, or craft workshops with apprentices. Leaving aside indentured labor or slavery, many worked alongside family or trainees. Others belonged to a “leisure class,” free from work altogether. The rural elite entertained themselves with social events, hunting, and horseback riding. The urban idle life was epitomized by the French flâneur—someone who strolled the city, watched people, and lingered in cafés. None of these groups commuted, clocked timesheets, or worked in shifts.
Industrialization ended that way of life, replacing the flaneur's delights with modern offices, factories, and sprawl, in turn sparking movements like City Beautiful in a vain effort to reclaim a sense of livable urbanity.
A future city devoid of a large class of people working in factories or offices will not mean the end of the city. As for the entire history of cities, it would still remain to be a place of art, culture, education, entertainment and research. There would still be museums, concert halls, universities, laboratories, restaurants and parks and ways to get around.
A future city without masses of office workers will not mean the end of the city. Cities have always been more than workplaces: they are places of art, culture, education, entertainment, and research. Museums, concert halls, universities, laboratories, restaurants, parks, and transit will still matter.
The real question is whether robots and AI could create a new, more inclusive leisure class—people living from the productivity of their avatars and machines, the optimistic scenario, or whether a much darker dystopian scenario with mass unemployment, widespread poverty, and a population controlled by a small elite owning production, communication, and transport would prevail. Such a dark future would hardly produce thriving cities.
As the saying goes, the future is what we make it. Which is why the question of what kind of work we want is important, but in a much bigger sense that that of remote or in person. must go far beyond remote vs. in-person. It must also include guardrails for artificial intelligence and a more inclusive, equitable way of governing our societies.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
* Barrero, Jose Maria, Nicholas Bloom, and Steven J. Davis, 2021. “Why working from home will stick,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 28731. www.wfhresearch.com
Related on this blog:
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The benefits of working from home (WFH Research*)
[/td]In Baltimore, just a half hour ride away, T Rowe Price and Under Armour both now demand employees to be on-site at least four out of five days a week. Nationally recognized corporations such as Microsoft and Novo Nordisk have made similar moves this fall, while smaller companies continue to allow flexible choices because they don't have the same leverage over the workforce, especially when the labor market is tight.
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Under Armour's brandnew HQ building, the company requires
return to work on site (Photo: Philipsen)
[/td]return to work on site (Photo: Philipsen)
Remember when people spoke of “telecommuting”—a time when just a phone, a dial-up connection, and a computer fueled futurists’ speculations about how technology would change work? The needle barely moved until the COVID pandemic pushed remote work into overdrive. Suddenly, every software company rushed to develop platforms for online conferencing, screen sharing, and features that supported side chats, recording, and even council meetings and town halls in virtual space. Skype, once the pioneer, was overtaken by Zoom, which became the default word for remote meetings—just as “Xeroxing” once meant copying, or “Ubering” means ride-hailing.
Remote work proved hugely popular among employees. Studies show it increases productivity while lowering employment costs. It also has some environmental benefits from driving less. So why the reversal? Forbes recently mused about this very question and concluded that these decisions are not necessarily rational, fact or data based.
[td]
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Over two thirds of people who did it loved remote work (2023)
[/td]Indeed, these decisions need to be understood in a broader societal context, one in which authority, command, control, and power have regained standing—at least in parts of society. They also carry emotional components not easily captured by data. Not feeling guilty about putting children in daycare all day may be one factor. The satisfaction of changing scenery, experiencing face-to-face communication, or participating in a dynamic in-person meeting where body language and facial expressions matter are others. During COVID or the initial excitement over remote work, such factors may have seemed less important. But over time, they resurface. The personal connections built in person may sustain virtual meetings for a while, but eventually wear thin and need to be refreshed—or, in the case of new employees, created in the first place.
Remote work has never been an option for everyone and has never been distributed equally. Four years after the pandemic, only about one-fifth of the workforce still works remotely, but those who have to be on site don't have a choice. Many jobs still inherently require physical presence, especially when manual labor is involved, a fact creating an inherent inequity.
