Tom Novak is a senior behavioral analyst at Canvas8. After completing his second master's degree in cultural sociology at LSE, he was drawn to cultural insight. Tom has conducted qualitative and ethnographic research from the plazas of Santiago to Coventry's suburbs. In his spare time, he can be seen rowing down the Thames or world-building around feminist science fiction.


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There has been lots of debate about the future of cities post-pandemic, sparking an array of existential questions. 

The New York Times

What will happen to central business districts (CBDs) if workers only go to the office a few days a week – or not at all? How will new work models affect retail throughout urban spaces and neighbourhoods? And is funding for public transport in jeopardy due to reduced ridership? San Francisco – the home of Silicon Valley juggernauts like X, Salesforce, Uber, and Airbnb – has become a focal point of these apocalyptic narratives given the fact that many tech companies have vacated or radically reduced their office space amid a surge in remote or hybrid work. 

San Francisco Chronicle

Cities all over the world are still adjusting to the economic and cultural realities of work post-pandemic. For example, while the number of passengers using the Tube in Central London had returned to pre-pandemic figures by April 2023, weekday ridership remained at about 70% of February 2020 levels. 

Centre for Cities

Meanwhile, the population of New York City’s urban core shrank by 5% between mid-2020 and mid-2022. 

McKinsey & Company

’ outside of commuter belts partially explains these changes, with many people choosing to live beyond city centres in their search for an improved work-life balance. Indeed, an Adaptavist survey from 2022 showed that 59% of workers across Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK preferred either a hybrid or full-time remote working model. 

Adaptivist

“When it comes to the future of work in cities, these public debates and media narratives have really reflected an understanding of what cities are in the industrial age. We have this model of people commuting from the suburbs, working in an office, and then leaving the city at the end of the day,” says Libby Sander, an internationally renowned consultant on work and the workplace and an assistant professor of organisational behaviour at Bond University in Australia. In 2022, it was estimated that 57% of people worldwide lived in urban regions, with that proportion projected to reach 70% by 2050. 

Statista

 “I think our current post-pandemic moment is giving us a huge opportunity to question the model of work in cities we have had for a while now,” adds Sander. “At the same time, we can address things like the shortage of housing in urban areas and how cities can be spaces where things like workers’ creativity, independent retail, and the arts are thriving in a genuine way.” But how can this be achieved? Are there any limits to this interactive relationship for brands? Canvas8 spoke to Sander to find out.

There are so many ideas floating around about what should be done with cities at the current moment, especially in the context of new models of work. Are there already examples of cities being innovative?

We actually saw some examples of innovation occurring long before the pandemic. New York City instituted significant changes in Manhattan’s Financial District after 9/11. Before 9/11, more than 60% of commercial space was occupied by finance, trading, and banking firms, with the remainder taken up by real estate, insurance, and government relations. No one lived there. During evenings and weekends, it was a ghost town. In the rebuild, new possibilities emerged. Companies sought to avoid the risk that came with clustering in one location. New independent retailers and restaurants emerged. Families moved in. Now there's a dog walking club that meets in front of the stock exchange each day. There are movie nights in the park. There is this almost village feel to the Financial District.

I think if we look at other places around the world, we are seeing some great examples of this as well. For example, in Japan, you can have a hotel, co-working space, youth clubs, and a community radio station all in the same building. I think that's what our post-pandemic moment calls for: a chance to create the unexpected and embrace this idea of delight and surprise. People want to see something different – for example, a space where radically different people interact.

Why is it important that diverse people and communities live within the same spaces or neighbourhoods? Beyond our implicit support for inclusive and multicultural ideals, of course.

Famous American author Jane Jacob wrote a book in the 1960s called 

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

, which still stands strong in many ways. In the book, she has this concept of the ‘sidewalk ballet’ – an urban space where you don’t just see office workers in suits but a wide-ranging array of people, activities, and movements that spark innovation and creative outcomes. A recent empirical study by a group of American and Australian researchers proved this hypothesis. They found that “the best-performing cities in terms of knowledge spillovers and economic performance are those that are not only home to, and attract, agentic people, but also empower these people by means of a physical and industrial city landscape that enables them to act in more innovative and entrepreneurial ways.” 

Research Policy

How can we achieve that exactly? In your writings, you often insist that we should focus ‘on work states instead of work place’. Could that give us a cue?

So, what we know now is that the entire city could be our workplace. We have a distributed workplace now, and that opens so many different opportunities. For example, New York’s 

 has been famous for many years for having a lobby that it encourages people to use as a co-working space. These days we have actual co-working spaces, of course, but also unofficial ones like coffee shops, museums, and cultural institutions.

When we approach work, what my research found is that we need to actually understand what is the outcome or the psychological state that we need to create. Is it creativity? Do we need to find a space that helps us really focus and do very concentrated work? Or do we need to reduce our stress? On the other hand, do we need to try and find a way to spark collaboration between people?

So, once we identify the type of state we need to be in for that particular task, then we can choose a space that will facilitate that. For example, the lobby of a really great hotel can be amazing for prompting ideas and creativity via simple things like overhearing conversations. We know that these things are so important for the iterative process of innovation. But if you really want to focus, then maybe working at home is the option. Or maybe you have a really great space in the office where you can concentrate with good acoustics. It's about identifying your needs, and now that we have this opportunity to work from anywhere, we can think about the whole city providing us with these spaces, which is much more interesting. At the same time, this is providing economic opportunities for different spaces and neighbourhoods.

