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In the first 22 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, from March 2020 to December 2021, we witnessed a seismic change in the way in which work was undertaken given the restrictions implemented by government to curb the spread of the virus; most prominent has been the rise in working from home (WFH) as a more acceptable work location. In this paper, we explore preferences for and attitudes towards WFH in great detail, leveraging two waves of data to explore the remarkable and globally unique situation of three metro areas (Greater Sydney Metropolitan Area, South-East Queensland, and Melbourne) who despite entering lockdown at the same time in 2021, follow significantly different trajectories with respect to the severity and duration of the lockdowns. We find that irrespective of the degree of severity of the lockdown and the duration thereof, employee preferences for working from home, and importantly productivity, remained unchanged. Rather than diminishing the desire to WFH, evidence indicates that as periods of lockdown extend the desire to continue WFH only seems to intensify. While all workers express a preference to continue WFH in an unrestricted world, more often than they did prior to the pandemic, we further identify three broad segments of workers based primarily on how much of a balance they can strike between the benefits and challenges of WFH, which dictates how often they would like to WFH. Given that the desire to WFH more and the positive externalities of increased WFH, we argue that measures to support ongoing WFH are important to sustainable cities and the people who live in them, across several dimensions. • Three cities in Australia all initiated a lockdown at approximately the same time in 2021. • The lockdowns in each city followed different trajectories and durations. • Longer lockdowns result in greater desire to continue to WFH in the future. • Three segments of workers are revealed who wish to WFH to differing extents. • Potential implications of increased WFH for cities are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Understand underlying attitudes in the decision to WFH or to commute during COVID. • Two latent variables: concern towards the use of PT and attitude towards WFH. • Occupation or income have a high influence on WFH, relative to travel times. • PT concern is moderated by regular and reliable services. • Balance between WFH and office is preferred. The decision to work from home (WFH) or to commute during COVID-19 is having a major structural impact on individuals' travel, work and lifestyle. There are many possible factors influencing this non-marginal change, some of which are captured by objective variables while others are best represented by a number of underlying latent traits captured by attitudes towards WFH and the use of specific modes of transport for the commute that have a bio-security risk such as public transport (PT). We develop and implement a hybrid choice model to investigate the sources of influence, accounting for the endogenous nature of latent soft variables for workers in metropolitan areas in New South Wales and Queensland. The data was collected between September-October 2020, during a period of no lockdown and relatively minor restrictions on workplaces and public gatherings. The results show that one of the most important attributes defining the WFH loving attitude is the workplace policy towards WFH, with workers that can decide where to work having a higher probability of WFH, followed by those that are being directed to, relative to other workplace policies. The bio-security concern with using shared modes such as public transport is a key driver of WFH and choosing to commute via the safer environment of the private car. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]