The upside to the death of locality

Today, some 26 million U.S. workers telecommute, according to Hossein Eslambolchi, author of 2020 Vision: Business Transformation Through Technology Innovation. By 2010 that number will grow to 40 million. And if gas prices keep rising, the number of telecommuters might increase even more.

Business process and IT outsourcing are already decimating the professional workforce that once commuted to work. Meanwhile, e-commerce is growing exponentially, approaching the point where major stores in malls across America are in danger of becoming vestigial organs, no longer necessary to retailers’ survival.

“With VoIP, geography means nothing,” says Eslambolchi. In the public switched telephone network, when you dial 415 you know you’re talking to someone in San Francisco. But with an IP address no one really knows where you are. Eslambolchi points out that as long as you have good metrics to measure employee productivity you don’t need to actually see the person working for you or even say good morning, for that matter.

Where will this trend lead? It may not be as grim as it sounds. Obviously, it could lead to fewer cars on the road and less pollution. But there is more to it than that.

The death of locality could also lead to more local phenomena, not fewer. We could see the re-emergence of small towns with local workforces, more local newspapers, an increase in neighborliness, and even the rebuilding of a community-minded spirit. Let’s take these (some would say Pollyanna) examples one at a time.

If people can do most of their shopping for mass-market merchandise online, local shops with unique products — or just products that are too much trouble to buy online — may increasingly find a niche. Take a hardware store, for instance. If I discover I need a rubber mallet, thumb tacks, or coasters to go under the wheels of my bed, I would rather run out to the local hardware store than order them online.

From fabric shops to the local fishmonger, there are many kinds of products for which going online just won’t work. So we’ll need more small shop owners, more sales clerks, and maybe even more delivery boys and girls on bicycles. And to advertise these local products, you might turn to a local newspaper filled with local news.

Neighborliness was next on my list. Well, once in a while I work at home, and guess what? I’ve discovered that I have neighbors and they are home, too. And it’s nice to see them during the week, not just mowing the lawn on the weekend. It gives us an opportunity for more neighbor-to-neighbor interaction.

It could even lead to erosion of class lines. Right here in the good old U.S.A., blue collar and white collar often don’t mix. But if we find ourselves at home more, instead of leaving before the sun comes up and coming home after dark, we may discover that more things unite us than divide us.

Finally, as neighborliness increases, class lines disappear, and we get to know each other better, we might just work together more as communities to build safer neighborhoods, where neighbors watch out for each other and their children, just like in the old farming communities.

I’m not opting for commune life here. I like my privacy. But it just seems to me that if we can phone our work in, so to speak, we will have more time for the really important stuff.