I think RTO would have been an easier pill to swallow for some if the US was less car dependent. I'd be the higher a proportion of the workforce in an MSA drives, the more they'll push back against RTO.

The world is more than the US. If you think everyone outside the US, just needs to walk down the stairs of their apartment, then down the street - stopping at a coffee shop on the way - to get to their office, then keep dreaming. I live in the centre of a small EU capital that has pretty good public transport, but it still takes 40 minutes taking two buses to get to the office...

Definitely an interesting hypothesis! I bet it's also true that people who are car-dependent are more likely to have houses (with home offices, yards, space, quiet, chosen partners instead of roommates, and so on).

You could test the relationship by looking at New Jersey and Connecticut: lots of people are relatively independent from cars for their commutes, but tend to have genuine houses (as opposed to their coworkers who live on the Lower East Side).

> You could test the relationship by looking at New Jersey and Connecticut: lots of people are relatively independent from cars for their commutes, but tend to have genuine houses (as opposed to their coworkers who live on the Lower East Side).

I'm guessing you mean the part of CT that's close to NYC. At least when I was growing up in the 70's / 80's, my part of CT had literally no public transportation, except for the occasional bus service for senior citizens.

Plus, for some RTO, instead of working remotely from your quiet home office, it's working remotely from a loud open office.

It would also be easier if offices weren't such an unpleasant place to be and work.

When I lived within walking distance of a transit station I was going to the office twice a week after the initial lockdowns lifted. The change of scenery was nice as was being around people again. Now that I have moved, and would need to drive to a transit station, I go in maybe once every few months. It adds maybe 15 minutes each way to my previous commute, but the idea of getting in a car at all is really off-putting. Add to that the possibility of vandalism or theft while my car is sitting in the transit lot all day and it just doesn't feel worth it. Driving to the office is a non-starter due to traffic and expensive parking.

I wonder if that equation balance would change if we all took a leaf from Joel Spolsky and gave everyone a private office in the office?

To me it wouldn't, I live in the middle of no where near my family, I couldn't work for big tech and stay here. But I bet it'd shift a lot of opinions.

It would probably make some difference at the margins. But I'd be willing to bet that, for the majority of people who don't want to go into an office or at least go in frequently, the driving factor is probably a commute. I'm pretty much fully remote but, if I would walk 15 minutes to our downtown office rather than drive >30 minutes to our suburban office, I would probably drop in semi-regularly for the change in scenery.

> gave everyone a private office in the office?

That would eliminate about 75% of what I hate about working in an office. Cubes are hell. The only hell worse than that is an open office layout.

Hell, given the way things were going prepandemic, cubes would be an improvement on most offices

I'm back in the office after 3 years away. I've been listening to a coworker drone on at the top of his voice for the past 2 hours. Plus, I don't even work with anybody in this (satellite) office, my actual team members are all in different cities.