Tag: npr

• Young people are driving a lot less

  As a kid growing up in the suburbs, I got my driver’s license the day I turned 16. Being able to drive was a big deal. But we know that this desire to drive has been changing in profound ways. Here’s some recent stats on the percentage of licensed drivers in the US by age (taken from the WSJ):

  

  In 1983, about 46% of 16-year-olds had a driver’s license. By 2014, this number had dropped to 24.5%, which is the lowest it has been in recent years, and was probably impacted by the broader economy. As of 2017, this number was up to about 26%.

  If you’re a car company, I would imagine that these are pretty important numbers. They represent the top of the sales funnel. Most people probably like to have a driver’s license in hand before they go out and buy a car.

  Supposedly, some people in Detroit are betting that young people will still eventually buy a car. And when they do, it’ll be a nice big one like an SUV or a truck. But, the data suggests that it is not just young people who are eschewing driving.

  Here’s some data from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (via NPR), looking at the proportion of licensed drivers in the US by all age categories:

  

  While the biggest drop has certainly happened among younger generations, licensing is still down for older cohorts. Based on these numbers, we don’t hit parity until somewhere around 50 to 54 years old.

  And the only cohorts where licensing has increased significantly are when people reach over 55. Over 70 is up by a huge margin — more than the drop among 16 year olds — which is probably a symptom of people living longer.

  Some of this decrease among young people can probably be attributed to delayed family formation and people living in denser urban environments, where it is more convenient to get around without a car. But I don’t think that’s all of it.

  Which suggests to me that the race to autonomy is a pretty important one to win.

  2019.04.21

• How I built this

  My friend Dan just introduced me to a terrific podcast called, How I Built This. It’s all about “innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.” As soon as he told me about it I immediately pulled out my phone and hit subscribe.

  You will recognize many of the brands and entrepreneurs featured on this podcast. The companies span everything from Whole Foods and the Corcoran Group (real estate) to Kate Spade and Instagram.

  I’m not that up on podcasts. I think it’s because I don’t really drive that often and I don’t have much of a commute. Podcasts are great when you’re sitting in traffic, which is something people here in LA obviously do a lot of.

  But I’m going to make time to listen to this one. I have so much respect for anyone who has built something from nothing. Building and creating is what moves us forward.

  2017.05.22

• Lo Mein Loophole

  Maria Godoy of NPR recently published an interesting piece called Lo Mein Loophole: How U.S. Immigration Law Fueled A Chinese Restaurant Boom.

  The article starts by talking about how rising anti-Chinese sentiment in the late 19th and early 20th century eventually lead to the U.S. passing new immigration laws. These laws explicitly restricted Chinese laborers from moving to the U.S. and even made it difficult for legal residents to return after a visit home to China.

  However, embedded in these laws was a small loophole:

  But, as MIT legal historian Heather Lee tells it, there was an important exception to these laws: Some Chinese business owners in the U.S. could get special merchant visas that allowed them to travel to China, and bring back employees. Only a few types of businesses qualified for this status. In 1915, a federal court added restaurants to that list. Voila! A restaurant boom was born.

  “The number of Chinese restaurants in the U.S. doubles from 1910 to 1920, and doubles again from 1920 to 1930,” says Lee, referring to research done by economist Susan Carter. In New York City alone, Lee found that the number of Chinese eateries quadrupled between 1910 and 1920.

  This is fascinating on so many levels. 

  For one, it’s always interesting when small loopholes have unintended consequences. It is doubtful that anyone could have predicted a Chinese restaurant boom.

  Secondly, despite the U.S. being a nation of immigrants, you see here a long history of trying to keep immigrants out. In the early 20th century, the fear was Chinese laborers who worked for low wages. Today, it’s Mexican laborers who work for low wages.

  Finally, it’s amazing to look back at the foundation that these early Chinese entrepreneurs no doubt created. Today, Asian Americans are often considered a “model minority.” The Pew Research Center refers to them as “the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States.” 

  When it comes to Ivy League admissions, they’ve even been called the “New Jews” – referring to the fact that many believe that top tier schools have systematically biased admissions against both Jews and Asians because of their tendency to overachieve relative to “white Americans.”

