Remote workers must lead the charge in creating people-first communities

Ditch the car.

Aug 19, 2022

. . . remote work is leading the charge in reducing dependence on personal vehicles. It’s up to us as practitioners of the future of work to ensure that this trend continues.

Hey reader,

This week’s essay covers the moral and societal obligation that remote workers carry to reduce humanity’s dependence on cars. Because we don’t have to drive to work every day, the remote crowd is in a unique position to advocate for more positive community development that focuses on people, not machines.

The past month here on Mountain Remote has been a deep dive on the broader scope of public transit and better ways of getting around. I tend to get fired up about this topic — and this makes Substack a great place for me to vent.

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Community shout-outs

Welcome to the five new subscribers since last week’s dispatch! You’ll find plenty of foot-powered inspiration around here.
Thank you to all who responded to my query last week for weird remote work stories (have one? Hit reply and let me know!) I’ll get a rundown posted in the next few weeks.

Now, let’s get our steps in.

Remote workers must lead the charge in creating sustainable, people-first communities

The lack of a need to commute to an office or workplace on a set schedule eliminates most routine car trips necessary to ensure one’s punctuality. It also frees remote workers to live where we want, and because of this, we must use this privilege to base ourselves near the amenities required for our desired lifestyles.

For those passionate about outdoor recreation, that means living in or near the places where you recreate, making it more convenient and sustainable to pursue those passions.

Commuting to work by car is already off the table, but we need to take it a step further and eliminate most car trips entirely. We remote workers and digital nomads must commit ourselves to public transit, bicycling, and car-pooling and ride-sharing (Uber pools, for example, when a car trip is necessary) as much as possible.

This is already happening in impressive ways, which we’ll get into below. As titans of travel and forerunners of the future of tech-assisted freedoms, we have the ability to help usher in a new era of transportation that is less dependent on personal vehicles and instead prefers putting one foot in front of the other.

Our lifestyle encourages car-free days, all we have to do is embrace them

The most popular digital nomad destinations — think Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Canggu, Bali, are walkable communities that you wouldn’t want to drive a car around (though a scooter is great in both). Even major cities that attract high numbers of remote workers including Medellin, Colombia, and Lisbon, Portugal, attract these workers because of their dense, walkable neighborhoods where most amenities a person needs are more conveniently accessed by foot than in a car.

Study after study has shown that long commutes destroy a person’s happiness and can even tear families apart. As such, it’s only natural that those with complete control over where they live would opt for spots where long commutes are immediately eliminated.

Many remote workers don’t own cars, particularly those who consider themselves digital nomads who frequently move between international locations (not looking at you, #vanlifers). A study published by the UK company Lease Fetcher concluded that long-term remote work could remove between 33 and 57 percent of personal vehicle ownership, with the stats showing that much of this could come from families cutting from owning two cars down to one.

There are all kinds of interesting things to see while remote working in Medellin. I walked through this park filled with weird lamp posts every day on my way to the coworking space.

In the US, that number is lower — with stats showing that remote work could help take 14 percent of cars off US roads. There were 276 million personal cars registered in the US in 2019.

Still, that’s an impressive number, and there are signs that the desire to ditch car commutes is gaining major steam in the United States, the world’s bastion of car culture. The Wall Street Journal found that only 25 percent of teens obtained a driver’s license at age 16 in 2019, compared with 50 percent in 1983. And an article in Yes! magazine notes how the idea of walkability — meaning amenities located within 15 minutes of where a person lives — is increasingly a priority for Americans when deciding where to base themselves. Walkable city planning encourages more trees, more bike lanes, and better public transit, according to Jeff Speck, author of Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time.

Through asynchronized work schedules and a high population of forward-thinkers, remote work is leading the charge in reducing dependence on personal vehicles. It’s up to us as practitioners of the future of work to ensure that this trend continues.

The cities and towns of the future will be built for people, not cars

Since the start of the pandemic, arguments in high-authority publications arguing for why cities should be people-centric rather than car-centric are plentiful, even moreso when bikes are part of the conversation. Combine with projects already in the works to create the cities of the future, the trends outlined above point to a new direction in city planning: One that focuses on 15-minute amenities, eco-friendly layouts, and efficient public transit.

