Tag: geography

• The geography of gyms

  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.

  2019.01.12

• Average age of a first-time mother

  

  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:

  

  And this is what it looked like in 2016:

  

  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.”

  Unequal childhoods can lead to unequal outcomes.

  Images: New York Times

  2018.10.17

• Our social connectedness

  

  Economists at Facebook, Harvard, Princeton and NYU recently analyzed anonymous Facebook data in order to study our social connectedness. The New York Times’ Upshot wrote about it here and it is a must read.

  There are a number of interesting takeaways from the study. One of them is that geography, distance, and political boundaries actually matter a great deal when it comes to our connectedness. 

  In other words, Americans are more like to be connected to someone nearby – within county or state boundaries – than they are to someone further away who may be infinitely more similar. This may seem somewhat intuitive.

  But at the same time, having a dispersed network also suggests certain things. Here’s the relationship that they discovered:

  These networks are important in part because of other patterns that are correlated with them. Counties with more dispersed networks — where a smaller share of Facebook friends are located nearby, or among the nearest 50 million people — are on average richer, more educated and have longer life expectancies. Places that are more closely connected to one another also have more migration, trade and patent citations between them.

  Counties that are more geographically isolated in the index are more likely to have lower labor force participation and economic mobility, and they have higher rates of teenage births. Some of the most economically distressed parts of the country appear to be the most disconnected: Among the 10 U.S. counties with the highest share of friends within 50 miles, six are in Kentucky.

  Again, it is worth checking out the full article. There’s also an interactive map to play around with.

  2018.09.21

• A more distributed startup geography

  The Economist recently argued that Silicon Valley’s innovation hegemony is waning and that it is a product of two factors: there appears to be more innovation happening elsewhere (good news), but that innovation in general also seems to be harder to achieve (bad news). Here is an excerpt from the article:

  Other cities are rising in relative importance as a result. The Kauffman Foundation, a non-profit group that tracks entrepreneurship, now ranks the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area first for startup activity in America, based on the density of startups and new entrepreneurs. Mr Thiel is moving to Los Angeles, which has a vibrant tech scene. Phoenix and Pittsburgh have become hubs for autonomous vehicles; New York for media startups; London for fintech; Shenzhen for hardware. None of these places can match the Valley on its own; between them, they point to a world in which innovation is more distributed.

  Part of the problem, of course, is rising costs in the Bay Area. Everything from the cost of living to the cost of operating a business. The article cites a recent survey where nearly half of all respondents said they are planning to leave the Bay Area in the next few years. This is up from 34% only two years ago.

  I don’t doubt that rising costs are causing some people to look to other cities, as well as other countries in the case of draconian visa policies. But I am suspect of the claim that we’ve heat peak “innovation” – however you want to define that.

  2018.09.05

• The geography of innovation and equality of opportunity

  The Equality of Opportunity Project has a recent paper out called: Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The importance of Exposure to Innovation. Vox also has a summary of the findings, here.

  The overall goal of the project is to “use big data to identify new pathways to upward mobility.” And in this particular study, they discover that in America there are many “lost Einsteins” – people who have the ability, but not the opportunity.

  Not surprisingly, socioeconomic class, race, and gender play a significant role. Children from high-income families are 10x more likely to become inventors (measured in patents) as compared to children from low-income families.

  Geography, place, and environment also matter. Where and how a child grows up has a significant impact on future outcomes. If a child grows up in a city/network that exposes them to other inventors, it increases the likelihood that they too will invent. 

  Where a child grows up also has an impact on the types of inventions, even if the child move cities as an adult. For example, the study found that if a child grows up in Silicon Valley but moves to Boston as an adult, it is still more likely to author patents related to computers because that’s what it was exposed to as a child.

  These associations also impact in a gender-specific way. Women are more likely to invent in a particular technology if they grow up surrounded by similar female inventors. The presence of male inventors has no impact. This makes a powerful case for better gender diversity and strong role models.

  If you would like to read the full paper, click here.

  2017.12.05

• Why cities are where they are

  I’ve always been fascinated by questions around the origin and location of cities. How did they get their start and why did they get founded where they did? Access to water and resources are obvious factors. But it could have also been for defensive reasons. 

  In some cases, the location makes intuitive sense. Quebec City, for instance, is founded on high ground at the point “where the river narrows.” Both of these elements come in handy when you’re trying to fend off intruders. But in other cases, the exact location of a city or town may not be as obvious.

  Thankfully, Wendover Productions – which is a YouTube channel entirely focused on explaining how the world works – recently published a video called: Why Cities Are Where They Are. (Video embedded below.) It’s about 16 minutes long and it has gotten over 1 million views at the time of writing this post.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PWWtqfwacQ?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

  They also have a video that I watched today called: The Economics of Airline Class. It covers why airlines don’t care about coach and don’t make money off coach travellers. The real estate developer in me enjoyed the part about revenue per square foot for each “class” section of the plane.

  2017.03.18