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Comment by glitcher | Hacker News Reader

“Everything from daycare to public transportation, toll roads, fuel and fuel taxes, auto purchases and maintenance, dry cleaners, nail spas, restaurants, clothiers, hair stylists, dog walkers, nannies and office leases suffer when people work from home,”

Sounds to me like more households get to retain more of their income (and time) as a result. And that extra money will end up back in the economy albeit in different ways, so it's not like the money just disappears. Businesses and governments will just have to adapt to change, and I have no sympathy for their sob stories and stubborn instincts to resist change.

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Most of these examples don’t even suffer very much.

Roads don’t “suffer” from disuse, their maintenance costs go down.

People who work at home still need child and sometimes even pet care, working from home doesn’t mean you’re magically able to watch your children and work at the same time.

People don’t get their hair and nails done to please coworkers.

Dry cleaners are already on their last legs due to changing fashion tastes and new materials that can be taken care of at home. You can buy suits that don’t require dry cleaning or ironing.

Public transportation was already too downtown focused and should be re-developed to better serve non-commuting usage anyway. Since the USA has almost no rail anyway this is a simple matter of changing bus routes.

Office leases suffering isn’t a problem. An entire thriving residential and entertainment district in Cleveland with some of the highest property values in the city is built in disused industrial buildings and land.

I agree with all of your points except:

> People don’t get their hair and nails done to please coworkers.

On some level, my most of my routine hygiene was due to having to go into the office, including getting my hair cut. I'd likely have skipped a couple hair cuts if I never had to face people.

> People don’t get their hair and nails done to please coworkers.

I certainly do, or did before I started remote.

Id say it differently:

Money moves from centers to outside

I'd also say it louder. These services used to be centered around offices and urban centers like that, and while it may just move, that will impact where the services were. At a macro level, it's a net-zero change, but to the mayor of the city with the downtown, it hurts to see the business leave for adjacent suburbs, which are different cities with different mayors. Incentives given to businesses for bringing people downtown go away. Poor real estate population brings different people to the area, which can increase crime.

To be clear, that's still not our problem as employees, but they are concerns and potentially reasons for the return to office push.

(My) downtown is a disease ridden shithole - quite literally: I’ve seen people void their bowels on the street.

It’s a good day when I only smell pot and fentanyl being smoked. Turn off downtown and let me work from home.

Anything that can change the god-awful situation of daycare in the US has my vote. I can't see how it can get any worse.

Biden tried to pass universal daycare. Rejected by Manchin

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