Happy Sunday! Link Fu About the Great Reshufflings

R. and I love to talk about migration. In the years leading up to the Great Recession, I contemplated the then-longstanding but still building trend to move into cities. I spent a ton of time laughing at people who told me I bought my condo on Capitol Hill at the peak of the market in 1997, and I would be lucky to get my money back out of it. I mean, sure, if you look at the opportunity cost associated with selling stock in a then very tiny and recently IPO’d startup to pay for it, yeah — I will never get my money back out of that condo. But that is a super ridiculous way to look at anything.

Anyway.

23 years later, there is a pandemic, and I am living in suburbia (after a stint in Southern New Hampshire small town, followed by a return to urban leaving on Jackson St, then back to SoNH, then finally to where I live now, in suburban Middlesex County in Mass) and I know I live in suburbia as a compromise between the quiet, dark rural that my husband prefers and the urban that I prefer, and to exploit our class position to get excellent school supports for our two special needs children. But for the very first time, I am _grateful_ to live in suburbia.

Also, for the first time, I am rethinking my pool opposition. I mean, owning a pool right now is fucking brilliant.

I am _never_ the first to think anything. I am a “second rank” sheep. I do not lead, but I am not within the vast bulk of the herd. I am towards the front of the crowd without actually leading, occasionally right at the edges of the herd doing something slightly odd but more or less keeping with the group. So: is everyone moving out of the city yet?

It is called, “The Great Reshuffling” and it arises out of a simple observation: you cannot go out to bars and children’s museums and the playgrounds and public pools and gyms are/were closed. It is better to have more space at home, now that everyone is _at_ home all the time. This is not about “space for a home office”. It is about space for two offices and space for more than one person to school from home, also, a workout space. And, ideally, a pool. And a playground. I am sure I have left something crucial out — a bigger and better kitchen with more pantry space, probably. Without upstairs, downstairs and side to side neighbors who you cannot yell at.

Link fu commences!

https://www.geekwire.com/2020/zillow-group-ceo-rich-barton-great-reshuffling-tectonic-shift-real-estate/
And

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/zillow-were-at-the-beginning-of-a-great-reshuffling-to-space.html

Zillow CEO thought going into the pandemic that sales would be down and they turned off their flipping operation. Well, it is turned back on now!

https://granolashotgun.com/2020/08/14/the-great-reshuffling/

Companies are saving $1000 / employee / month by having those employees work from home. And now those employees can save even more money moving out of town. Or, in some cases, save the same $1000/month just moving next door. Meanwhile, anyone who despaired of selling their rural property in BF nowhere finally has a chance to sell it to someone fleeing the city — maybe they can get a bidding war, if it is on a lake and has good wifi.

This blog entry at granolashotgun is particularly awesome, because it includes the backstory of how many people only moved to work in those coastal cities at tech jobs for a few years, fully intending to return to the places they came from and buy big houses there and raise their kids there. Honestly, the pandemic forcing companies to realize work from home actually works may finally fix their recruiting problem. Well, that and satellite offices.

The Great Reshuffling has also been used in recent years for numerous purposes: migration _to_ coastal cities and the increase in poverty concentrated in rural areas (https://eig.org/dci), the impact of humans on other species (Alien species), even migration of unaccompanied minors.

Another way to search is to look for rural and suburban bidding wars.

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/08/15/colorado-home-sales-prices-records-july/

Here, Colorado Springs area bidding wars are compared to the TP shortage early in the pandemic. It takes a while to reorient TP factories and distribution from making TP for the commercial market to make things for retail — similarly, housing can take a while to build.

“Gupta noted that year-to-date sales in Colorado Springs are 9% higher than last year, despite a still-active pandemic and unemployment rates surpassing those seen in the Great Recession.”

“Most buyers fit the mold of “urban flight” and many were considering a purchase already. They pulled the trigger after COVID-19 became an issue, Canfield said. Front Range buyers from Denver are active in the county, but most of the $2 million-plus properties are going to out-of-state buyers from Texas, Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma, New York and New Jersey.”

This is hard core relocation activity.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bidding-wars-hold-steady-july-120000450.html

“You'd never know that we're in the middle of a pandemic. It's as hot a seller's market as I've ever seen," said Greg Mathers, a Redfin agent in the San Francisco area. "One of my clients recently bid $100,000 over a home's asking price and only had the eighth-highest of 15 offers. It's coming down to how much money you can throw at a house and how many contingencies you can waive."

lunch time! I will probably resume later.

First Class Mail Volume has dropped back to levels last seen in 1977

https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/first-class-mail-since-1926.htm

Note that the peak was in 2001.

We changed the check clearing rules in the wake of 9/11. Right up to that incident (may all affected RIP), checks still had to be physically delivered. In the wake of that, we made electronic clearing of checks legal. So part of the drop in volume from that point can be attributed to that attack (basically, a lot of air cargo up to that point in time was basically shipping physical checks around the country, chasing after still open transactions because electronic checks were not legal to finish the transaction).

More broadly, photocopier and office / home printing technology _increases_ the volume of paper involved in business, but smartphones / wifi / internet _decreases_ the volume of paper in business.

If you copy that chart and put it into Sheets (yeah, I did that), there are a couple of striking things to note: first, there is that 2005 bump up (probably mortgage related, but who knows). But second, that curve down is _shockingly_ smooth.

Anyway. While you are sitting around thinking about first class mail vs. packages, and wondering about those drop boxes, and thinking But We Still Need First Class Mail At A High Level of Service to Do Vote By Mail, well, look at those volumes, and think about how many pieces of mail would be generated by voting by mail in all elections, in all jurisdictions by all eligible voters.

I do not have a specific program for the postal service going forward. I dislike — in general — backwards looking programs (“why can’t we do it like we used to”). In some cases, backwards looking programs can generate incredibly distorted resource allocations that no one would otherwise support. We may or may not have arrived at that with the post office.

In the meantime, if you choose to vote by mail, request your ballot ASAP, and fill it out as soon as you get it, and drop it off at your town / county clerk’s drop box if it is even remotely possible for you. Otherwise, mail it _as soon as you can_, because the earlier things are mailed, the less likely it is for a snag to prevent it from arriving at its destination in a timely fashion.

If your jurisdiction offers a way to track your ballot take advantage of that.

If you realize you have already waited too late to vote by mail, find out if there is early voting in your area and use that if humanly possible.

If you feel called to do so and are not elderly or otherwise at elevated risk, volunteer to work the polls to take the load off those who are elderly or at elevated risk.

Stay safe, and vote!