Covid and Death of Cities
Remember the good old pre covid era and cramped city life where water shortage and pollution were the norms? Apart from impaling the respiratory system and crashing the global economy, Covid has also opened our eyes to harsh realities. From the migrant workers who were emphatically labeled as 'unskilled' and the self-proclaimed 'skilled' laborers, we are all desperate to take shelter in the safety of home.
We were staying away from our natural habitat (parents, family, home state, mother tongue) because we were convinced that that's the only way to earn a livelihood. We were okay with overpriced apartments, congested roads, polluted water, and junk food because that was the opportunity cost that we thought we had to pay to make it in life. And it took a pandemic to make us realize that a lot of office jobs can be done from home. The idea that a job can be done only at a designated workplace was a remnant of the Industrial revolution we never bothered to question. We unapologetically carried this baggage from the Industrial era to the Knowledge era.
While there is a lot of discussion on when we can go back to the office, there is hardly any discussion do we have to go back to the office. Many jobs need a physical presence, and many jobs don't. Imagine the scenario where the latter is kept away from Industrial areas or the so-called cities. The environment wouldn't be the only beneficiary. If we can stop our city fascination and spread out, we can create a much less competitive society. The cost of popcorn in PVR alone is a valid reason to move out from tier 1 cities. Imagine the billions of companies can save by reducing the area of office space.
Imagine the millions of rupees we can save in healthcare just by not breathing in the city air. Imagine the youth moving away from traffic signals in Bangalore to the wide roads where they go in gears other than the first. Imagine the social media politics warriors going home and discussing politics with parents who study at WhatsApp university. Imagine the demographic and psychographic change that will reverberate across society, impacting even the elections and crime rates. Imagine.
Like my article, battle with Covid will also be long. But that will also come to an end. We don't know whether we will make it to see that day, but if we do, lets us make sure that certifications we took to show our LinkedIn contacts are not the only thing we learned in the covid era.
#worklifebalance #COVID19 #remotework #lifestylechange #corporate