Bloomberg recently interviewed the outgoing head of San Francisco's transportation agency -- Jeffrey Tumlin -- about the impact that self-driving cars have had on the city. Along with maybe Phoenix, San Francisco has the most direct experience. Robotaxis have already been operating in the city for four years.
It's an interesting interview. On the one hand, robotaxis have, according to Tumlin, gotten better than most humans at "seeing" and predicting the behaviours of pedestrians. They offer slow and steady law-abiding rides, which is arguably not how must humans drive. This is a safety improvement.
But on the other hand, robotaxis still represent a fundamentally inefficient use of roadway space. They take up just as much space as human-operated cars, but importantly, they offer a less frustrating driving experience. Meaning they tend to induce demand, much like ride-hailing platforms.
In a 2018 study by San Francisco County, they found that roughly 50% of the increase in vehicle miles traveled in the region was due to Uber and Lyft. So not surprisingly, there are important things that will need to be figured out as robotaxis continue to spread across our cities.
I also find the comparison in the interview between San Francisco and Phoenix to be particularly interesting. The former is walkable. The latter is not. And this seems to be creating a different experience with self-driving cars because robo or not, in Phoenix, traveling by car is pretty much the only option.
For the full interview, click here.
Here is a chart from a recent Bloomberg article summarizing who owns single-family houses in the US.
As of Q1-2024, about 69% were owner-occupied, about 26.6% were owned by small landlords (1-9 homes), and the rest were owned by what many are now calling "corporate landlords."
The point of this graph was to show that, despite getting a lot of political attention, corporate landlords still own very little. Let's call it sub 4%, excluding iBuying companies like OpenDoor. So how much of a problem is this, really?
Smaller landlords control much more of the US market. And at the end of the day, a house owned by a small landlord versus a corporate landlord doesn't change the supply-demand balance of a market. It still represents an available home.
The first and more important problem to solve is overall housing supply. Because that does change the supply-demand balance of a market. And once again, there's no shortage of data to support the finding that increased supply tends to moderate rental growth.
For the record, I also dislike using the term home to refer to single-family houses. Home is not a housing type. It is simply a place where people live permanently. So whenever I see a title like "US homes," I get confused, because I don't actually know what they're referring to.
If you read the article, it would appear they're only talking about single-family houses. But implying that these are the only kind of home feels to me like an anachronism.
It seems like just yesterday that I wrote about Canada's population surpassing 40 million people. Because today, some 9 months later, we're already over 41 million.
Since 2000, we are the fastest growing country in the G-7:
This is, in many ways, a positive thing. But it's also a serious problem if, among other things, we don't build enough new housing (source):
In 2013, Canada ranked 13th out of 170 countries in meeting the basic needs of citizens, according to data tracked by Social Progress Imperative. By 2023, it had fallen to 39th, in large part because of a lack of affordable housing.
For more on this topic, here is a recent article from Bloomberg talking broadly about Canada's declining social safety net.
Chart: Bloomberg