Community bonds in new working spaces of a small town

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has created dramatic changes in people’s ways of living and working. Flexible working arrangements have become widespread and encourage more distributed work practices in countries where they were formerly less common. In the US, the abandonment of densely populated areas for less dense areas has been increasingly common since the COVID-19 outbreak. After nearly a year of remote work because of the pandemic, 31% of Americans, also including young people, prefer to live in rural areas and 17% in towns (Gallup, 2021), looking for nature, a relaxed pace of life, and a comfortable community atmosphere. This chapter explores how new working spaces (NWSs), including coworking spaces, maker spaces, and incubators in small towns have been impacted by COVID-19 and it discusses their future after the crisis.