Commercial Rent Prices Up - Square Footage Down?

A recent article in Business Week suggests that the open space model of the dot com era may, actually be a paradigm to enable businesses to reduce one of their largest expenses, namely, commercial office rent.

Yet, the position of the author is hardly universally shared, eliciting a number of rejections and criticisms in the posted comments following the article.

From my own experience, there is no doubt that, technologically, more and more things can be done in more and more places. The real question concerns what happens when people do come in to the office to work? If they don't have a private space, my own anecdotal experience is that productivity declines simply due to distractions.

True, people in offices that don't close their doors and look up every time someone passes by suffer the same problem. But you can't close the door on a cubicle.

Read more and draw your own insights from the pros and cons at http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_27/b3991073.htm?campaign_id=search