Economic Development After the Rise of Telework
January 19, 2022 by Ted Knowlton
Policy/Legislative
Legacy Crossing, Centerville Utah
For local governments in Utah seeking to have a healthy municipal budget it has long been a basic objective: attract retail!
50% of the sales tax generated at a brick and mortar store stays in the community in which the purchase was made.
With the ongoing and significant shift of retail sales to online – away from brick and mortar, a trend that has been rapidly accelerated during COVID-19, does this basic objective still hold? How has it changed?
The answer may not be obvious. Here are a few things to note:
Residential tax-revenue power is significantly greater now. In Utah when someone buys something online, the location of the transaction acts just like a brick and mortar store. So if someone makes an online purchase from their home, which is happening more than ever due to COVID-19’s spike in telework, half of the sales tax stays in that community.
As a note, community by community sales tax revenue can be found here:
Home-buying decisions are more guided by quality of life than ever before. With telework, close proximity to job centers has dropped as a driving factor in selecting where to live. Reflect on this for a minute. A community can no longer bank on a central location for being enough to be attractive for highly mobile homeowners. A community MUST also offer a high quality of life.
Take a look at this chart from a National Association of Realtors survey conducted in the midst of the pandemic that asked which community characteristics are very important in deciding where to live.
Every single characteristic that relates to a short or manageable commute is down when contrasting mid pandemic to before the pandemic:
- Being within a short commute
- Easy access to the highway
- Having public transit nearby
Quality of life definition for homebuyers is marked by walkability. Continuing to look at the same NARO survey. All of the elements that relate to a walkable, bikeable community have increased.
- Sidewalks and places to take walks
- Being within an easy walk of other places and things
- Bike lanes and paths nearby
Again, all elements that relate to shorter / easier commuting are down, but all items that relate to more walkability are up. People aren’t necessarily looking for workplaces within their residence’s community, but they are looking for attractive, walkable convenience.
There is corroborating evidence here.
Residents in bedroom communities are localizing more of their activities. Take a look at Davis County trip data, selected because it is the most bedroom-oriented of the four core Wasatch Front counties. Contrasting home-based trips from before and during the pandemic (regardless of mode: walking, bicycling, driving, transit), there are many more very short trips less than a mile and many fewer medium length trips 1 to 3 miles long.
Source: https://www.bts.gov/browse-statistical-products-and-data/covid-related/distribution-trips-distance-national-state-and
The hypothesis is that as people are spending more time at home teleworking they are looking for convenience and recreation close to home. When this data is combined with the NARO survey it should say to communities: are you a walkable bikable community? Is it safe to walk and bike: sidewalks, trails, and bike paths? Are there meaningful things close to neighborhoods to walk and bike to?
Key message: Quality of life, marked by walkability could be a central objective for economic development. The way to attract the highly mobile teleworker.
Written by: Ted Knowlton, AICP
Recent News
- Art as Daily Experience in Ogden’s Nine Rails Creative District
- Award Spotlight: Salt Lake City Reimagines Nature
- LET’S TALK! AND TALK. AND TALK SOME MORE…
- A Minnesota Judge Throws the Book at Immoral Tax Assessments
- The Great Rebalance
- To Fully Observe, We Need to Walk
- Study reveals that Utah housing prices have increased 200% in two decades
- DOUBLE WHAMMY
- The Office of the Property Rights Ombudsman
- Gov. Cox hails ‘generational’ effort in Utah’s water law history
- Clamor is King
- Utah Is Building a ’15-Minute City’ From Scratch
- Quality of Life – A Dishonest Approach to Change in Neighborhood Character
- Changing the Rules of Zoning
- Growth & Change In the West: 2022 RMLUI Conference Recap
- Vernacular Is Beautiful—If We Would Just Allow It
- APAUT Spring Conference Follow-up and Pictures
- To Airbnb or Not to Airbnb
- The Costs of Wide Streets in the U.S.
- APAUT President’s Message – March 2022
- How should we decide the fate of Utah Lake?
- How the Utah Legislature continues to usurp power from city and county government
- What to know about residential care facilities in your neighborhood
- University of Utah Professor Named the 3rd Most Cited Planning Faculty in the World
- TWO BIG BILLS OUT
- Examining the Impact of London’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing
- May We all Grow Together: Cultivating Support for Utah’s Emerging Planners
- A Commitment to Change
- Okay Boomer
- APAUT Book Discussion: Evicted by Matthew Desmond
- Economic Development After the Rise of Telework
- Follow the 2022 Legislative Session
- After the Bennett Freeze: Planning Within the Navajo Nation
- Flexible Zoning for the New Economy
- Lead and Inspire with Purpose: AICP Code of Ethics Update
- Janet Quinney Lawson – Institute for Land, Water & Air
- Emerging Planners Survey
- Plan to restore Utah Lake met with resistance from Utah County conservation groups
- New Murray projects and guidelines move forward as moratorium ends
- From the Office of Dodge, Wiggle, Hack, Shrug & DeCamp, LLC
- Land Use Training
- Paul Allred: Career Reflections & Valuable Advice – Part 3
- Cache Summit 2021
- WAVE HIKING PERMIT CHANGES ON THE WAY
- Paul Allred: Career Reflections & Valuable Advice (Part 2)
- Paul Allred: Career Reflections & Valuable Advice
- UDOT seeks public input on rural Utah transportation plans
- Electric Vehicles Are on the Rise. Is Your Community Ready?
