According to a recent study in the New York Times, the average age of a first-time mother in Manhattan is 31.1 years old. In San Francisco County, the number is nearly 32. And in the US as a whole, it was 26.3 in 2016.
This is what the national distribution looked like in 1980:
There’s a debate among urbanists as to the full impact of housing supply on overall affordability. But it should make intuitive sense that as new people move to a city and as new jobs are created, there will be a need for additional housing. Here is an excerpt from Vox citing a recent FT article talking about how Japan may have figured out the solution to rising home prices:
The reason, argues Financial Times writer Robin Harding, is that Tokyo does a better job of allowing housing supply to keep up with housing demand. In 2014, Tokyo issued permits for 142,417 new housing units. In contrast, the entire state of California — which has three times the population of Tokyo — issued permits for only 83,657 new housing units. Little wonder that demand for housing has outstripped supply in the Bay Area.
In the United States, local housing markets are plagued by grassroots “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) activists who organize to stop efforts to build town homes and apartment buildings in their local neighborhoods. Because every construction project is located near somebody, the result tends to be that little housing gets built anywhere.
I don’t have a copy of the FT article and I do firmly believe that supply matters a great deal, but I think there are also a number of other factors that need to be taken into consideration here. Japan has a depopulation problem. The country has
This is not new. It has been reported on before. But I just finished reading this article about Jeff Bezos’ relentless commitment to “high-quality and high-velocity decision making” at Amazon.
Here are a couple of high level points:
- There are decisions that cannot be easily reversed (Type 1) and there are decisions that can be (Type 2). Knowing which is which is important. To help get better at this, they are very diligent about tracking the outcomes of previous decisions.
- Make decisions without all of the info you wish you had, because if you don’t, you’re probably moving too slow. Speed is paramount. If you’ve categorized your decisions properly (see above), being wrong may not actually be that costly.
- There’s a company philosophy centered around “disagree and commit.” It is about moving forward – since speed is so important – without full consensus. In other words: We may not all agree, but can we disagree and commit to this?
Perhaps the most interesting, and seemingly paradoxical, aspect of Amazon’s “high-velocity decision making process” is that it is built upon narrative memos, instead of PowerPoint decks. In fact, decks have been
According to a recent study in the New York Times, the average age of a first-time mother in Manhattan is 31.1 years old. In San Francisco County, the number is nearly 32. And in the US as a whole, it was 26.3 in 2016.
This is what the national distribution looked like in 1980:
There’s a debate among urbanists as to the full impact of housing supply on overall affordability. But it should make intuitive sense that as new people move to a city and as new jobs are created, there will be a need for additional housing. Here is an excerpt from Vox citing a recent FT article talking about how Japan may have figured out the solution to rising home prices:
The reason, argues Financial Times writer Robin Harding, is that Tokyo does a better job of allowing housing supply to keep up with housing demand. In 2014, Tokyo issued permits for 142,417 new housing units. In contrast, the entire state of California — which has three times the population of Tokyo — issued permits for only 83,657 new housing units. Little wonder that demand for housing has outstripped supply in the Bay Area.
In the United States, local housing markets are plagued by grassroots “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) activists who organize to stop efforts to build town homes and apartment buildings in their local neighborhoods. Because every construction project is located near somebody, the result tends to be that little housing gets built anywhere.
I don’t have a copy of the FT article and I do firmly believe that supply matters a great deal, but I think there are also a number of other factors that need to be taken into consideration here. Japan has a depopulation problem. The country has
This is not new. It has been reported on before. But I just finished reading this article about Jeff Bezos’ relentless commitment to “high-quality and high-velocity decision making” at Amazon.
Here are a couple of high level points:
- There are decisions that cannot be easily reversed (Type 1) and there are decisions that can be (Type 2). Knowing which is which is important. To help get better at this, they are very diligent about tracking the outcomes of previous decisions.
