When Federal Employees Telecommute, Why Are Agencies in D.C.?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

I have to agree. I thought that this was one good thing that Trump proposed.

OPINION | COMMENTARY

When Federal Employees Telecommute, Why Are Agencies in D.C.?

The idea of moving offices to the heartland has been floated for years. It’s never been more relevant.

By Faith Bottum
Nov. 26, 2021 5:42 pm ET

The metropolitan area of Detroit has around 1.7 million square feet of vacant office space. Surely there’s room for the Federal Highway Administration in all that. With only 41,000 people, Pine Bluff, Ark., has around 41,000 square feet of vacant commercial space. Couldn’t the headquarters of, say, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Business-Cooperative Service be squeezed in there somewhere?

Detroit has been in decline for decades, losing 65% of its population since 1950, and Pine Bluff is often named high on lists of declining towns. So why can’t the federal government move some of its operations to those cities?

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[VarryOn]

1. Decentralization would be good, but...

Having been bred, born, and raised in Pine Bluff, I can't think of a worse place to have a workforce. As we former Pine Bluffians say, it's a good place to be from!

[msongs]

2. every time somebody wants to cross connect theyd have to fly.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. The feds have lots of computers. Those computers have MS Teams installed. NT