- Call for Award Nominations
- Fifteen-Minute City
- Remember Olympia Hills?
- The Mountain Lions: these nine cities boomed in the COVID era
- AS PLANNERS, WHY DO WE DO WHAT WE DO, AND WHY ARE WE DOING IT?
- Andrea Garfinkel-Castro, doctoral candidate, “Unpacks” Latino Urbanism
- 11 Ways To Excel Ethically At Every Level
- Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD): core principles
- A Tale of Two Walks: Part 2
- Heat, Health & Equity: The Effects of High Temperatures on Health, and Ways to Mitigate Heat in Our City
- Help Shape Equity Planning Policy
- DO CITIES HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO BAN FIREWORKS?
- Air Quality Is Better In Utah Today Than Ten Years Ago, But…
- Layton council adopts water-saving landscaping requirements for most new development
- CAREFUL WHOM YOU CALL A NIMBY
- Considering A National Infrastructure Bank
- HEALTHY UTAH COMMUNITY
- Breaking Down Silos: The Inception of the Utah Rural Coordinating Council
- MAG Transit Studies
- Effective Public Engagement Requires a Lot More Than a Public Hearing
- Is Remote Work Here to Stay?
- SENSITIVE LANDS PLANNING: PROTECTING PUBLIC HEALTH, SAFETY, AND WELFARE FOR GENERATIONS TO COME
- Bond Ratings are for Investors (Not Taxpayers)
- It’s Complicated (Ok, you’ve heard that before, but maybe not for this topic – billboards.)
- The Color of Law APAUT Online Book Discussion
- The American Jobs Plan Will Make Our Infrastructure Crisis Worse
- President’s Infrastructure Proposal Includes Addressing Housing Affordability
- We Cannot Plan from Our Desks
- Rep. Curtis, Sen. Romney introduce bill to advance the Bonneville Shoreline Trail
- Utah could lose out on billions in federal funding for passenger rail
- The Cure for the Wasatch Front’s Housing Crisis: More Affordable Homes Between North Salt Lake and Lehi
- Ambassador Program Update
- Local Needs Among Utah’s Multicultural Communities During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Campus Mobility Hub Study – APAUT Award Winner
- Does Building New Housing Reduce Overall Housing Costs?
- Layton Forward – Layton City’s Comprehensive General Plan Update
- Spring Conference Postponed, Book Club, President’s Message
- Presidents Message
- Lehi Connectivity Standards – A Stronger Urban Fabric
- Housing First; Cars Last
- UDOT Bike Infrastructure Data Collection Project
- The Great Horizon Year of 2020
- Density is a Loaded Term
- New Study on Housing Affordability Focuses on Local Land Use Practices
- There is no such thing as ‘smart sprawl’
- Legislative Interim Committee – What You Need To Know
- A bipartisan opportunity to rebuild American infrastructure
- Zoning laws aren’t the only things hindering Utah’s housing market
- Congratulations to the APAUT 2020 Award Winners
- State and Local Governments Must Further Address Housing Affordability
- The Status of Women Leaders in Government – Utah Cities and Towns
- We have to do something about Utah’s housing crisis
- What the Wasatch Front needs is more basement apartments
- Cities Don’t Need High-Rises to Become Affordable
- Away from the bustle: Covid-19 and the end of commuterland
- The Color of Law: A Book Review
- (Contract) Zoning by Agreement in Utah
- Zoning Reform Is Not Leftism
- “The Great Localization” COVID-19 and Opportunities for Communities
- Missing Middle Housing: Thinking Big and Building Small to Respond to Today’s Housing Crisis
- Zoning Reform – English Style
- 3 Stories Show the Flip Side Of Zoning Reform
- APAUT Call to Action
- The Politics of Housing Affordability
- Zoning, Affordability, and COVID-19
- Where do we go NOW!? – President’s Message
- An Interview With Ashley Cleveland, MCMP
- The Importance of Sense of Place in our Communities
- An Answer to the Suburban Growth Dilemma
- Homeless to Housed Fall 2019
- A New Initiative: Children’s Walks
- Awards Spotlight: Water Quality Planning Toolkit for Utah Communities
- All About Storm Drain Utility Fees – Video