In a recent episode of The Building Texas Show, host Justin McKenzie sat down with Michael Shear, leader of Strategic Office Networks, to discuss a radical solution to Central Texas's commute crisis. The episode, titled 'The Future of Work in Texas: Distributed Offices, Fiber Networks & Ending Commutes,' challenges the traditional downtown high-rise model by proposing a network of smaller office buildings spread across suburbs and exurbs, connected by a regional fiber backbone and edge computing. Shear argues that the infrastructure decisions made in the next 12 to 24 months will define commuting, housing, and resilience for the next 100 years.
Shear's vision, called Project ION, involves replacing one 60-floor downtown tower with ten six-floor office buildings sited in communities like Cedar Park and Luling. This approach aims to reduce commute times, improve housing affordability, and enhance community resilience. Shear emphasizes that this is not merely a remote-work debate but a structural transition. He references the 2026 book 'Overbuilt: The High Cost and Low Rewards of US Highways,' noting that 22% of land in 316 U.S. metro areas is paved, echoing the Texas Transportation Institute's warning that regions cannot build their way out of growth.
The conversation also delved into the need for dedicated secure communications networks for critical facilities such as hospitals, universities, chip manufacturers, and emergency dispatch, rather than relying on generic broadband. Shear highlighted the importance of pairing edge computing with the Texas data center boom to harden communities against climate events, accidents, and geopolitical risks along the high-value I-35 corridor.
Shear connected workforce strategy to public safety and economic resilience, describing meetings with fire and police chiefs about deployment readiness during evacuations. He referenced Nobel-recognized economic research by Joel Mokyr on how hardened institutions stall innovation. Shear pointed to Central Texas's assets, including the state government, major R&D universities, military complexes, and semiconductor fabs, as both a competitive advantage and a high-value target. He also flagged generational economics: where a 30-year career once matched a 30-year mortgage, today's three-to-five-year job tenures put homebuying at risk unless networked hubs let workers change employers without changing communities.
Shear highlighted a recent Christmas-parade live portal linking a Texas town to Ireland as a preview of XR, spatial acoustics, and haptic tools becoming mainstream within three to five years. He confirmed that Google Fiber crews were laying new lines outside his home during the week of taping, signaling the ongoing infrastructure buildout. The episode is available now on platforms including YouTube, where listeners can like and subscribe.
