tech 2-min

How Technology Is Fuelling Regional Relocation ? 

The last three years have seen a significant increase in the number of people leaving the city for regional relocation. Prompted in part by the global health crisis, employers and families alike had to find a way to keep performing their job roles whilst not being able to leave their homes or relocate. As a result, many companies and individuals realized that it was a lot more achievable to work remotely. All the worries about productivity levels and time theft are gone. And people not taking their remote work seriously were dismissed when employees found that their companies still operated. Sometimes even more effectively, with the majority of their staff working from home.

In this article, we explore some of the reasons that drove this push to regionalize, relocate and what some of the impacts have been.



Why Are People Returning To The Regions via Regional Relocation

Over the last five decades, there has been a steady trend away from farms and country areas to cities and built-up metropolitan areas. This has been because most of the work and a better quality of life were available in the city and other metropolitan areas.

However, with advancements in technology, a lot of the benefits of being in the city. And a metropolitan area are no longer confined to those areas. It is now possible to get many of the benefits of living in a rural area without having to give up some of the other niceties that you would have once had to move to the city for.

There are many attractive things about regional country areas and regional relocation. And we will explore them further in the following paragraphs.

Cost Of Living

In general, the cost of living in a country area tends to be a lot lower. Given that the amount people pay for rent or their mortgage is often one of the largest ongoing living expenses it makes sense that many people would save money if they were able to have a home in a regional area. The main reason people couldn’t or wouldn’t previously live in a regional area was that it was too far from work. 

Given many people have since realized they can adequately perform their job from home. This means they can now buy an affordable house. Or buy a lot bigger house for the same money without adversely impacting their budget.

In addition to housing being a lot more affordable, things in shops are more affordable too. Because the retail outlets are not paying the same rent as other companies pay in cities and metropolitan areas. Given the business is paying a lot less rent, they do not need to pass that rental cost on to their consumers and customers.

Another advantage from a budgetary perspective about living in the country is that you tend to be a lot closer to primary production. Depending on where you are living, you may be surrounded by orchards and commercial farms, and dairies and be able to get a large portion of your day-to-day groceries directly from the producer, which is not only cheaper but you are also supporting farmers and giving less money to the greedy corporations.

No Commute

When you move to a country area and start to work from home, you eliminate or at least drastically reduce the amount of time you spend commuting. In many cities, it is not uncommon to spend upwards of one hour getting to work after deciding regional relocation and then another hour or more getting home from work. 

However, when you work from home, you get those two hours back in your day. Depending on your family situation and whether you have kids and what age they are, this gives you two extra hours to spend with your kids and your family members. If you are not part of a bigger family, it gives you extra time to sleep, relax or focus on your fitness.

Closer To Nature

Living in a regional area also makes it a lot easier to stay closer to nature and experience that connection on an ongoing basis. Instead of trying to escape the city every few weeks to get a dose of fresh air. And enjoy the great outdoors, you can live in the great outdoors and get as much fresh air as you want every single day.

You Don’t Have To Sacrifice Connectivity

It wasn’t that long ago that regional relocations did not have reliable. And quick internet service which made it difficult not only to connect to the internet and find the information you need. But also to stream media and engage in online meetings.

Given the demands for high bandwidth Internet to be able to perform many online job roles the advent of high-speed internet in regional locations has increased remote work possibilities. Companies like Broadlink can offer high-speed internet in many areas that once would have had dial-up Internet at best.

Move Closer To Family

In pursuit of a better quality of life, many people would have had to leave their families in a regional location in order to relocate to the city. Upon the discovery that they could still perform their job. And they have their career in the place they used to live. Many have been able to move home and reconnect and increase the time they spend with loved ones, including parents, siblings, and cousins.

Telehealth

Internet speed has made it possible to work from many different locations via regional relocation. This same internet has made it possible to still get high-quality specialized healthcare in many areas where it was once not available. 

In some cases, medical clinics now have hi-tech connections to major hospitals so you can visit your local clinic. But be consulting directly with a world-class specialist. In other cases, you can keep connections with the health professionals you used to see via Skype, Zoom, or Teams.

regional relocation relocate

Can Everyone Relocate?

Though these recent trends have enabled many people to relocate, it is not an option open to everyone, unfortunately.

For those whose job roles include mandatory face-to-face interaction or a practical hands-on function, it is more difficult to relocate. 

For example, Human Services workers could conduct an aspect of their role remotely during the crisis. But this was only temporary. And there will be certain aspects of that line of work that can never be converted to remote work.

Regional relocation has been most popular for those that worked for large national or multinational corporations. Because there was already an embedded culture of people working from different locations.



Final Thoughts on Regional Relocation

The allure of affordable housing, more time in nature, and more contact with long-lost family has been a very big draw card in the increased regional disbursement of the once metropolitan-centric workforce. 

Employers realized that people would still do their work from home and sometimes be even more efficient. They embraced this new trend with the understanding that they often got more from their employees.  And they experienced more dedication. Because the benefits their employees received increased due to the quality of life by working from home. 

Thanks to high-speed regional internet a lot of office-based roles can now. And they are now done very successfully from all over regional America.

 

 

Tags:
0 Comments

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

ALL TOPICS

Log in with your credentials

Forgot your details?