The ADRR

As far as luxury retail (about which I have learned more than I could ever have imagined, and it is barely making a dent in what I still have to lean) I thought this was a good article:

• How can a legacy retailer maintain quality, keep the best margins in the business, and continue innovating? Learn from the house of Hermes: https://www.fastcompany.com/90605195/hermes-most-innovative-companies-2021?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss

As to housing, I thought this was very interesting:

• Portland adds to the body of evidence that tax policy is the strongest motivator behind urban behavior. New inclusionary zoning rules both reduce supply, creating a fork in the market, while transforming the types of new residential buildings being built.
  https://cityobservatory.org/inclusionary-zoning-portlands-wile-e-coyote-moment-has-arrived/

Finally, an article that makes a lot of assumptions but is provocative and I think merits to be considered.

• The combination of work from home and civil unrest might be leading some corporations to reconsider downtown headquarters: https://fee.org/articles/target-announces-it-s-abandoning-its-minneapolis-headquarters-heres-why-its-no-surprise/

Here’s some articles / posts worthy of inclusion…

• Kate Krader, Bloomberg News, “Sweetgreen, Momofuku founders join $42 million bet on mini-marts”
  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-22/sweetgreen-momofuku-invest-in-foxtrot-convenience-store-series-b?utm_source=morning_brew

I am following this one closely, as it seems to be what a great many (affluent) urban neighborhoods have been craving in recent years — an artisanal convenience store…

• Dan Rodricks, Baltimore Sun, “Invest Where You Live: Black Baltimoreans who patronize Walbrook Junction Shopping Center get a chance to own a piece of It” https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/columnists/dan-rodricks/bs-md-rodricks-0228-ecr-walbrook-social-impact-investing-20210226-uu6qosg5gngutkzb3uba3zmtyu-story.html

My good friend, Lyneir Richardson of Chicago TREND, has happened upon a unique and promising model for building wealth in Black neighborhoods through equity ownership in retail property.

• U.S. Census Bureau data on online market share: https://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/pdf/ec_current.pdf

So it turns out that in 2020, amidst a global pandemic, online’s market share rose just 2.2% percentage points (!), from 11.8% of total retail sales in Q1 to 14.0% in Q4 — and those percentages include online orders that were then retrieved or shipped from physical stores. All of those screaming headlines about ten years of e-commerce growth packed into three months? Well, it didn’t happen.

• Patrick Sharkey , “Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence.” Jan 16, 2018, W. W. Norton & Company.

This is a very good article about which retailers are doing well coming out of the pandemic and which are opening stores. Also informative about rents and lease terms:

• Patricia Kirk, “Some Retailers Are Opening New Stores. But Who Are They and What Do They Ask For? https://www.wealthmanagement.com/retail/some-retailers-are-opening-new-stores-who-are-they-and-what-do-they-ask?NL=WM-056&Issue=WM-056_20210311_WM-056_771&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1&utm_rid=CPG09000013495194&utm_campaign=31610&utm_medium=email&elq2=dd3806618e8641f0986c28eb3f46bf81&oly_enc_id=5456A9992623A4Y

An insightful article on an increasingly important subject: how much the way we work is changing and how that will impact our downtowns be they large or small, or rural, suburban or urban.

• Richard Florida and Adam Ozimek “How Remote Work Is Reshaping America’s Urban Geography: Smaller cities and communities are turning into ‘Zoom towns’ and competing with coastal hubs as workers move to find more space and lower costs.”
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-remote-work-is-reshaping-americas-urban-geography-11614960100?mod=searchresults_pos1&page=1

While I don’t know how many of these 15 minute cities will actually be formed, the concept is so rich in both common sense and in reflecting what I see in many strong communities that I’m confident its influence will be substantial. One issue it faces it how to define such a place, and this article addresses that.

• Andres Duany and Robert Steuteville. “ Defining the 15-minute city: The ‘15-minute city’ may be defined as an ideal geography where most human needs and many desires are located within a travel distance of 15 minutes. Here’s what that means.”
  https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2021/02/08/defining-15-minute-city