Small Cities Weekly | 07.21.2023
Small City History, Housing, & Airlines
As part of the work we are doing on the Small City Segment, we will be sending out a brief weekly digest of thoughts and links that reflect the week’s work. I’d love to hear from you if you have any thoughts, questions, disagreements, or things to add!
Thoughts
Keeping this first one short…I’ve had a really interesting set of conversations since publishing our essay on the Small City Segment two weeks ago. People reached out saying that it really resonated with where they’re from, where they live, or the sector they work in. What is most exciting is the reactions of, “Oh - I know of something that fits that!” I’ve heard about dynamics in healthcare, transportation, housing, and others that I’m looking forward to exploring. Look out in the next two weeks for our first Problem Profile, covering some problems in small city housing.
Links
The Small City in American History, Timothy R. Mahoney
“What might the ideal small city look like in a world that favors
large-scale centralized production and provision of services? The core
of such a vision would be accepting the reality of the small city as a
distinctive city type with problems, issues, and dynamics peculiarly
its own. We need to move beyond thinking of small cities as "big small
towns" or "outposts of the metropolis." We need to think of small
cities as just that, small cities.”
I came across this paper from a history professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He covers how these places developed differently than small towns and big metros and some of the implications that has on how we think about them. One theme we will be exploring in the future is the history of these cities, especially economically, and how that shapes the problems, opportunities, and companies present today.
Housing Characteristics of Small and Mid-Sized Cities, NYC Furman Center
“Additionally, although average rents are lower in smaller cities when compared to their larger counterparts, the rates of housing cost burden for low and moderate income households are nearly identical. This reinforces the importance of developing affordability solutions in small and mid-sized cities, given the large numbers of Americans who live in these localities and who are at risk for housing instability.”
Reading through this report might lead you to believe that housing issues are mostly the same in large and small cities. I think the reality is a bit more nuanced. The metrics are similar - # of rent burdened households, the racial homeownership gap, etc. - but I think the mechanisms are very different. And it’s disrupting the mechanisms that startups focus on.
Commercial Air Travel is Broken. Two New Airlines Think They Can Fix It, Alana Semuels, Time Magazine
“For one thing, the rising cost of flying has led big airlines to pull out of many cities—68 since April 2020 alone—opening a space that start-ups can fill. Indeed, around 90% of Avelo’s routes are between city pairs that don’t currently have service connecting them; 95% of Breeze’s are in the same category.”
Transportation is one of the areas we are excited to dig into further. Starting an airline might be one of the most extreme versions of the Small City Segment thesis in action, but it is such a simple example of the dynamics we are trying to highlight. This articles explains both the opportunity and challenges with trying to serve these segments in a better way. I think it shows that it will take questioning a lot of assumptions of “how things work” to solve these problems.
If you…
are interested in building for the small city segment…
are already building for the small city segment…
know someone who might be/should be building for the small city segment…
want to contribute expertise to problem profiles…
or want to help us expand our networks of trust in small cities…
please reach out at dustin@invanti.co.