Telecommuting and Urban Sprawl Revised : The Concept of Hybrid Space

Here’s a hypothetical question for you to consider: If 50% of the current workforce suddenly became teleworkers overnight, what is the first major long-term change you would expect to see over the course of say, for instance, two years? Less cars on the road? Sure. That’s a given… The rapid closure of a vast majority of Starbucks locations? Absolutely. But these are all issues related to how people live in a commuter society, not where they live. But did the idea about geographical choices for residences cross your mind?

If urban centers were no longer the primary destination of thousands of drivers, isn’t it natural to assume that residential choices would be based on less concrete, more lifestyle-based factors? And what would likely happen to our current system of suburban living as the standard? After all, one of the reasons why suburban culture emerged was to provide relatively easy access to the city with the comfort and presumed safety of non-urban life. Enter the concept of hybrid space…

One study from the Netherlands sponsored by the Urban and Regional Research Centre Utrecht (Muhammad, Ottens, and Jong, 2008) examined the concept of “hybrid space” and how, given a rise in the number of telecommuters, the concept of this new understanding of spatial geography might alter housing patterns and preferences.

The authors of the study discussed here (originally from the Dutch version of the Journal of Economic and Social Geography) define this hybrid space as being a consequence of the development and mass integration of communications technologies that “facilitate people’s access to opportunities in virtual space (through telecommuting, teleshopping, e-learning, and so forth) along with access them in physical space. In other words, with an urban center no longer being the singular choice for employment, shopping, learning, and recreation since having such a physical location is becoming less necessary, hybrid space will combine the most desirable elements of both worlds.

The study from the Netherlands used a residential land use projection model based on predictions of the type of urban decentralization that is expected to occur due to a drastically lessened emphasis on proximity to urban centers for vital goods, services, and of course, employment. The model suggests that parallel to this rapid increase in the number of people telecommuting for work as well as spending more time using remote communication to shop, learn, and access goods and services that were only available in person at a physical location before mainstream use of the internet, a new process of urban sprawl will begin—albeit based on different motivating factors. The authors predict that “Attractive regions to live in at medium distances from large cities will in particular be confronted with new urban pressure of a sprawling nature” (Muhammad, Ottens, and Jong, 2008).

While urban sprawl certainly exists already in the form of suburbs, the new form of sprawl the authors anticipate is different in its very nature as easy proximity to the downtown area of the urban center is no longer the goal. Most suburban areas were built so that people would have relatively easy access into the heart of the urban center to work without having to live with the problems associated with urban life. Now, however, it will no longer be of the utmost importance to have fast transport from the suburban haven to the urban center—instead it will be a matter of relative distance.

This new generation of migrants is expected to consider it desirable to live outside of the suburbs, even moving into rural, uninhabited areas for the peace of country living but with the ability to travel to an urban area when such a trip becomes necessary. Since it might no longer be necessary for a large portion of employees to work anywhere but in their homes, living within relatively close distance (say 30-45 minutes) of an urban center will provide them with more options for physical shopping, entertainment, and culture, but the urban center will be no more than a location for leisure—not for conducting vital business.

At the risk of sounding like too much of a futurist at a historical juncture when a telecommuting revolution has yet to begin in earnest, if the concept of hybrid space and its implications for housing choices are correct, this might completely alter the entire notion of urban areas. Instead of being essential centers of business, industry, and services, with a substantial rise in telecommuting in the employment, shopping, and learning senses, cities might eventually become associated more as centers of entertainment and culture than of business and productivity.

With that said, it is not reasonable to predict that urban areas will die off completely or that they will not serve a vital function—people will always be required to work in physical locations and while downtown areas might fall into decay with large numbers of office vacancies, downtown, urban areas will never be obsolete. What might fall out of fashion, however, are the suburbs themselves as they are no longer the newer, desirable havens in easy distance to metropolitan centers and housing prices fall as the radius of sprawl extends.

And so, the sprawl saga continues, this time for different reasons. Is this a fair trade for the benefits, especially in larger ecological and environmental contexts—a necessary evil? Can it be prevented? Are researchers in the Netherlands just too “out there” to apply in this debate? They are, after all, notorious potheads.

Source: Muhammad, S., Ottens, H. F. L.,  & De Jong, T. (2008). Modeling the impact of telecommuting on future urbanization in the Netherlands. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie (Journal of Economic & Social Geography), 99(2), 160-177.