[td]
[/td]
[td]
Share of work arrangement for full time workers 2025
(WFH Research)
[/td](WFH Research)
The debate isn’t only about productivity or personal preference. It has immense implications for office space, workplace design, the functions of entire downtowns and the tax base of cities. Cities and suburbs have long been shaped by commuting—first by streetcar, then by car, bus, or subway. Commutes determined where communities were built. Homes reflected the idea of women staying home, then adapted to women joining the commuting workforce, creating “latchkey kids.” Schools and daycare facilities expanded to offer aftercare, meals, and transportation.
When remote work peaked, transit vehicles emptied, downtown stores and eateries shuttered for lack of customers, and office vacancy rates soared. Suburban homes sprouted makeshift offices, while food deliveries clogged local streets. Now, with RTO mandates, transit ridership is creeping back, main streets are livelier, and lunch spots are filling up again even though office vacancy rates remain high.
The participation of women in the workforce has reshaped the entire economy. If remote work opportunities truly shrink, the ripple effects will be felt everywhere—with not always predictable consequences.
Yet the swings between RTO vs. WFH aren’t the only uncertain factor shaping the future of work. Automation and artificial intelligence are upending long-held assumptions. Not only has manual labor steadily declined, but the very office work that defined modern employment—and, later, remote work—is now about to decline as well, increasingly replaced by AI. In combination with robotics, AI threatens to take over much of the office work humans currently perform just as automation reduced the manufacturing workforce or machines slashed the agricultural one before.
[td]
[/td]
[td]
Empty storefronts in Washington DC fall of 2023
(Photo: Philipsen)
[/td](Photo: Philipsen)
The impacts on housing, towns, cities, transportation, and urban life are only beginning to be explored. To glimpse what may come, a look back is useful. Only about 150 years ago did mass salaried employment, the separation of work from home, and commuting become common. Before then, work and life often happened in the same place: farms, shops with living quarters above, or craft workshops with apprentices. Leaving aside indentured labor or slavery, many worked alongside family or trainees. Others belonged to a “leisure class,” free from work altogether. The rural elite entertained themselves with social events, hunting, and horseback riding. The urban idle life was epitomized by the French flâneur—someone who strolled the city, watched people, and lingered in cafés. None of these groups commuted, clocked timesheets, or worked in shifts.
Industrialization ended that way of life, replacing the flaneur's delights with modern offices, factories, and sprawl, in turn sparking movements like City Beautiful in a vain effort to reclaim a sense of livable urbanity.
A future city devoid of a large class of people working in factories or offices will not mean the end of the city. As for the entire history of cities, it would still remain to be a place of art, culture, education, entertainment and research. There would still be museums, concert halls, universities, laboratories, restaurants and parks and ways to get around.
[td]
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The City as an attraction. Baltimore summer '25
Modern flaneurs (Photo: Philipsen
[/td]Modern flaneurs (Photo: Philipsen
A future city without masses of office workers will not mean the end of the city. Cities have always been more than workplaces: they are places of art, culture, education, entertainment, and research. Museums, concert halls, universities, laboratories, restaurants, parks, and transit will still matter.
The real question is whether robots and AI could create a new, more inclusive leisure class—people living from the productivity of their avatars and machines, the optimistic scenario, or whether a much darker dystopian scenario with mass unemployment, widespread poverty, and a population controlled by a small elite owning production, communication, and transport would prevail. Such a dark future would hardly produce thriving cities.
As the saying goes, the future is what we make it. Which is why the question of what kind of work we want is important, but in a much bigger sense that that of remote or in person. must go far beyond remote vs. in-person. It must also include guardrails for artificial intelligence and a more inclusive, equitable way of governing our societies.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
* Barrero, Jose Maria, Nicholas Bloom, and Steven J. Davis, 2021. “Why working from home will stick,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 28731. www.wfhresearch.com
Related on this blog: