Kevin Stolarick of the Creative Class Group and Lisa Taber of
FortiusOne have paired up to develop a series of ‘heat maps’ that show
the hottest places in the country based on your lifestage and some
preselected criteria. The maps allow you to zoom in on specific parts
of the country or see how your current city compares to others.
Kids First Map
Come back Monday to see next week’s map: Just Wanna Have Fun!
In addition to seeing hybrids all over the place, I see a lot of Zipcars and Flexcars in metro areas. (To be honest, it bothers me that they get reserved spots with no meters in many towns, but I digress.) This new model of car ownership/use, the sharing model, seems to be taking off and many innovative organizations are getting on board.
Equity Residential Properties, a huge publicly traded apartment building operator, recently inked a deal with Zipcar to provide cars and spaces at some of its properties. Today’s WSJ (sub req’d) features an article by Darren Everson highlighting how Zipcar is ‘driving’ into the college market by inking deals with Universities to put cars in and around campuses.
Perhaps Detroit’s long suffering car makers should think about this new model of ownership in trying to revive US sales/revenues? With many of the user’s of car share services in college and just starting their careers, this seems like a growing consumption trend that Detroit would want to take advantage of?
posted by David
Kevin Stolarick of the Creative Class Group and Lisa Taber of
FortiusOne have paired up to develop a series of ‘heat maps’ that show
the hottest places in the country based on your lifestage and some
preselected criteria. The maps allow you to zoom in on specific parts
of the country or see how your current city compares to others.
Room to Grow Map
Come back Monday to see next week’s map: Kids First
Its hard to avoid talking about housing in the US right now. From the supposed ’sub-prime’ meltdown to slow sales and rising mortgage rates; writers, pundits, and traders are having a field day. Check out this fascinating Op-Ed by David Ranson in today’s WSJ (sub required). He offers some great economic insights from Milton Friedman and argues that US housing is undervalued right now. Its always nice to listen to theories that challenge the conventional wisdom. Read the long snippet below and let us know if its time to go house hunting for a bigger place!
posted by David
Upscale urban real estate markets continue to be spared in the growing real estate downturn,according to this story in the Baltimore Sun. Some DC markets even continue to appreciate, the story reports. These are communities with high levels of gay, bohemian and creative class concentrations. The fact of the matter is that these neighborhoods are unique and authentic. They can’t be replicated with new construction. I’ve long said that housing prices are the best indicator of the real demand for place. My guess is that the “split” in the housing market will grow wider over time, as folks realize these kind of communities are not only great places to live but have characteristics that will “protect” their investment in the short as well as the long-run.
Kevin Stolarick of the Creative Class Group and Lisa Taber of
FortiusOne have paired up to develop a series of ‘heat maps’ that show
the hottest places in the country based on your lifestage and some
preselected criteria. The maps allow you to zoom in on specific parts
of the country or see how your current city compares to others.
Like Being a DINK Map
Come back Monday to see next week’s map: Room to Grow
“In a further sign of the United States’ growing diversity, nonwhites
now make up a majority in almost one-third of the most-populous
counties in the country and in nearly one in 10 of all 3,100 counties,
according to an analysis of census results to be released today. … From July
1, 2005, to July 1, 2006, metropolitan Chicago edged out Honolulu in
Asian population, and Washington inched ahead of El Paso in the number
of Hispanic residents. In black population, Houston overtook Los
Angeles.”
Full story is here.
When mayors and economic developers talk about talent (not nearly enough, mind you), they usually get vexed over young people moving away from their community. That’s mainly missing the point. People move (out) all the time. And of course young, highly-educated people move most of all. What separates winners and losers in the talent game is the ability to attract new blood. A new study from the New York Fed (pointer from Jim Russell) finds that:
sluggish regional economies do not have high out-migration rates. …In fact, better performing economies had higher out-migration rates than poorer performing ones. [W]eaker regional economies have lower immigration rates.
The top-performing states have in-migration rates three or more times higher than poorest performers. Boy, I’d love to see this kind of data for metro regions.
Lots of good debate here and especially here on Kevin’s post about the recent study on how young women in their 20s and 30s now out-earn men in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston, Chicago and Minneapolis.
Now add this to the mix: A 2005 study by Columbia University economist, Lisa Edlund found that while young women outnumber young men in most urban areas of the world, men out earn women at all ages in most of these cities. She attributes the difference to the “asymmetries of the marriage market.” Men, she writes, “pay women for marriage” – that is, for the relatively higher costs women occur in having and raising children.
From a strictly economic perspective, I think this means cities are now better places for young women than young men. What say you?
It has become increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic
diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to
pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our
differences make us stronger. But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly
30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard
political scientist Robert Putnam – famous for Bowling Alone” his
2000 book on declining civic engagement — has found that the greater
the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they
volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community
projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another
about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The
study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that
virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse
settings.
Read the full story here.
Your thoughts?
