Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1176

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about fluid labor markets and urban density, I thought I would present an opposing view.

Joel Kotkin is a well known geographer and author. He has published a number of books, the most recent of which is called, The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us . He is also well known as a supporter of the suburbs, which is a somewhat contrarian view in today’s urban-centric world.

Here is a recent interview he did with Aaron M. Renn ( click here if you can’t see it below):

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One of his messages is that the urban core is great for young people without kids, but that we shouldn’t expect it to serve everyone’s needs and wants – particularly those of families. Families need space and affordability, and urban cores are simply not engineered for that.

Long live the suburb.

Work Market is an “on-demand talent marketplace.” They connect companies who need work done with skilled freelancers who are looking to do work. Conceptually, we’ve seen this before.

But this morning, as I was reading this interview with the CEO, the following lines got me thinking:

“By 2040, I’m pretty confident that every skilled worker will have their own signpost. You will be your own enterprise, in a much more meaningful way than the lip service of today.”

We are already seeing this phenomenon play out. Social media, for instance, has made all of us our own media brands. So it’s not outlandish to believe that we will also see more, not less, of this in the labor market.

But what I started thinking about is how this changing relationship between business and labor will ultimately manifest itself in our cities. 

If we are indeed shifting toward a fluid and dynamic labor market where not only do people switch jobs more frequently, but they have their own signposts, then I have got to believe that urban density will only become more important. We’ll all need to be “plugged in” to the market – both online and offline.

But what are your thoughts? I think this could make for an interesting discussion in the comments.

Snap Inc. (Snapchat) nailed the launch of Spectacles . I want a pair.

If you haven’t been following, it all started with a pop-up vending machine in Venice Beach. But like Snapchat itself, it was an ephemeral installation that eventually disappeared, moving on to Big Sur, California. At the time of writing this post, the countdown is on to discover where the vending machine will pop up next. It’s a viral marketing play that aligns very well with their brand.

But there’s even bigger news.

Earlier this week it was revealed that Snap Inc. has filed for an initial public offering . It plans to go public by as soon as March 2017 and expects to be valued somewhere around $25 billion. Remember when everyone flipped out because Evan Spiegel had rejected Facebook’s acquisition offer of $3 billion?

Here’s their revenue story from Vanity Fair :

Last year, Snapchat brought in $59 million in revenue—a low number that reflected the embryonic stage of its business. This year, however, Snapchat predicts it will generate revenues between $250 million and $350 million. And in 2017, the company estimates it will reach revenues between $500 million and $1 billion, based on “bullish sales targets.”

I’ve been a Snapchat fan for awhile now , so I am thrilled to see the company going public. As Fred Wilson wrote on his blog this morning: “Snap is a great company led by a creative and ambitious founder and they have a loyal and growing use base. I think Snap can be an excellent public company.”

If you’ve got people’s attention, you can figure out how to monetize it.