The Breath of the Metropolis: Smart Working and New Urban Geographies

Abstract

The paper explores the potentialities of telework, a topic with rich literature published since the 1970s, which has become topical again with its forced application related to the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. The paper carries out an analysis of the potential territorial impact—transport networks and geographies of living—of telework in the Italian national context. The analysis highlights the potential relevance of the application of telework in certain metropolitan areas that present urban poles where economic sectors with a high propensity for telework are centralised. This survey relates the large stock of tourist housing in the vicinity of large metropolitan areas to a potential demand arising from the change in housing preferences towards more pleasant contexts made possible by the application of telework. In conclusion, this work aims to contribute to the construction of a platform for the Italian context—lagging behind but with recent legislative measures on smart working—aimed at favouring the definition of research lines able to enhance the potential offered by the application of telework for environmental, social, and territorial sustainability objectives, and it also aims to outline possible territorial scenarios for the main metropolitan areas

Residential preferences, telework perceptions, and the intention to telework: insights from the Lisbon Metropolitan Area during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Up until the COVID‐19 pandemic, home‐based telework, 1 despite all the hype and buzz around it, had remained a niche practice. Forecasts made during the 1970s and 1980s have, up until 2020, remained largely unfulfilled, mostly owing to reticence from both companies and workers (Adobati & Debernardi, 2022 ). In Europe and generally everywhere, telework experiences were relatively limited (Adobati & Debernardi, 2022 ).…”

“…Forecasts made during the 1970s and 1980s have, up until 2020, remained largely unfulfilled, mostly owing to reticence from both companies and workers (Adobati & Debernardi, 2022 ). In Europe and generally everywhere, telework experiences were relatively limited (Adobati & Debernardi, 2022 ). In the case of Portugal, less flexibility and a stronger emphasis on being present in the work location (Gschwind & Vargas, 2019 ) meant that telework was marginal, with only 3.8% of the working population teleworking more than four times a month (López Soler et al, 2021 ).…”

“…According to the Eurostat ( 2023 ), the percentage of people regularly working from home has remained relatively stable at about 5–6%, but in 2020 more than doubled, reaching 13.9% of the total workforce in Portugal. The reaction to COVID‐19 infection rates and strong uptake in telework contributed to the decrease of several traditional resistances to the adoption of working from home (Adobati & Debernardi, 2022 ), particularly the ones related to productivity (Aguilera et al, 2016 ; Beck & Hensher, 2021 ). The impacts of these measures were massive and clearly visible.…”

“…Related to the travel impacts of telework are the location patterns of teleworkers, their jobs, and the possibilities that telework might induce sprawl. With telework being more popular, cities could become less attractive, strongly impacting spatial planning (Adobati & Debernardi, 2022 ), but these possible effects will not be spatially homogeneous. The potential growth of telework is mainly an issue of large cities (Aguilera et al, 2016 ), and mostly owing to the type of jobs with high levels of flexibility and autonomy that could be done from home.…”

“…The potential growth of telework is mainly an issue of large cities (Aguilera et al, 2016 ), and mostly owing to the type of jobs with high levels of flexibility and autonomy that could be done from home. These tend to be related to professional and/or managerial occupations (Adobati & Debernardi, 2022 ; Aguilera et al, 2016 ; de Abreu e Silva & Melo, 2018 ; Singh et al, 2013 ), and in knowledge‐intensive economic sectors (Denham, 2021 ). Jobs that could be done at home tend, on average, to pay more than the ones which cannot, and their relative proportion depends on the wealth and economic specialization of each country (Dingel & Neiman, 2020 ).…”