In a recent episode of The Building Texas Show, strategist Michael Shear proposed a radical shift in how Central Texas approaches its growth challenges, arguing that distributed office networks could alleviate the region's commute crisis and reshape its infrastructure for the next century. Shear, leader of Strategic Office Networks, suggested replacing one 60-floor downtown tower with ten six-floor office buildings in suburbs like Cedar Park and Luling, connected by a regional fiber backbone and edge computing. The infrastructure decisions made in the next 12 to 24 months, he said, will define commuting, housing, and resilience for the next 100 years.
Shear's vision, which he calls Project ION, goes beyond the remote-work debate. It aims to architect dedicated, secure communications networks for hospitals, universities, chip manufacturers, and emergency dispatch, rather than relying on generic broadband. By pairing edge computing with Texas's data center boom, Shear argues communities can harden themselves against climate events, accidents, and geopolitical risks along the high-value I-35 corridor. He referenced 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.
"We've essentially entombed ourselves in a 20th century model, and now we're looking at how do we break through that into another dimension," Shear told host Justin McKenzie. The discussion connected workforce strategy to public safety and economic resilience. Shear described meetings with fire and police chiefs about deployment readiness during evacuations and referenced Nobel-recognized economic research by Joel Mokyr on how hardened institutions stall innovation. He pointed to Central Texas assets, including the seat of state government, major R&D universities, military complexes, and semiconductor fabs, as both a competitive advantage and a high-value target.
Shear 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. He 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. Shear also confirmed that Google Fiber crews were laying new lines outside his home during the week of taping, signaling a growing fiber infrastructure.
The episode, titled 'The Future of Work in Texas: Distributed Offices, Fiber Networks & Ending Commutes,' was published March 9, 2026, and is available on platforms like YouTube. For more information about Michael Shear's work, visit The Building Texas Show.