- Make decisions without all of the info you wish you had, because if you don’t, you’re probably moving too slow. Speed is paramount. If you’ve categorized your decisions properly (see above), being wrong may not actually be that costly.
- There’s a company philosophy centered around “disagree and commit.” It is about moving forward – since speed is so important – without full consensus. In other words: We may not all agree, but can we disagree and commit to this?
Perhaps the most interesting, and seemingly paradoxical, aspect of Amazon’s “high-velocity decision making process” is that it is built upon narrative memos, instead of PowerPoint decks. In fact, decks have been
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the biggest factor influencing the age of a first-time mother is education. Becoming educated and building a career takes time. First-time mothers tend to be older in big cities (particularly on the coasts) compared to rural areas.
The concern that researchers have with all of this is that it is symptomatic of growing inequality. Scrolling over the NY Times’ map, it would appear that there’s nearly a 10 year gap between the coasts and many parts of the country.
On the one hand you have people who are finishing high school and having kids fairly soon after. And on the other hand, you have people going to college, establishing their career, and waiting, in some cases a decade, to have kids.
This is significant because it can create a virtuous circle (excerpt from article):
“A college degree is increasingly essential to earning a middle-class wage, and older parents have more years to earn money to invest in violin lessons, math tutoring and college savings accounts — all of which can set children on very different paths.”
They also have fairly insular views around immigration. They are over 3.5x larger than Canada in terms of population and yet they take in fewer immigrants each year. So I think it’s worth looking at this conclusion closely. (This is me trying to avoid confirmation bias.)
The reason for this is that narrative memos are more difficult to write, which means you really have to understand what you’re talking about. It encourages deeper thought and it allows nuances and interdependencies to come through.
Apparently important meetings start with everyone just sitting in a room reading the narrative memo, which are often between 4-6 pages. Once everyone has read the memo and is on the same page, the meeting starts.
As someone who writes a daily narrative, this approach really resonates me. It would be a hell of a lot easier if I could just show up here every day and throw down a few bullet points. But then both of us would get far less out of this practice.
Writing takes time. Bezos has acknowledged that these memos cannot be written in a day or two. But clearly there’s a belief that more time spent up front translates into greater overall speed. Their market cap suggests that is working.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the biggest factor influencing the age of a first-time mother is education. Becoming educated and building a career takes time. First-time mothers tend to be older in big cities (particularly on the coasts) compared to rural areas.
The concern that researchers have with all of this is that it is symptomatic of growing inequality. Scrolling over the NY Times’ map, it would appear that there’s nearly a 10 year gap between the coasts and many parts of the country.
On the one hand you have people who are finishing high school and having kids fairly soon after. And on the other hand, you have people going to college, establishing their career, and waiting, in some cases a decade, to have kids.
This is significant because it can create a virtuous circle (excerpt from article):
“A college degree is increasingly essential to earning a middle-class wage, and older parents have more years to earn money to invest in violin lessons, math tutoring and college savings accounts — all of which can set children on very different paths.”
They also have fairly insular views around immigration. They are over 3.5x larger than Canada in terms of population and yet they take in fewer immigrants each year. So I think it’s worth looking at this conclusion closely. (This is me trying to avoid confirmation bias.)
The reason for this is that narrative memos are more difficult to write, which means you really have to understand what you’re talking about. It encourages deeper thought and it allows nuances and interdependencies to come through.
Apparently important meetings start with everyone just sitting in a room reading the narrative memo, which are often between 4-6 pages. Once everyone has read the memo and is on the same page, the meeting starts.
As someone who writes a daily narrative, this approach really resonates me. It would be a hell of a lot easier if I could just show up here every day and throw down a few bullet points. But then both of us would get far less out of this practice.
Writing takes time. Bezos has acknowledged that these memos cannot be written in a day or two. But clearly there’s a belief that more time spent up front translates into greater overall speed. Their market cap suggests that is working.
