Here’s a great video by Streetfilms that shows the incredible transformation of New York’s public realm during the Bloomberg administration. I found it via The Urbanophile blog. It’s about 5 minutes long.

Video Description: “There’s nothing more dramatic than looking back five or ten years at Streetfilms footage to see how much the streets of New York City have changed. In this wonderful montage, check out the incredible changes at Times Square, Herald Square, the Brooklyn waterfront, and many other places that outgoing NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and her staff have intrepidly transformed.”

It just goes to show what can be accomplished with the right leader and political will. I wish we (Toronto) had a mayor who understood the value of beautiful public spaces and bike lanes. It’s unfortunate that these things often become attached to political orientation. This shouldn’t be the case. It’s just good city building.

More and more people are moving to cities. This much we know. But in our fast paced world, census data is becoming increasingly limited in its ability to tell us exactly where and how people are moving.

Thankfully we now have Facebook. 

I just discovered a fascinating study conducted by the Facebook Data Science Team called “Coordinated Migration." What they did was anonymously analyze every Facebook user that has inputted both a hometown and a current city to see where people of a particular hometown are most likely to live, today.

But more specifically, the study is looking at coordinated flows, rather than just total flows to a particular city. A “coordinated migration” is defined as an instance where “a significant proportion of the population of a city has migrated, as a group, to a different city.”

What the study found (perhaps not surprisingly) was that the vast majority of coordinated migrations are happening in countries that are in the midst of rapid urbanization. It’s a case of people moving within the country to its largest city.

Here are the top coordinated migration destinations:

If you’re interested in the nitty gritty of how they actually computed the coordinated migrations, check out the original post by the Facebook Data Science Team.

There’s an interesting article in Forbes (from last week) called, “Invest in the Disruptors of the Real Estate Industry.” It’s by Ross Gerber who runs a wealth and investment management firm out of LA called Gerber Kawasaki. He’s also a fellow Penn alum.

I like the article because I agree with the problem he’s identified. The real estate market is imperfect and inefficient. We need a proper electronic marketplace.

But I disagree with where he feels the solution will (or may) come from. I don’t think it’ll come from an incumbent like Zillow. They make money from agents and if they’re perceived to be driving down commissions, those customers are going to flee.

Here’s a great video by Streetfilms that shows the incredible transformation of New York’s public realm during the Bloomberg administration. I found it via The Urbanophile blog. It’s about 5 minutes long.

Video Description: “There’s nothing more dramatic than looking back five or ten years at Streetfilms footage to see how much the streets of New York City have changed. In this wonderful montage, check out the incredible changes at Times Square, Herald Square, the Brooklyn waterfront, and many other places that outgoing NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and her staff have intrepidly transformed.”

It just goes to show what can be accomplished with the right leader and political will. I wish we (Toronto) had a mayor who understood the value of beautiful public spaces and bike lanes. It’s unfortunate that these things often become attached to political orientation. This shouldn’t be the case. It’s just good city building.

More and more people are moving to cities. This much we know. But in our fast paced world, census data is becoming increasingly limited in its ability to tell us exactly where and how people are moving.

Thankfully we now have Facebook. 

I just discovered a fascinating study conducted by the Facebook Data Science Team called “Coordinated Migration." What they did was anonymously analyze every Facebook user that has inputted both a hometown and a current city to see where people of a particular hometown are most likely to live, today.

But more specifically, the study is looking at coordinated flows, rather than just total flows to a particular city. A “coordinated migration” is defined as an instance where “a significant proportion of the population of a city has migrated, as a group, to a different city.”

What the study found (perhaps not surprisingly) was that the vast majority of coordinated migrations are happening in countries that are in the midst of rapid urbanization. It’s a case of people moving within the country to its largest city.

Here are the top coordinated migration destinations:

If you’re interested in the nitty gritty of how they actually computed the coordinated migrations, check out the original post by the Facebook Data Science Team.

There’s an interesting article in Forbes (from last week) called, “Invest in the Disruptors of the Real Estate Industry.” It’s by Ross Gerber who runs a wealth and investment management firm out of LA called Gerber Kawasaki. He’s also a fellow Penn alum.

I like the article because I agree with the problem he’s identified. The real estate market is imperfect and inefficient. We need a proper electronic marketplace.

But I disagree with where he feels the solution will (or may) come from. I don’t think it’ll come from an incumbent like Zillow. They make money from agents and if they’re perceived to be driving down commissions, those customers are going to flee.