If the pandemic has done one good thing for us, it’s to usher in The Age of Zoom and what many “big thinkers” had advocated from the beginning, that the internet would bring about “the death of distance” and allow people to live and work anywhere.
That was always the promise to rural areas although it’s mostly been a promise that’s gone unfulfilled.
Instead of flattening the economy, the technological revolution of the past three decades has done just the opposite — concentrate economic opportunity in handful of go-go technopolises.
In theory, many Silicon Valley workers could be anywhere. Instead, they’re mostly in, well, Silicon Valley.
Still, there has been some movement as some remote workers have discovered they can do just fine in smaller communities — like, well, ours.
Before the pandemic hit, Roanoke Times business writer Casey Fabris documented how the Roanoke Valley now has the state’s second highest-rate of telecommuting — with 7.3% of the region’s workers setting up shop from home. At that time, that meant 10,500 telecommuters in the Roanoke Valley. For comparison purposes, at the time there were 15,644 workers in manufacturing. That’s big enough to be a real economic sector.
After the pandemic hit, there was some speculation in cities — and hope in rural areas — that remote work might set in motion a major dislocation of workers.
