As a general rule of human civilization, we’ve lived where we work. More than 90 percent of Americans drive to work, and their average commute is about 27 minutes. This tether between home and office is the basis of urban economics. But remote work weakens it; in many cases, it severs the link entirely, replacing spatial proximity with cloud-based... See more

Today’s major tech companies are signaling that people don’t need offices to maintain operational effectiveness. If this sentiment maintains, these tech companies may no longer need Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, or Boston as talent-generating headquarters. Instead, they can move to cheaper suburban or rural areas of the same city or another... See more

Hospitality is dispersing — from a few destinations to many, from hotel towers to individual rooms — and value is shifting from from asset-heavy hotel companies to the network-based Airbnb. As knowledge workers come back to the office after a year of working from home, they won’t want to give up their newfound flexibility. The rise of gig workers,... See more

My humbler assertion is that 2020 has punctured my confidence that the internet cannot encroach on the benefits of urban density and proximity. Going forward, many fledgling companies may agree, as they find that the city in the cloud essentially acts as a more accessible version of the city on the Earth, eerily reproducing its forces of... See more