COVID, Transportation, Urban Economics

The 'natural experiment' of COVID has shown that most white-collar workers can work from home, So millions now work from home, which means millions: a) need a home office, and b) care much less about commuting distance. Urban economics suggests that rent and transport costs being interchangeable, people are going to disperse. Short-term, a surge in suburban prices results, and urban rents fall. Longer term, construction should catch up. My first thought is that will generate a surge in exurban development--after all, when you only commute one day a week, you can afford to live WAAAAY out there. 

But that's an antiquate way of thinking, based on the 'male-breadwinner' suburban pattern, when the reality is that most families are two income (or at least 1.5 income) with a major portion of one partners labor devoted to childcare. And in modern times, 'childcare' means taxiing children to various educational/enrichment appointments. Which suggests that homes are going to remain much more closely tied to urban services than people anticipate.