People who worked remotely were a rarity before the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies paid large sums to have offices, assuming that people are more productive. In physical groups, they could plan and make decisions face to face.
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Whether that was true or not, the pandemic shut most businesses around the country, sometimes for months. As companies and their workers debate whether they should return to offices, some places are much better to work remotely than others. These cities are a combination of metropolitan areas in the South and older industrial cities. Atlanta tops this list.
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The yardsticks for CoWorkingCafe’s recent “Top 10 Cities for Remote Workers” report included the cost of living, internet access, ease of walking in the area, co-working facilities and the number of airports within 70 miles. Data were taken from the Census Bureau, Walk Score and BroadbandNow.
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As mentioned, Atlanta topped the list, along with the southern cities of Orlando, Tampa and Birmingham. Among older industrial cities, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Buffalo made the ranking. Presumably, one factor for these older cities is their cost of living and housing.
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Many companies face a harsh fight with their workers about whether they need to return to office space. Some have moved away from close proximity. Others have set up lives with home offices and equipment. Still, others have become more regular presences to their children and their spouses. For many of these, a return to the office will be painful, no matter where that office is.
The Best City for Remote Workers
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Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
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