Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Back in 2016, the United States Postal Service published a report on the public perception of drone delivery in the US. This was nearly 3 years after Jeff Bezos announced on 60 Minutes that Amazon was working on a drone delivery service and that it would arrive within the next 5 years (so by 2019). I think USPS was trying to figure out how to be, or appear, more innovative.
Not surprisingly, the report found that Millennials were significantly more supportive of drone delivery (65%) compared to Baby Boomers (24%), who strongly dislike the idea. Generally, the report indicates that the percentage of people who think it's a good idea declines with every preceding or older generation. Again, I don't find this at all surprising.
But what I did find interesting was that, irrespective of age, respondents were primarily concerned with some sort of "malfunction." This was at the top of the list. Next in line were concerns around "intentional misuse," such as drones being used to transport illicit goods or to spy on people and/or property.
Closer to the bottom of the list was a concern that drone delivery "might make the sky less pleasant to look at." My own view is that visual clutter and noise pollution are critical problems to address here. There's talk of "drone highways in the sky", but how do you really manage the sheer volume of drones that would be needed to service a dense urban environment?
Photo by Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash
"Cities have become the basic platforms for global innovation and economic growth, supplanting the corporation as the fundamental organizing unit of the contemporary economy." -Richard Florida
Richard Florida and Patrick Adler of the Martin Prosperity Institute here in Toronto have been doing some research on what they are calling "urban tech." They define it as encompassing the following industry sectors: co-living and co-working; mobility; delivery; smart cities; construction tech; and real estate tech.
Here are the largest urban tech startups based on the amount of VC investment they have received:
Below is how the space breaks down by sector. Mobility / ride hailing is the behemoth, receiving 61% of all VC investment. Food delivery is next. And "proptech" is at the bottom.
Finally, here are the top "urban tech" cities. Beijing is right up there with San Francisco.
For more information on the study, click here.
Tables: CityLab
Earlier this week, Union Square Ventures announced that it was leading a Series A investment in an online education marketplace targeted at K-12 students. The platform is called Outschool, and you can think of it as a form of homeschooling.
Today, there about 55 million K-12 students in the US, with around 9% enrolled in private schools. Charter schooling is on the rise (somewhere around 3 million students), but so is homeschooling (similarly around 2.5 million students). Data here.
Homeschooling, at least in the US, largely started within religious groups. But that is starting to change and it is becoming more widely adopted. USV has made a bet that this trend will continue.
If you look at Outschool's model, you'll see that it shares a lot of similarities with other successful internet marketplaces. It is direct-to-consumer (the internet has a way of getting rid of intermediaries). The courses are significantly cheaper than traditional classroom schooling ($10-15 per course). And the supply-side of the marketplace (the teachers) is far more open and accessible to non-traditional participants.
USV gives the example of a human rights lawyer who is teaching on the platform and now earning more than $10,000 per month in additional income. I've never enjoyed online classes, but now that we have reliable video chat, maybe that starts to change.
In any event, where my mind goes with all of this is the impact on our built environment. We are heading toward more flexible spaces and we are doing a lot more from home.
Back in 2016, the United States Postal Service published a report on the public perception of drone delivery in the US. This was nearly 3 years after Jeff Bezos announced on 60 Minutes that Amazon was working on a drone delivery service and that it would arrive within the next 5 years (so by 2019). I think USPS was trying to figure out how to be, or appear, more innovative.
Not surprisingly, the report found that Millennials were significantly more supportive of drone delivery (65%) compared to Baby Boomers (24%), who strongly dislike the idea. Generally, the report indicates that the percentage of people who think it's a good idea declines with every preceding or older generation. Again, I don't find this at all surprising.
But what I did find interesting was that, irrespective of age, respondents were primarily concerned with some sort of "malfunction." This was at the top of the list. Next in line were concerns around "intentional misuse," such as drones being used to transport illicit goods or to spy on people and/or property.
Closer to the bottom of the list was a concern that drone delivery "might make the sky less pleasant to look at." My own view is that visual clutter and noise pollution are critical problems to address here. There's talk of "drone highways in the sky", but how do you really manage the sheer volume of drones that would be needed to service a dense urban environment?
Photo by Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash
"Cities have become the basic platforms for global innovation and economic growth, supplanting the corporation as the fundamental organizing unit of the contemporary economy." -Richard Florida
Richard Florida and Patrick Adler of the Martin Prosperity Institute here in Toronto have been doing some research on what they are calling "urban tech." They define it as encompassing the following industry sectors: co-living and co-working; mobility; delivery; smart cities; construction tech; and real estate tech.
Here are the largest urban tech startups based on the amount of VC investment they have received:
Below is how the space breaks down by sector. Mobility / ride hailing is the behemoth, receiving 61% of all VC investment. Food delivery is next. And "proptech" is at the bottom.
Finally, here are the top "urban tech" cities. Beijing is right up there with San Francisco.
For more information on the study, click here.
Tables: CityLab
Earlier this week, Union Square Ventures announced that it was leading a Series A investment in an online education marketplace targeted at K-12 students. The platform is called Outschool, and you can think of it as a form of homeschooling.
Today, there about 55 million K-12 students in the US, with around 9% enrolled in private schools. Charter schooling is on the rise (somewhere around 3 million students), but so is homeschooling (similarly around 2.5 million students). Data here.
Homeschooling, at least in the US, largely started within religious groups. But that is starting to change and it is becoming more widely adopted. USV has made a bet that this trend will continue.
If you look at Outschool's model, you'll see that it shares a lot of similarities with other successful internet marketplaces. It is direct-to-consumer (the internet has a way of getting rid of intermediaries). The courses are significantly cheaper than traditional classroom schooling ($10-15 per course). And the supply-side of the marketplace (the teachers) is far more open and accessible to non-traditional participants.
USV gives the example of a human rights lawyer who is teaching on the platform and now earning more than $10,000 per month in additional income. I've never enjoyed online classes, but now that we have reliable video chat, maybe that starts to change.
In any event, where my mind goes with all of this is the impact on our built environment. We are heading toward more flexible spaces and we are doing a lot more from home.
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