Location of Coworking Spaces (CWSs) Regarding Vicinity, Land Use and Points of Interest (POIs)

Marco Hölzel,Walter Timo De Vries,Kai-Hendrik Kolsch

doi:10.3390/land11030354

Abstract

Background: The place of work is, besides the place of residence, a main travel destination in the course of the day for working people, who make up the majority of western European societies. Other daily destinations, such as those for childcare, social activities, and buying groceries, are spatially related to both of these. This article aims to detect if and how the character of the neighbourhood and the associated land use is related to the location of coworking spaces. Specifically, we investigate the spatial relation between coworking spaces (CWSs) in peripheral and non-peripheral regions to specific points of interest (POIs). These POIs could be daily destinations relevant for a common lifestyle of working people. The data rely on identifying the location of CWSs (peripheral/non-peripheral, land use) in Germany and relating the location of CWSs to the location of POIs using georeferenced data. The results show an accumulation of CWSs and POIs in non-peripheral regions and residential areas and a higher number of specific POIs in their vicinity. From these results, we infer that a relatively higher number of specific POIs in the vicinity of CWSs makes it more likely to use this service and thus provides specific advantages to users of CWSs. If work is performed in a CWS close to the place of residence, other daily destinations could be reached in a short time and the spending capacity could remain in the local economy. The quality of life could increase, and the commute is shrinking with effects on traffic, carbon emission, and work–life balance. Further research could investigate whether this also occurs in an international context, and could focus on developing social-spatial models, by making of use remote sensing. In this way, one could measure the impact on public space and on the neighbourhood of CWSs more quantitatively.

Highlights

Villages and town centres, especially those located in rural, non-metropolitan regions, and, to a lesser extent, outskirts of metropolitan regions, face several problems
There is a wide and rapidly growing range of literature on the subject of coworking spaces, fablabs, etc., as it could be found, e.g., at the Coworking Library [129]; we found a limited amount of literature on our research focus—the spatial relation of CWSs and points of interest (POIs)
We identified more than 41,000 POIs in the vicinity of coworking spaces, excluding POIs located within a 500 m radius of several CWSs

Summary

Introduction

Especially those located in rural, non-metropolitan regions, and, to a lesser extent, outskirts of metropolitan regions, face several problems. The spatial separation of the workplace and residence place derived several concepts of a modern city, such as Ebenezer Howard’s ‘Garden City’, Tony Garnier’s ‘Cité Industrielle’, Frank Lloyd Wright’s ‘Broadacre City’, and Le Corbusier’s ‘Ville Radieuse’ [15] Such ‘modern’ towns lead to large volumes of daily commuting, traffic jams, additional road constructions, empty and sleeping villages, and gradually to more CO2 emissions [16]. The amount of work performed in factories by blue-collar workers or in agriculture has been shrinking in Western societies [17], and the reason for the separation of the place of work and the place of residence, to protect people from harmful emissions, is no longer necessary to this extent. One could measure the impact on public space and on the neighbourhood of CWSs more quantitatively

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion