
The New Consumer has just published its 2022 mid-year update. Some of you might remember that I wrote about their inaugural consumer trends report at the end of last year.
It's interesting, but not surprising, to see a lot of things returning to their means. Spending on home furnishings, for example, is coming down, whereas luggage and bag sales are up. Home fitness has also come way down as people return to gyms. It's time to leave home.


At the same time, it has become a lot more expensive to leave home, assuming you need to drive. Motor fuel increased 49% year-over-year as of May 2022. It's the CPI category with the biggest change. But even with this, transit ridership has yet to fully rebound. NYC is sitting at around 60%.



To download a free copy of the full presentation, click here.

Richard Florida and Patrick Adler recently looked at the geography of gyms across the United States. They analyzed 17 different fitness chains, over 10,000 gyms, and nearly 5,000 zip codes. Full article over here at CityLab.

The findings probably won’t surprise you, but it’s still interesting to see some of the data. Gyms and fitness studios tend to concentrate themselves in affluent neighborhoods with a high number of college graduates.
The median household income of the average zip code with a gym or fitness studio is $72,720. This is compared to $56,694 for all zip codes. And when it comes to zip codes with an Equinox, SoulCycle, The Bar Method, or Town Sports Clubs, the median income jumps to over $100,000.
Above is from the second post in the two part series they are doing on “the geography of fitness.” For the first one, click here.