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.