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walkitouthttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-23/to-save-the-suburbs-let-more-people-live-there
R. and I understood the move to the cities that started over a decade ago: it was driven by a spike in transportation (gas) costs, and a bump in people of pre-kid, post-college age who liked living in places where there was stuff to do. It helped that (at the time) rental housing was broadly available and, if not affordable, at least not totally insane. Over time, that move changed all of the things which caused it: the people got older, the rental housing was all snatched up, the price of housing in cities soared. Also, gas got cheap.
So we’ve been anticipated the reverse flow, but it took a while to develop. The pandemic, obviously, poured accelerant all over it. Now, the cheap housing that was far away from all jobs is suddenly cheap, large housing with remote school and remote jobs. That probably won’t be the whole story, but also, that pre-kid crowd is now Having the Kids, or they Had the Kids and Need the Space. The pricing pressure is moving from the city to the suburbs. This article discusses some of the politics of zoning and gentrification, and the party identity (or otherwise) of those politics. It’s an interesting read. R. and I have _also_ been waiting for the currently D identified pro-zoning / anti-density suburban politics to realign. But again, everything takes longer than I think it will. It is so American that a “property developer” who attracted a lot of pro-development voters opted for politics that are explicitly fear mongering of the anti-development variety. There is little in life more perfectly American than that kind of embodied contradiction in plain sight that no one — not even the article of this piece — mentions.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-22/cities-make-room-for-a-surge-in-online-only-retail
Apps on smartphones and space on AWS and similar clouds make possible a type of startup that is super, super easy to get going. But if your startup involves sending merch to people (as opposed to, for example, sending orders to a restaurant or drivers or whatever), when you outgrow the room you start it in (basement, garage, bedroom ...), you will likely be looking for distribution center type space with logistics supports, etc. Cue the businesses that are supplying that, and how that might reshape our cities (and suburbs?) over time. Usonia awaits!
R. and I understood the move to the cities that started over a decade ago: it was driven by a spike in transportation (gas) costs, and a bump in people of pre-kid, post-college age who liked living in places where there was stuff to do. It helped that (at the time) rental housing was broadly available and, if not affordable, at least not totally insane. Over time, that move changed all of the things which caused it: the people got older, the rental housing was all snatched up, the price of housing in cities soared. Also, gas got cheap.
So we’ve been anticipated the reverse flow, but it took a while to develop. The pandemic, obviously, poured accelerant all over it. Now, the cheap housing that was far away from all jobs is suddenly cheap, large housing with remote school and remote jobs. That probably won’t be the whole story, but also, that pre-kid crowd is now Having the Kids, or they Had the Kids and Need the Space. The pricing pressure is moving from the city to the suburbs. This article discusses some of the politics of zoning and gentrification, and the party identity (or otherwise) of those politics. It’s an interesting read. R. and I have _also_ been waiting for the currently D identified pro-zoning / anti-density suburban politics to realign. But again, everything takes longer than I think it will. It is so American that a “property developer” who attracted a lot of pro-development voters opted for politics that are explicitly fear mongering of the anti-development variety. There is little in life more perfectly American than that kind of embodied contradiction in plain sight that no one — not even the article of this piece — mentions.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-22/cities-make-room-for-a-surge-in-online-only-retail
Apps on smartphones and space on AWS and similar clouds make possible a type of startup that is super, super easy to get going. But if your startup involves sending merch to people (as opposed to, for example, sending orders to a restaurant or drivers or whatever), when you outgrow the room you start it in (basement, garage, bedroom ...), you will likely be looking for distribution center type space with logistics supports, etc. Cue the businesses that are supplying that, and how that might reshape our cities (and suburbs?) over time. Usonia awaits!