Today there are over 2 million home-based businesses, and beyond that there are more than a million employees working regularly from home. That adds up to around 12% of the workforce, and it means around 13% of UK homes have at least one person working from home.
To address this need, three UK Regional Development agencies, the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Live/Work Network and BT have produced a ground-breaking report, Tomorrow’s Property Today – sustainable live/work accommodation in a low carbon economy.
The need to change old habits of thinking
The main problem with achieving more sustainable communities is that we are planning for tomorrow as if today isn't happening. Despite the changes in the nature of work, the planning system is based on the separation of different land uses - in particular keeping work and residences apart.
This is a hangover from the Industrial Age, when one might reasonably expect places of employment to be dirty, noisy, smelly and dangerous - in other words, bad neighbors. Most work uses in the post-industrial age, however, are not like this.
To some extent this is recognized in the current policies for 'mixed-use' development, most commonly found in town centre regeneration projects. But mixed use in this sense rarely includes mixing uses in the same building. It's really about adjacent separate uses. Expectations that building some offices and homes near to each other will reduce car use are mostly wishful thinking. What it leads to is more complex patterns of cross-commuting and new buildings that do not relate to the changing nature of work.