  And to think that this may have all started, at least partly, with a Chinese restaurant boom.

  2016.02.29

• The value of lifestyle in attracting human capital

  When I was in Revelstoke, BC last year I met a number of people who had made the move out there from Toronto. When I asked if they missed living in a big city, pretty much everyone gave me the same answer: “No, I love it here.”

  This past week when I was in Park City, Utah, I similarly met a number of people who had made the move from New York and other large cities. And when I asked them the same question, I heard statements like: “I used to live in New York, but then I got a life and moved out here." 

  In these two examples, the obvious draw is the mountains. But it’s not like everyone just moved and became a ski bum. In fact, Inc Magazine recently published an article talking about Park City’s robust startup scene. People are figuring out how to combine hard work with the lifestyle they want.

  What I find interesting about this is that it runs counter to the trend of young people preferring big cities. Here’s a quote from NPR:

  “But affordable real estate and waterfront views don’t have millennials biting. They continue "a multigenerational pattern of young adults preferring more expensive urban areas over lower-cost rural ones because the lifestyles and opportunities in such places make the extra burden of cost worth it,” says Robert Lang, professor of urban growth and population dynamics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.”

  However, some small towns clearly have a unique lifestyle advantage: mountains. And that seems to be a strong enough draw that some people are simply figuring out how to create the economic opportunities for themselves.

  For me, this is yet another reminder that if you’re trying to attract the best human capital to your city or town, you need to think about lifestyle. And since young adults aged 18-34 are far more likely to move around than any other generation, you should also be thinking specifically about what this generation wants.

  Here’s a chart from CityLab that shows how precipitously migration falls off (in the U.S.) once people finish school and get settled in a job:

  

  Obviously, not every town or small city is blessed with mountains. But there are many lifestyle advantages that can be created. It’s for this reason that I keep talking about nightlife and Toronto’s laughable 2AM last call. Those are lifestyle things and we can do better.

  2016.02.08

• Haussmannization

  If you’re into cities, then you’re likely familiar with the Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann.

  He was Napoleon III’s urban planner and the man responsible for the Paris we all know and love today. Those broad avenues radiating from the Arc de Triomphe are his doing. His plans transformed Paris from a medieval city into what was considered to be, at the end of the 19th century, one of the most modern cities in the world.

  What spurred this post is an exhibition currently on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. It’s on the photography of Charles Marville, who was, interestingly enough, initially commissioned to document Paris before Napoleon and Haussmann “destroyed” it.

  In reading NPR’s summary, I was amazed to learn about the meticulous detail that went into the redesign of the city, which went all the way down to the gas street lamps that were rolled out following the “Haussmannization”of Paris. In fact, so much thought went into the appearance of these street lamps that their heights were actually modulated to match changes in street elevation; the effect being that as you looked down an avenue, the street lamps always appeared even and harmonious despite any ups-and-downs in the road.

  But beyond street lamps, the exhibition also got me thinking about urban renewal as a broader concept. Today, I suspect that most people would consider Haussmann’s interventions to have been a positive thing for Paris. Before these changes, Paris was a cramped and crumbling medieval city.

  However, while in retrospect these changes might seem positive, Parisians at the time hated what was happening to their city. The entire place was under construction. And if you’re a fan of Impressionism, you’ll know that many artists at the time began lamenting about the regularization of Paris. They yearned for the visual variety that once characterized the city.

  But as any developer will tell you, change is not something most communities tend to embrace. In fact, it’s human nature for us to down play positives and play up negatives when faced with uncertainty (see Prospect Theory). 

  And sometimes it’s merited. Fast forward to 1925 and you have yet another audacious Frenchman trying to destroy and rebuild Paris: Le Corbusier. Come to think of it, I wonder if he thought of himself as the next Haussmann. He certainly thought of himself as the man responsible for ushering in the next wave of modernity.

  But while he didn’t execute on his Plan Voisin in Paris, he certainly left his mark on cities all across the world. The plan he intended for Paris, was more or less what we used to clear slums in a lot of cities. However it turned out to be a complete failure.

  So I guess the moral of the story is that some change is good and some change is bad. But most of the time it’ll seem bad at first, making it hard to tell which is which.

  2013.10.17