You have argued about the importance of physical environments on our cognition. What does social science research tell us about that, especially in the context of working in cities?

Our physical environment has a really profound effect on our thinking, emotions, and behaviour, as well as our physiological performance. Because of that, it can also affect our productivity by up to 20%. So, physical space acts like a cognitive scaffold. It gives us cues and messages about how we might perform or what can actually happen in this space. It's really instructive for our brains. For example, we know that nature and biophilic spaces reduce our stress levels and can enhance our creativity, and so-called third spaces are really effective for promoting what Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter calls weak ties in our networks. 

Stanford News

 When you connect with strangers or acquaintances you see in your gym or commuter train, that might spark new conversations or expand your network, and you will be able to hear brand new ideas from other industries and walks of life.

But if you're in your office all day with the people you're always with, then you don't tend to discover as many new perspectives or thinking from radically different sectors. Third spaces and unofficial co-working spaces scattered throughout cities provide us with this important opportunity to expand our cognitive sparks.

There have been lots of innovative urban design examples connected to work, but are there enough initiatives that go beyond the needs and aspirations of the so-called ‘laptop class’?

There are, but they are less well-known. For example, we've seen for many years now the rise of ‘

’ and different types of third spaces that cater to different needs. There's a huge resurgence of people making and crafting things to sustain themselves as carpenters, sewers, or metal workers. And so there's a rise in different types of spaces being provided for people to do that who may not have the facilities in their own house. For example, some public libraries are calling themselves ‘the living room of the city’ as they provide public access to equipment and space and knowledge for different audiences and different income levels. It’s a place where people have this amenity to do things with their hands and also connect with other like-minded people who are making and crafting different things. We are also seeing a range of different opportunities for people working outdoors in public parks, so they are more in rhythm with nature.

Global cities like London seem to be going through what media are calling an office 'recession’, with Meta recently paying $181 million to get out of its office lease in Central London. 

So much money is invested in commercial real estate and office buildings and now there is a concern that these spaces are not as valuable anymore. But there's also a huge opportunity if we get out of the mindset that work can only be done in the way that’s been done for the last few decades, if not the century. We should focus on turning existing office buildings into everything from innovative co-working spaces to new housing units and even urban farms. 

Smithsonian Magazine

 Doing that won’t always be easy, but we are already seeing examples from cities across the globe redeveloping commercial real estate into amenities for different community and social needs. We should follow this path.

Focus on work outcomes rather than inputs

One of the biggest myths we have today is that just being in the office makes us productive. But being in the office isn't correlated with productivity or any of the outcomes. There's been a lot of wilful amnesia since the pandemic that everything was perfect pre-pandemic, that engagement was really high and everything was working well. That isn't actually true, and so we have to let go of this idea. We also have to break through the mindset that inputs and face-time are the right ways to measure things and approach work. Gallup research suggests that 37% of people who work fully remotely or in a hybrid setup report being engaged at work, versus just 29% of those who work fully in-person. 

Gallup

 But I don't even know if productivity is the right metric any more, at least not for modern knowledge work because we know that daydreaming, for example, has been empirically shown in research to be helpful for creativity. This is especially relevant as many companies are now using 

 on employees’ computers and laptops. if someone was daydreaming, they would say that they're plucking off or they're not being effective, and that's actually not true. So, we need to focus on outcomes rather than inputs and abandon trying to crudely measure people because that's not the right way to manage people anymore.

There's a pretty big technology company in Australia called 

 that’s only requiring its employees to visit their closest hub office eight times a year for company-wide and team bonding events, and it’s actually providing a generous travel allowance to support this. Then there is a company like Salesforce, which bought a retreat centre. It’s getting people together, not necessarily in the office, but in a beautiful place out in nature. The idea is that workers still want to connect socially, but it doesn't have to be in the way that we've always done it in the past. We're going to see much more autonomy where people are working in many distributed workplaces. We'll still have offices, but they'll be smaller and they'll be designed for different purposes. Hopefully, we will abandon this attachment that being always in the office is critical to produce the outcomes we need, and we'll start to see new innovative models of work in our urban landscapes as well.

59% of workers across Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK prefer either a hybrid or full-time remote working model

In 2022, it was estimated that 57% of people worldwide lived in urban regions, and that proportion is set to reach 70% by 2050

37% of people who work fully remotely or in a hybrid setup report being engaged at work, versus just 29% of those who work fully in-person

The diversification of urban environments can have profound benefits for businesses, residents, workers, and local economies

The normalisation of hybrid working and the proliferation of third spaces allows people more freedom to operate as they wish, potentially resulting in better work outcomes

The ability to choose one’s own workspace can facilitate innovative thinking, creativity, and cognitive cross-pollination

Dr. Libby Sander is an assistant professor of organisational behaviour at Bond University and a leading expert on understanding the future of work and how we can reimagine work to live more meaningful and creative lives. She has spoken at TEDx and is an agenda contributor at the World Economic Forum.

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The rise of remote working is reshaping cities, raising debates about the long-term consequences for public transport, urban amenities, and cognitive labour. Canvas8 spoke to Libby Sander, an internationally renowned expert on the workplace, about how new work realities could transform cities.