Coltaine79
Active Member
If everyone worked from home, whom would cities like Toronto tax to death?
In another thread, people were talking about a rise in Toronto of the "elite" class of knowledge workers, who are to take our city into the company of world-class cities such as London and New York, leaving behind the old generation of "blue collar industral workers" and the 80's-era white collar "cubicle workers".
It's exactly this new class of "elite" knowledge workers who will recieve and make use of work at home privileges. How does a company expect to attract the best in a field if they're going to force them to spend 8.5 hours per day, 5 days a week, in a stuffy highrise office building? Nowadays people want jobs which allow them to lead interesting lives outside work and maintain a healthy work/life balance. And many women (or parents, rather) want jobs where they can do their work and also be closer to their children. Even a quick glance at any "Top 100 Employers" list will show that a good number of the "elite" companies who make that list offer such privileges.
It's a bit silly that the same people who want Toronto to be world-class city with an "elite population", want our populace to work at dreary cubicle-based 9-to-5 jobs reminiscent of the robber baron era of American industrialism - just so that mass transit can be funded.
Another major fallacy in this thread is the belief that all companies are in downtown and the suburbs are nothing more than bedroom communities. That is untrue, but I won't get into it now.
Suffice to say there are plenty of downtowners with high-paying jobs at world-class companies in Markham, Mississauga or Oakville; and working from home is what allows them to enjoy staying in the city during the day rather than having to drive out to an office park in the middle of ass-nowhere.