Urbanexus Update - Issue #12
Please scroll down for my weekly collection of information and opinion about real estate and community development.
Economic strength supports US real estate
Unemployment continues to decline in the USA
The broadest measure of unemployment in the USA is the U-6 unemployment rate. In addition to the recently unemployed who are actively seeking work, it includes discouraged workers who have quit looking for a job and part-time workers who would like to upgrade to full-time employment. This rate has gradually declined from a high of 17.1% in April 2010 to 7.6 percent as of May 2018--the lowest data point for this rate since the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking it in 1994. Click on the graph below to see sources and a brief explanation of the six unemployment rates tracked by the Federal Government.
45-year low in unemployment claims — www.calculatedriskblog.com
This is the lowest level for this indicator since 1973 when the labor force was much smaller--88.6 million then vs. 161.5 million in 2018.
Leading index for commercial real estate — www.calculatedriskblog.com
The Momentum Index is a monthly measure of the first (or initial) report for nonresidential building projects in planning, which have been shown to lead construction spending for nonresidential buildings by a full year.
Metropolitan regions
Seven Types of Global Cities — www.visualcapitalist.com The world's largest 123 cities generate an astonishing $36 trillion in GDP per year. This infographic breaks these global cities down into seven typologies.
Big city growth falls off in the USA Last year, among the nation’s 84 big cities, 55 of them either grew at lower rates than in 2016 or have sustained population losses. Frey discusses the implications of a population shift.
Half of Silicon Valley residents want to leave — www.mercurynews.com
Housing is residents' number-one complaint.
Young adult growth and decline in the USA Now the largest adult generation in the U.S., and due to their valuable attributes, millennials are highly sought after by communities all over the country.
S.F. Bay Area housing battles
A city for all of us — medium.com
What should San Francisco do with 730 Stanyan St.? The property used to be a McDonald’s on the border of the Cole Valley and Haight-Ashbury neighborhoods.
Housing at stake in Lafayette — www.sfchronicle.com The developer of a 315-unit apartment complex, which sparked a years-long political battle in the East Bay city of Lafayette, said he would bring it back if voters killed a ballot measure to put 44 single-family homes on the same lot.
Homelessness
Unsheltered homeless in Seattle compared to New York City — knkx.org Seattle has more unsheltered people than New York, a city nearly 12 times its size, according to the most recent homelessness data from each city.
Getting homelessness to zero — www.nytimes.com A new standard for housing the homeless — “functional zero” — has been achieved in nine American communities and is a target in dozens of others.
Real estate transactions and technology
Nordstrom closing a Bay Area store
The fashion retailer decides it needs only one store in the City of San Francisco.
Large land transaction — www.reviewjournal.com
By all accounts, it’s the largest single purchase of a housing site in the Las Vegas area in years.
Manila slum dwellers build homes — www.thisisplace.org
Slum dwellers were given a choice: move to a resettlement area miles away, or build and own their homes, nearby, under a state-backed program.
Improving construction productivity — www.nytimes.com Developers are taking on residential building challenges by extending the concept of prefabricated housing to manufacture entire apartment buildings.
Remembering Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain and cities The work of the acclaimed chef and writer, who has died at 61, provides a model for a truly inclusive urbanism based on the creativity of all human beings.
