Episode Summary

  1. Melbourne is the best place for digital nomads according to the work anywhere index by nest pick. Nest pick uses 16 calculations to determine the best places to be digital nomads. How might you use those 16 scores to help influence development in your community?
  2. Most employers are expecting to need less office space. There is a significant increase in "work from home" job postings, offerings, and advertisements
  3. Ecommerce has invested significantly into last-mile infrastructure and could be the next big commercial land use in our cities.

​The work from anywhere index. (data table)
​
​The hot "new" type of commercial real estate. (4 min read)

Transcript

Episode 24 Patterns of Development

Everywhere and Warehouses. This is patterns of development.

Hey everybody it's Kyle. Where, on this podcast, I share, discuss, ponder, and try to connect some dots through the best content I've discovered each week related to urban planning, architecture, and cities.

I want to build with you case studies, discover examples, refine ideas, that hopefully inspire you as you go along your journey. If you don't have time to read, I'm trying to break down the patterns here and help you stay ahead of the curve.

Ultimately, trying to learn, what are the patterns of development?

First up - The work from anywhere index.

Remote work is possible. Most of us were working on computers before and of course we can work from computers at our home. The great dispersal from commercial office space into residential space is obvious to all of us.

But how might one evaluate where to go? If you can work from anywhere, where should anywhere be? The work from anywhere index hopes to answer that question.

According to the site, the work from anywhere index is, "A study highlighting the destinations that are most attractive to digital nomads in search of a new home, according to legislation as well as livability factors such as weather, cost of living and equality."

The index reviews basic costs and set-up requirements needed to work comfortably with minimal extra expense. Then the ease to which a foreigner was able to work remotely in each location.

Quoting their website once again, "Being able to live safely and freely is often a deciding factor for potential migrants, so we analyzed the extent of basic human rights and freedoms in each location, as well as the levels of safety and support for gender equality and inclusivity of minorities and the LGBT+ community."

After evaluating the cost of living and government then there's considerations for quality of life: access to culture, weather, pollution levels etc.

The team (I assume it's a team) at nestpick, a rental website for furnished apartments, broke all this down into 16 scores.

Humans love lists. It helps us make sense of a complicated world. Number one? According to these 16 factors of livability, legislation, logistics?

Melbourne, Australia.

2. Dubai

3. Sydney, Australia

Then you get London, Tokyo, Singapore. The US doesn't make it on the list until #13 with Chicago being the #1 US city. Just spent a week there, loved it.

One other interesting call out regarding this nest pick tool, they list the covid-19 vaccination rate as one of their 16 scores. I don't know how frequently that gets updated, but if you're looking for help to kick off your digital nomad adventure. This list will help. But this isn't a digital nomad podcast, this is a urban planning podcast!

If you're a city planner, city staff, even a real estate developer consider these 16 scores and incorporate them into your planning and developments as much as you can.

So next up...and this is related to the previous article instead of from the worker side we're now looking at the business side.

An article in the investment monitor by Ben vander Merwe, "Office demand slows but warehouses rise as cities adjust to ‘new normal.'

The dispersion is real. Here's the 3 most important things from the article.

  1. Most employers foresee a reduction in office needs. Based on survey of 583 UK company directors conducted between 11 and 29 March. No surprise there you have 50 person company, everyone's working from home now. You don't need an office for 50 you might need an office for 10 or 20. Maybe you need a more flexible event space so that when you want to bring the whole company together you can. "Getting together" as a company may soon be a special event rather than an everyday thing. I say that, and of course, there's others who believe the opposite. Just recently I read in the Wall Street journal , "We can't be a great company working remotely..." That's quoting Greg Carmichael, 5/3 banks CEO.

Greg might be right. But this leads to point number 2. Recent figures published by the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that growth in advertisements for home working jobs continues to far outpace total job advertisement growth. As of mid-May, total job advertisements were just 16% above their pre-pandemic level, compared with 308% for home working jobs.

Number 3. A quote from the author Ben vander Merwe, "the unprecedented growth of online retail during the pandemic has also led to a surge in demand for last-mile delivery hubs, where retailers can store goods in close proximity to customers.

Locations that previously would have gone to office space are also being targeted for residential use, according to the site selection consultants surveyed."

Commercial real estate developers will find a way to get their rent. And if that means converting an office space to a last mile delivery hub. So be it. While their isn't data provided in this particular article two data points that I think support this line of thinking.

Amazon - their stock has increased from around $1,900 to $3,200 from March 23, 2020. Amazon's success comes in two ways offering more for less and getting it to you quickly. The only way to do that is with last mile infrastructure.

STAG - a real estate investment trust focused on warehouse space has seen their stock has almost double since march 2020 from $20/share to $40/share. Their 52 week high is $10 above their pre-pandemic high.

Full disclosure - I am a shareholder in each of these stocks and this is not financial advice.

The point is that investors in amazon and stag have been rewarded to date and I believe that this trend will continue as other businesses look to improve their last mile infrastructure.

I spent too much time talking about hybrid work and warehouses, I ran out of time to talk about affordability. I'll get to that because Council Bill 120081 in Seattle highlights some of the difficulties with getting affordable housing right.

To summarize:

  • Melbourne is the best place for digital nomads according to the work anywhere index by nest pick. Nest pick uses 16 calculations to determine the best places to be digital nomads.
  • How might you use those 16 scores to help influence development in your community?
  • Most employers are expecting to need less office space
  • There is a significant increase in "work from home" job postings, offerings, advertisements
  • Ecommerce has invested significantly into last-mile infrastructure and could be the next big commercial land use in our cities.

That's all for this week - talk to y'all soon.