Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 707

Here's some data from the Pew Research Center looking at the percentage of young people (18- to 29-year olds) in the US that live with at least one parent. It it based on an analysis of monthly Census Bureau data and is obviously interesting/relevant given that this pandemic seems to have precipitated a number of people moving back home. As of July of this year, 52% of young adults were thought to be living with at least one parent, which is up from 47% back in February.

At first I was surprised to see these numbers as high as they are. But it's really the 18-24 age bracket that is driving this number up, which makes sense given that a chunk of this demographic is probably in school, not working, and now unable to do much on a campus. Among 25- to 29-year olds, the range is significantly lower, with just over a quarter (26% -> 28%) living with their parent(s).

What I'm curious about now, after seeing this chart, is what is driving some of these regional, ethnic, and gender differences? Why are young midwesterners seemingly less likely to live with a parent compared to those in the northeast? Is it cultural? Economic? Or something else? And is the above an indication that maybe women are more independent than men?

So I just learned that architects Bjarke Ingels and Rut Otero live in a converted Norwegian houseboat in Copenhagen's harbor. A friend of mine sent me the Architectural Digest article this morning with the caption, "now I want one." The space is exceedingly cool and interesting, but supposedly the heat and water stop working on occasion. Minor annoyance, I suppose. But in addition to being cool and interesting, there's also a resiliency argument. Houseboats don't have to worry about sea level rise, because they just float. (Could this type of floating housing be deployed at scale? Ingels thinks so.) In this case, they also repurposed an existing structure, which is generally more sustainable than building something new. I guess I'll take one as well.

For the full houseboat tour, head over here .

This is the topic of Benedict Evan's latest blog post, which is all about the internet, regulation, and the rise of China, as well as other countries. The internet is now deeply ingrained in everyday life. As of 2017, about 40% of Americans had met their partners online. We do everything online. But 80-90% of the world's internet users are now outside of the US. There are more smartphone users in China than in the US and western Europe combined. And venture capital dollars have started to diversify away from just the US (see above chart). All of this -- but mostly Tiktok -- has Americans questioning how best to handle and how best to regulate.

Here's an excerpt from Benedict's post:

Both of these are captured in Tiktok. This is the first time that Americans have really had to deal with their teenagers using a form of mass media that isn’t created in their country by people who mostly share their values. It’s from somewhere else. That’s compounded by the fact that the ‘somewhere else’ is China, with all of the political and geopolitical issues that come with that, but I’d suggest that the core, structural issue is that it’s foreign. This is, of course, a problem that the rest of the world has been wrestling with since 1994, but it comes as something of a shock in Washington DC. There’s an old joke that war is how God teaches Americans geography - now it’s regulation.

For the full post, click here .

Image/facts: Benedict Evans