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Here's an interesting post that suggests a single data point for quality of life/place can be tied to the percentage of people who work from home. The idea being that when you can live anywhere you're more likely to choose a place with a high quality of life.
Well I agree with the data point. People who work from home are looking for good rental/housing prices, good internet, cultural activities, etc. A lot of that goes with what your average person is looking for.
I think it's more complex than that. Working from home can shape some items. Commute can eat up your time, which can diminish quality of life.
Also some cities make socializing easier in this arrangement, but may not increase the quality of life over those with broader work relationships
Finally, I know a lot of people here in Phoenix that work from home. Most are natives. They live here because they've always lived here, like it, have family... The normal ties that bind. They just work in sectors that are prevalent out here where you don't need a physical office - claims adjusters, education counselors, processing study information, etc
It's a pretty compelling data point, but obviously no single piece of data can paint complete picture. Also, when I read the breakdown it says:
Quote:
4.3% of employed people work primarily from home.
To me that means his category includes people who enjoy the benefits of working from home most of the time but are probably still tied to their general location for work to some degree.
Some people will complain that it doesn't have enough data. Well saying which place is "best" is always subjective. Besides, the higher ranking cities are nice, while the lower ones are not. It does seem to be reasonable.
I agree that it seems logical to look at the working from home rate as an indicator of QOL, but there are definitely several other factors here, such as the fact that people who work from home are still often required to appear in-person on occasion to a local company office, thus limiting the extent to which someone could theoretically locate anywhere.
I also don't think it's a coincidence that the higher ranking metro areas tend to have heavier tech-based employment, which is of course the leading industry/field of working from home. Also, even without a proximity requirement, I'm sure there is an inherent bias for people to live in the regions where their companies are based for networking or fallback job market purposes.
If you look at the full list, which isn't adjusted for being in the top 100 metro areas, things get more interesting.
It is skewed towards college towns, military towns, and retirement destinations. And the bottom of the list is a who's-who of poor southern and midwestern cities.
Unless a person is a total recluse, the type of people in a chosen area is a major QOL factor. Red State/Blue State, small city/big city, these things matter.
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. The flood gates have opened.