This is present in concepts including Saudi Arabia’s The Line and Telosa, a smart city concept from Walmart billionaire Marc Lore. But it doesn’t take building new cities in the desert to start a revolution — we have the power to reimagine how daily transit fits into our lives, and the flexibility provided by remote work means that we laptop warriors have a moral and social obligation to lead this charge.

We, the planet, and society at large stand to benefit from doing so.

The perks of slowing down and allowing life to happen at a human’s pace is better for our sanity and makes our lives — and our commutes — more efficient. And as any who sit in snarled traffic on the way to work or drive in circles searching for a parking spot outside of their urban apartment can attest to, quite often, getting out of the car gets you places even faster.

For more on this topic, I recommend following Smart Cities Dive, an excellent publication that chronicles smart city and sustainability developments across the US. Their daily newsletter is among my favorites.

Boulevards like this make Oaxaca City, Mexico, an excellent place for a people-powered remote work lifestyle. I spent two months there in 2019 and walked at least five miles daily.

A challenge for you

You’ve reached the actionable part. Think about how many car trips you take in an average week — driving, Ubering, or otherwise. I challenge you to eliminate one day per week of driving. Maybe that’s a day you choose to ride your bike rather into a coworking space or walk to your favorite coffee shop instead of driving to it. Or, perhaps that’s adding grocery shopping onto a run into town for other purposes, rather than heading out on Sunday afternoon specifically for that purpose.

I think you’ll find that the peace of mind on your car-free day far outweighs any slight inconvenience caused. If this exercise gets you on a bike or out on foot more often, there are of course both physical and mental health benefits there, too.

This is something I’ve been working hard at myself. My wife and I were a one-car household for five years, up until the birth of our daughter in 2021. I’d drive two to three days per week, generally to go snowboarding or otherwise into the high country, and to run basic errands. Our vehicle — a 2006 Toyota Tacoma with a bench seat in the rear — is not viable for safely carrying a child around because it’s not possible to strap a car seat in the back. So last year we dished out a few grand for a used Honda Pilot.

Initially, my driving went up to five or six days per week. In my own defense, as parents know, having a first child changes everything in your life, and any plans you thought you had for a daily routine beforehand become immediately obsolete.

Over the past 10 months I’ve begun to chip away at the driving, and over the past few weeks have returned to the frequency I was at before buying a second car. Here’s how I did so:

Returned to my much-loved pastime of taking the bus (or riding my bike) to the gym, rather than driving, as I’d slipped into the habit of. (For those who read the dispatch from two weeks ago, this is when I do much of my awkward-looking bus-based productivity tasks :-)).
Committing to alternative transportation to my coworking space at least once per week (I generally head in two to three days per week).
Incorporating errands into my daily post-work routine on foot. I reclaim my daughter from the nanny each day at 4 pm. I then load her up in the stroller and we make our way around downtown Palisade to the post office, grocery store, pub, etc.

I’ve also begun an outline of how our family will return to its one-car glory days with an upcoming purchase of an electric vehicle (part of our long-term home decarbonization plan, which I’ll get into in an upcoming dispatch). I’d love it if we could have zero cars, but given our love of travel and penchant for recreating high in the mountains, alongside the unpredictable weather in Colorado, having one four-wheel-drive vehicle is all but mandatory for us.

Can you do me a quick favor? Forward this newsletter to one person who would enjoy it. Mountain Remote is powered by its community of readers, and where we’re going, there’s always room for more (as long as you’re not driving).

Mountain Remote news and further reading

Above, I mentioned the popularity of Medellin, Colombia, among the nomad crowd. That popularity is set to grow with the forthcoming launch of Colombia’s digital nomad visa.
For Cool Material, I wrote about everything you need to know before buying an electric bike. E-bikes, of course, are part of the revolution discussed in today’s essay.
Planning a mountain expedition in Latin America? Among the many things you may find up in the high country is excellent WiFi.

That’s all for now. See you next week!