The New Geography of Remote Work:Trends, Reflections and Implications

Abstract

<p>Before 2020, remote work was a boutique pursuit for most highly skilled workers in the United States, Western Europe, and other developed economies. It has since become one of the fastest diffusing social practices in recent memory and is commonplace across nearly every type of organization and industry. This chapter organizes current statistics and insights into a coherent understanding of the geography of remote work. It presents core indicators on remote work in the United States as of 2022 including: the geography of remote workers, and their distribution among occupations and industries. Reflecting in part on these data, it theorizes that the shift toward remote work is part and parcel of a larger spatial reorganization which as been called “The Meta City”. Under this new spatial configuration, remote work is a complement and not a substitute to traditional agglomeration forces, and so-called superstar cities are likely to gain more in labour mobility.<br></p>