Remote work is stretching cities, not emptying them for the provinces.

A new survey shows most people working remotely are still moving within urban areas, not to the countryside. This means cities are getting bigger, not smaller, and rural areas are not seeing a major population boom from remote workers.

For years, development agencies assumed that once remote work became common, people would spread out and help struggling rural regions. This paper shows that assumption is wrong. Instead, remote work seems to be making existing cities even larger and more expensive, while rural areas are largely left out of this trend.