The New York Times just ran an interesting piece on “how the growth of e-commerce is shifting retail jobs.”

Here are some of the key takeaways (all US data).

Online shopping accounts for about 8.4% of all retail sales.

But e-commerce related jobs are growing way faster than all other forms of retail employment. See above graph.

That said, e-commerce jobs are still a small portion of overall retail employment. And the rise in e-commerce employment has not been enough to offset the losses in other areas, such as in departments stores.

Over the last 15 years, e-commerce added 178,000 jobs and department stores lost 448,000 jobs. In this same time period, warehouse clubs added 841,000 jobs! I found it interesting to see department stores on the bottom and warehouse clubs on the top of the graph.

Finally, e-commerce jobs appear to be concentrating in larger metros. See above map. Each mustard dot represents 40 e-commerce jobs. You’re selling more products with less human capital, and those people are clustering. This is a broader trend.

According to the New York Times, counties and smaller cities (under 250,000 people) account for almost ¼ of overall retail employment. But when it comes to e-commerce firms the number drops to around 13%.

Once again it would seem that technology and what we do online have an impact on our cities and towns. And that’s fascinating.

All images from the New York Times

The New York Times ran an interesting piece this past week about the rise and fall of Bleecker Street in the West Village. 

The synopsis of the story is as follows: 

Bleecker was once a quaint West Village street. Then the yuppy cupcake shop and big brands (Marc Jacobs) came in to cater to the “Black Card-wielding 1-percenters”. But eventually rents got so out of hand that even the big brands started closing up shop. Now the street is filled with empty storefronts.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Bleecker Street, Mr. Moss said, is a prime example of high-rent blight, a symptom of late-stage gentrification. “These stores open as billboards for the brand,” he said. “Then they leave because the rents become untenable. Landlords hold out. And you’re left with storefronts that will sit vacant for a year, two years, three years.”

Nobody likes vacant storefronts. But it is a perfect example of the kind of cycles that neighborhoods and cities can and will continue to go through. Understandably though, there is a real concern that New York could be losing its soul. And really that’s a question and challenge for all global cities.

What happened to the New York where the artist Donald Judd was able to buy a five-story cast-iron building in Soho for under $70,000 (1968)? It’s gone. 

The Spaces just featured 21 Scott Street in Bronte (a suburb of Sydney) as its property of the week. (The home is currently listed.)

Designed by MCK Architects, the home is also called the “Upsilon House” and was supposedly designed for a fashion-industry couple.

Two things should immediately stand out to you about the house. One is how long and narrow the site and house are.

Here is a lengthwise view of the main living floor:

Based on the plans provided by The Agency (listing agency), the house is about ~3.9m wide. That’s because of its tight site. However, the clerestory windows that run the length of the house would provide ample light.

The other thing that should stand out is all of the exposed concrete. The Spaces calls it “soft brutalism.” I personally love it, but I recognize that it’s not for everyone.

In any event, it reminded me of a recent blog post by Witold Rybczynski in which he responded to the New York Times calling Habitat in Montreal a brutalist building. His rebuttal: that’s a gross over-simplification. Brutalism, in its truest sense, is about dramatizing the “rough character of concrete.”

But I particularly enjoyed how he ended the post:

“There is another litmus test of Brutalism. Buildings like Habitat remain popular with their users. If people don’t hate it, it can’t be Brutalist.”

If that’s the case, then 21 Scott is certainly not Brutalism in my book.

Images via MCK Architects