Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

2 days ago

Trump Says He’s Willing to Let Migrant Farm Laborers Stay in US

2 days ago

US Electric Vehicle Tax Breaks Will Expire on Sept. 30

2 days ago

Eyeing Arctic Dominance, Trump Bill Earmarks $8.6 Billion for US Coast Guard Icebreakers

3 days ago

Trump’s Sweeping Tax-Cut and Spending Bill Wins Congressional Approval

3 days ago

Americans Celebrate Their Independence With Record-Breaking Travel Numbers

3 days ago

US Supreme Court to Decide Legality of Transgender School Sports Bans

3 days ago

Nvidia Set to Become the World’s Most Valuable Company in History

3 days ago

Poll: 41% in US ‘Extremely Proud’ to Be American, Near Historic Low

3 days ago
Rethinking Work and Life in Lessons Learned From COVID-19: Caballero
gvw_calmatters
By CalMatters
Published 5 years ago on
May 19, 2020

Share

I must admit to a strong bias. I am old fashioned. I believe in going into the office, and appreciate the routine of rising early in the morning, drinking coffee, joining the flow of people commuting to work and retreating to my home sanctuary after a hard day’s work.

Now, I work where I live, and for the first time I conducted the business of being a legislator not from the Capitol dome in Sacramento, but from my home in Salinas.

Anna Caballero
Special to CALmatters

Recently, I remotely participated in the first Senate Budget Subcommittee hearing on the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 10,000 Californians streamed the hearing and provided public comment over the phone.

This was the return to democracy in the COVID era. This is the new normal. Being a part of this historic event, I challenged my own bias against working from home. I have been doing it now since the governor’s orders, my staff is performing amazing things working from home, as so many other Californians are.

I am seeing positives emerge from the stay-at-home orders. Wildlife across the planet is stretching its legs, less inhibited from the hustle and bustle of humanity. Air pollution is plummeting in some of the most polluted cities around the globe. People are walking, biking, running, reading, talking with family, and while physically distancing, they are attending video happy hours, concerts and more. Most humans are proving their resiliency.

The impacts of work where you live, don’t live where you work started to swirl in my head.

What Prevents the Continuation of Working Remotely as the Pandemic Eases?

I have been thinking about what that could mean for Greenfield, Los Banos, Merced, and the Central Valley. I started to think about communities like Hollister, Westley, Patterson, and more places that used to be rural, but are now over-run by Silicon Valley super-commuters.

So, I put these questions to the leading employers in Silicon Valley: Is there anything that prevents the tens of thousands of people working from home since early March in Cupertino or Santa Clara from doing that job remotely from Patterson, Hollister or Los Banos? Or from even more remotely in Gustine or Firebaugh? And what prevents the continuation of working remotely as the pandemic eases?

These residents are paid Silicon Valley wages and make commuter-based bedroom communities out of rural areas. They fulfill their lives and build social networks where they work because of the requirement to commute into the office day after day after day.

Policymakers in California accept office space working, likely because we all harbor that old-fashioned bias. We pass legislation to encourage housing development along public transit in urban areas on the premise that this will reduce transportation-based emissions from super-commuters.

When the pandemic started, institutions of higher education and high tech employers immediately acted on data and changed how they operated. So, I put these questions to the leading employers in Silicon Valley: Is there anything that prevents the tens of thousands of people working from home since early March in Cupertino or Santa Clara from doing that job remotely from Patterson, Hollister or Los Banos? Or from even more remotely in Gustine or Firebaugh? And what prevents the continuation of working remotely as the pandemic eases?

Everything We Do in State Government Now Is Through the Lens of COVID-19

Think of the local sales and property tax coffers for rural communities, if the high-tech workforce smartly distributed itself across California. Think of college graduates that could return to their rural communities and bring home an influx of intellectual capital and income. Broadband internet infrastructure would be as ubiquitous as water and energy. Small businesses and health care services would grow, as per capita income increases. These residents would be part of a community, instead of spending their family and free time in pollution-causing commutes.

