There Is No Easy Answer

Boston Globe business columnist Larry Edelman took a lot of heat — as in a LOT of heat — recently for suggesting that people working remote and hybrid schedules should get back to the office full time to support those businesses that, well, depend on the business crowd.

That’s because he’s worked remotely since the pandemic, and rarely comes to the office.

This stunning display of hypocrisy aside, asking people to return to the office five days a week — as Fidelity Investments has done, a move that helped inspired the column — seems a little like asking why there isn’t a Friendly’s around the corner anymore or a video store down the block. 

Those days are gone, and they are not coming back, even if people will still suggest that, to help out those downtown businesses, it would be good if people came to the office. Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno did it for a while (not so much recently) to very lukewarm responses.

“Where and how people work, and how we simultaneously keep cities and their downtowns viable, is a very complicated matter, one that can’t be addressed by simplistic statements like ‘bring everyone back to work five days a week.’”

The reason for such responses was made clear in the days-long retort to Edelman’s suggestion, much of it coming in the form of reasons why working remotely works, why it makes sense, and why people are going to keep doing it.

These included everything from the price of gas and the sky-high cost of daycare to the amount of time saved by people who have long commutes, which have become more common as people struggle to find housing they can afford in and near the cities where they work.

But mostly, the comments noted that a one-size-fits-all, five-day-a-week work schedule, like the fax machine, is a relic of the past. The present and future call for flexibility and schedules that are far more likely to meet the needs of the employee, and not necessarily the employer or the downtown coffee shop or deli.

Which brings home the point that where and how people work, and how we simultaneously keep cities and their downtowns viable, is a very complicated matter, one that can’t be addressed by simplistic statements like ‘bring everyone back to work five days a week.’

It’s especially complicated in cities like Boston — where full, thriving office towers subsidize residential property taxes and city services — but also in municipalities like Springfield.

The downtown office towers there are very quiet, especially on Fridays, and even more so on Fridays in the summer. Meanwhile, a few restaurants have closed, and many others are struggling, in part because there are fewer workers getting morning coffee, going to lunch, or grabbing a beer after work.

It’s easy to say, ‘bring everyone back to the office.’ But that just isn’t going to happen. As we said, this is now a societal problem for which there is no easy answer.