&gt; Actually, a lot of the book Peopleware was devoted to showing that even in dense urban areas it is still cost-effective to provide private office space for knowledge workers. What you spend on extra real-estate is easily more than made up for with increased productivity, less sick time, fewer superficial conversations, etc., even over times spans as short as 1 year.<p>The typical retort to that around here is that group productivity matters more than individual productivity.  I agree that the productivity of the group can be greater than the sum of the individual productivities of its members.  No one has yet explained to me how lowering the sum of individual productivities leads to an increase in group productivity, though.