Central Valley cities ranked for ‘teleworking’
SANTA CLARA
March 30, 2006 7:20am
• Sacramento leads the region
• Washington, D.C., leads the nation
Washington, D.C., has been named the "Best City for Teleworking" in America, according to a new study released Thursday by research firm Sperling's BestPlaces and paid for by Intel Corp.
Three cities in the Central Valley – Sacramento, Fresno and Bakersfield, also made the study’s various lists.
The study ranked cities based on the potential benefits that teleworking would offer residents in those cities.
A total of 80 metropolitan areas were examined and ranked alongside other similarly sized areas.
After Washington, the top cities in the very large metro area category are Boston, Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco. The large metro area category was topped by San Jose followed by Baltimore, Denver, San Diego and Indianapolis.
The rankings were broken down into three lists, grouping cities by size. Within the “large metro areas” list, the Sacramento--Arden-Arcade—Roseville region was ranked sixth in the country, just behind Indianapolis and just ahead of Columbus. The study says workers in the Sacramento area save about 13 million gallons of gasoline a year by teleworking.
Within the grouping the study terms the “medium metro areas,” Fresno is ranked 28th in the nation.
Bakersfield is ranked 13th among the nation’s “small metro areas” in teleworking, the study says.
Teleworking is defined by the study as “an advanced form of telecommuting” which goes beyond simply allowing employees to work from home or an alternative location a couple of days a week and instead enables them to work at any time or place that allows them to successfully complete their work.
“In short, it means bringing the work to the worker instead of the worker to the work,” the report says.
The study identified cities that hold the greatest potential for teleworking based on a host of factors including typical commuting times, fuel prices, availability of broadband Internet access and percentage of the population in telework friendly jobs.
"Recent increases in fuel prices, crowded highways and security concerns have all combined to make telework increasingly important in today's world," says Bert Sperling, principal author of the study, in written comments. "Our analysis shows that working from home even one day a week can have a huge beneficial effect for employees, companies and the entire community."
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