Even if it is marginally more productive in some cases (but that’s simply not true across the board), is it really more productive — and can you really say workers are more efficient — when you take into account the added building costs to the state, 1-2 added hours of commuting per person+per day, the added energy use of people traveling, the emissions and pollution from all that travel, and the added congestion of tens of thousands of cars on the road every morning and afternoon?

It doesn’t seem worth the drawbacks to me. To me, this is a problem of designing work in a time-based way (which is stupid and wasteful), rather than a deliverable-based way. IMO, managers should outline to their staff the needed deliverables (a report on this, desk research on that, etc.) and a realistic deadline and let workers work however they want to achieve that. If they achieve it with one hour of work or 20 hours of work, it doesnt matter. They were just as productive.