Everything we are doing at the state government level now is through the lens of COVID-19. We have changed how we work, but we must also change our approach to solving global issues like climate change, the digital divide and more by running it through the COVID-19 perspective.

We can sit idly by, blind to the lessons that this pandemic puts before our eyes. Or we can wake up to the new normal, and plan for a virtual future, where online commerce, telehealth, distance learning, and more are equally available to anyone anywhere in California

The push to have workers live where they work, to commute to a job each day creates massive health and societal strains. A commitment to the new normal would push broadband everywhere, finally. It would decrease transportation-based climate pollution, freeing hundreds of billions of dollars in government programs for investments in health and education, literally making communities stronger and smarter.

The only thing holding us back from this better, new future are our old biases. I’m over mine. Can you get over yours?

About the Author 

State Sen. Anna Caballero, a Democrat from Salinas, represents the 12th State Senate District, senator.caballero@sen.ca.gov. She wrote this commentary for CalMatters, a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s Capitol works and why it matters.

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Make China Great Again

DON'T MISS

What’s Caitlin Clark Worth to the WNBA? A Lot More Than Her $78,066 Salary.

DON'T MISS

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

DON'T MISS

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

DON'T MISS

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

DON'T MISS

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

DON'T MISS

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

DON'T MISS

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

DON'T MISS

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

UP NEXT

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

UP NEXT

July 4th Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of the Founding Fathers

UP NEXT

US Electric Vehicle Tax Breaks Will Expire on Sept. 30

UP NEXT

Presidential Election Reveals Big Shift in California Voting Patterns. Will It Last?

UP NEXT

Stocks Hit Record, US Dollar Strengthens After Jobs Data

UP NEXT

Trump Administration Will Focus on Fed Chair Replacement in Fall, Bessent Says

UP NEXT

From Victims to Perpetrators: Israeli Soldiers’ Nazi Comparisons and the Unfolding War Crimes in Gaza

UP NEXT

Dear Mayor and City Council, Fresno’s Housing Bottlenecks Are a Modern Form of Redlining

UP NEXT

Wall Street Edges Down After ADP Shock. Focus on Trade Talks, Payrolls Data

UP NEXT

Dollar Gains Ground Against Major Peers After Better-Than-Expected US Jobs Data

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

2 days ago

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

2 days ago

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

2 days ago

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

2 days ago

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

2 days ago

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

2 days ago

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

2 days ago

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rachelle Maria Blanco

2 days ago

Russia Pounds Kyiv With Largest Drone Attack, Hours After Trump-Putin Call

2 days ago

Boxer Chavez Jr Expected to Be Deported to Mexico to Serve Sentence, Mexican President Says

2 days ago

How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Make China Great Again

Can you hear it — that loud roar coming from the East? It’s the sound of 1.4 billion Chinese laughing at us. Thomas L. Friedman The New Yo...

19 hours ago

Solar Farm in Riesel, Texas
19 hours ago

How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Make China Great Again

Caitlin Clark Signs T-Shirt
19 hours ago

What’s Caitlin Clark Worth to the WNBA? A Lot More Than Her $78,066 Salary.

President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 12, 2025. (Reuters File)
2 days ago

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

The Madre Fire burning near New Cuyama has scorched 70,801 acres as of Friday, July 4, 2025, afternoon, making it California’s largest wildfire of the year, with only 10% containment and multiple evacuation zones in place. (CalFire)
2 days ago

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

2 days ago

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

A pumpjack operates at the Vermilion Energy site in Trigueres, France, June 14, 2024. (Reuters File)
2 days ago

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

Palestinians gather to collect what remains of relief supplies from the distribution center of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. (Reuters File)
2 days ago

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

Billy Wayne Sinisgalli, a 54-year-old transient known locally as Wayne, was found dead along a rural Fresno road Wednesday in what authorities are investigating as a suspicious death. (Fresno County SO)
2 days ago

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend