Hi, I'm Una Chaplin, and I'm the host of a new podcast called Hollywood Exiles.

It tells the story of how my grandfather, Charlie Chaplin, and many others, were caught up in a campaign to root out communism in Hollywood.

Hollywood Exiles from CBC Podcasts and the BBC World Service. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. Keep clear, doors closing.

The delightful noises of a typical city commute.

It's not a great way to start your day, or finish it either, to be honest. No wonder many of us have embraced working from home when we can, rather than making the daily slog to the office.

But today on Business Daily, on the BBC World Service, with me, Dougal Shaw, we're looking at a

third way. It's called working near home. So people have never really needed to commute into one

central place ever. That's a relatively recent invention with factories in 19th century.

That's Freddie Ford, who is the founder and CEO of Patch. It's a network of co-working

spaces designed to appeal to people who don't want to commute, but don't want

to work from home either. So they are based in the suburbs, in walking distance of people's homes,

not city centres. I met up with him at his space in Twickenham, South London.

Commuting five days a week has never really made sense for everyone.

That's always been a bit of a norm that we've accepted for one reason or another.

Some people have caring responsibilities, some people just hate the commute.

And I think we now have accepted that commuting when you need to, not all the time,

is a much more sensible approach.

People want to work near home.

Think of co-working spaces and you might well think of WeWork, Open Plan, bustling trendy

spaces with free coffee, cool decor, and usually big buildings in the heart of major cities.

WeWork, of course, got into big financial problems last year. Some think this was a sign

that post-pandemic, with more people working from home or hybrid, its business model was doomed.

...