Tag: California

California suburbs growing fast as many are priced out of cities, data show – LA Times

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Suburban areas on the outskirts of the red-hot Los Angeles and San Francisco areas grew especially fast last year, state officials reported Monday.San Joaquin County, home to Stockton, grew faster than any other, up 1.3% to 733,000 people. The area has become increasingly popular for people fleeing astronomical San Francisco Bay Area housing prices while remaining within commuting distance. San Joaquin was followed by Yolo, Riverside and Santa Clara counties.

Source: California suburbs growing fast as many are priced out of cities, data show – LA Times

Are these locales really within reasonable commuting distance and when those long commutes are factored in, is the arrangement truly affordable? There’s a huge cost on the personal lives and well being of these super commuters. As I reported in my eBook Last Rush Hour: The Decentralization of Knowledge Work in the Twenty-First Century, the trade-off doesn’t pencil out:

These long commutes also do not make good economic sense. The economic calculus for commuters is the time spent commuting is acceptable if that time is compensated either in the form of higher pay and benefits or more affordable housing. But the economics of that trade-off don’t necessarily balance out, according to an academic paper authored by two economists. “[I]n a direct test of this strong notion of equilibrium . . . we find that people with longer commuting time report systematically lower subjective well-being,” the study authors conclude.

Citation: Alois Stutzer and Bruno S. Frey, “Stress that Doesn’t Pay: The Commuting Paradox,” Scandinavian Journal of Economics 110, no. 2 (2008): 339, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9442.2008.00542.x

California Commuters Continue to Choose Single Occupant Vehicles | Center for Jobs and the Economy

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Attendant with the increased reliance on single occupant vehicles, workers are also spending more time commuting. The number of workers commuting longer than 30 minutes grew from 3.2 million (30.5% of commuters) in 1980 to 6.5 million (40.6%) in 2013 and to 6.8 million (41.4%) in 2014. This trend stems in large part from the growing congestion on California roads, but also reflects the continuing influence of housing costs on the commuting choices California workers are able to make. As the state’s regulatory systems continue to drive up housing costs especially within the coastal urban areas, workers also continue to rely heavily on single occupant vehicles to expand their housing affordability options, even in face of the additional time and travel costs associated with these longer commutes.

Source: California Commuters Continue to Choose Single Occupant Vehicles | Center for Jobs and the Economy

The report goes on to note one of the best (and I would add lowest cost) alternatives to mitigate commute transportation demand is reducing the need to commute in the first place:

Working at home continues to be the fastest growing alternative commuting mode, although at less than a million workers out of a total of 17 million statewide, its potential as a broader solution remains unfulfilled.  However, the ability of employers to expand this option and provide the flexibility many workers desire remains challenged by the ever-growing body of California-only employment regulations and their associated litigation risks.  Further expansion of this commuting mode will likely remain tied more to the self-employed and higher-income professionals rather than applying to a broader range of workers and income levels.

The obvious conclusion: In order to reduce commuting, knowledge work and management practices must be redefined for the 21st century where information and communications technology (ICT) makes it possible for all levels of workers to work remotely from home or in satellite and co-working spaces in their home communities. And not just self-employed and higher income professionals given the high cost of housing in central metro areas that pushes lower income earners out to the edges.

There’s another bonus that is certain to pique the interest of employers concerned about ever rising spending on health benefit costs. Having staff work in their communities frees up time to engage in healthier lifestyles and provides greater access to health promoting behaviors. I recently completed a comprehensive white paper on this topic. For more information, contact me by clicking the email icon at the upper right of the page.

California gubenatorial candidate says online education calls into question need for campus buildings, parking lots

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For example, the editorial board asked him about the future of higher education. His response: To question whether spending money to add campus buildings and parking lots really makes sense when the next generation of students might end up studying online.

Source: Erika D. Smith: Gavin Newsom ponders the reality of California’s hypothetical future

Jerry Brown ponders the high cost of the car as he departs Paris climate confab

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The California governor had spent five days in the city promoting measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lobbying world leaders as they met to negotiate a global climate pact.On Thursday, with those negotiations entering their final stretch, Brown sat with a sweater on his shoulders, Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich’s concept of counter-productivity on his mind.“He said if you count the cost of the hours that you have to work to pay for your car and the insurance and the gasoline, and then add that, kind of translate that into time,” Brown said, “you could go faster on a bicycle.”But looking out the window at the traffic rushing by, Brown said he didn’t “know what to do with all of that, because everybody is working all the time for their car.”“That’s why this is so challenging,” he said. “What we’re doing relative to what needs to be done leaves open a lot of things to be figured out.”

Source: Jerry Brown leaves Paris: ‘We’ll see how we do’ | The Sacramento Bee

One place Brown can begin is asking why there’s so much dependence on automobiles. It’s hard to get people out of their cars when they need them to earn a living. Bill Davidow, author of the book Overconnected, writes on how the rise of the automobile and modern highways following World War II made it possible for people to work in a community far distant from the one in which they live. Now decades later, we are virtually “locked in” to commuting to work by car, Davidow asserts in his book.

But the last two decades have seen the rise of a new information and communications technology infrastructure that obviates the need to drive to a centralized, commute-in office every work day. People can use that infrastructure to bring their work to them rather than the traveling to a distant workplace, working at home or in distributed co-working shared office facilities in their communities. The latter option is also far more accessible by the bicycle commute Brown envisions.

California falling short in push for more clean vehicles

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Even as California sells itself as an environmental success story during the United Nations summit here, the state is in danger of failing to meet its own targets for getting clean vehicles on the road.

Source: California falling short in push for more clean vehicles

Another strategy the state should adopt is to cut down on daily commute trips by encouraging employer organizations (including itself) to more widely adopt distributed work. Rather than driving to a centralized commuter office in another distant community, people would work in their own communities in co-working spaces shared by multiple employers as well as in home-based offices.

Brown: Californians need ‘lighter, more elegant’ lifestyle | Local News – KCRA Home

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Brown said in order to deal with climate change, Californians will have to make changes in the way they live.”We’re going to be able to be create a lighter, more elegant lifestyle over time through technological innovation,” said Brown.”We do need to change our habits, live closer to where we work, reduce the power of our automobiles, or get them into an emission free kind of technology,” he said

Source: Brown: Californians need ‘lighter, more elegant’ lifestyle | Local News – KCRA Home

As governor of the state that innovated much of the world’s information and communications technology (ICT) that decentralizes knowledge work and obsoletes daily commuting to accomplish it, Brown’s view that Californians should “live closer to where we work” reflects outdated Industrial Age thinking.

Moreover, it ignores housing market economics that push affordable housing to the far edges of metro regions, necessitating the very commuting and its associated carbon emissions that Brown decries, as noted by The (San Francisco) Bay Area Council:

The housing market has reached a crisis point. Our region’s workforce is commuting longer times, from farther distances, and paying a greater share of household income for housing, reducing quality of life and forcing businesses and families to relocate.

Instead, Brown should encourage organizations to better utilize ICT to reduce daily commute trips and decentralize knowledge work out to the communities where people live so they can work at home or in shared co-working centers.