ATLANTA—How are employment trends impacting Atlanta's commercial real estate market? You can study the data, but there's nothing quite like getting a personal perspective from someone with boots on the ground.

I've been talking with Brian Leary, president of Crescent Communities' commercial and mixed-use group, about various issues in the Atlanta commercial real estate market, from whether or not now is the time to develop to how the Internet has changed Atlanta industrial.

When I asked Leary about employment trends, he told me, generally speaking—and not counting the shale oil fields in the upper plains or Houston for that matter—people are no longer following jobs across the country like they have in decades past. Instead, he says, they're choosing to live where they want first, and the jobs are following them.

“This is a huge shift that will raise the pressure on cities, counties and regions to be the most attractive to people as much as companies,” Leary says. “We're also seeing the mainstreaming of the collaborative workplace with its open plan, hyper-efficient floor plates and focus on walkable amenities.”

As Leary sees it, this could lead to a massive inventory of product that very quickly becomes obsolete faster than conceivably thought. What's his reasoning? Leary says” “Just as we were seeing parking ratio reductions due to high oil prices, increasing roadway congestion and new options with regard to transit, these highly efficient and collaborative floor plates allow a lot more employees to work in the same square footage as before, thus requiring even higher numbers of parking spaces and, in turn, higher construction budgets for the same buildings.”