Working from Home

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic triggered an experiment in enforced home-working across the globe. In the UK, the home-based workforce jumped from 14 per cent to almost 50 percent of the overall working population, a trend mirrored in countries across the world. Largely welcomed by both employees and employers, many organizations predict a hybrid future that combines working at home and in a centralized collective workplace. This has major consequences for the way we inhabit, conceptualize and design the city and the suburbs, as more (and different) space is needed in the home and employers realize that they can reduce their property footprints. The 24-hour inhabitation of residential areas brings new life to local streets and economies, while Central Business Districts and High Streets lie silent. This paper approaches this as a paradigm shift: for more than a century mono-functional homes and workplaces have been systematically separated – ways now have to be found to reintegrate them. Covid has shone a spotlight on major social and spatial inequalities, with the poor and the young disproportionately impacted. Priorities for researchers and policy-makers include the future use of redundant commercial buildings, and analyses of policy and law, including planning, space standards, tenancy agreements, Bedroom Tax and social housing allocations, that obstruct home-based work – and proposals for alternatives.