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<ul class="summary-list"><li>For decades, Detroit was seemingly caught in an economic time warp that hobbled its full potential.</li><li>But the city's downtown has one of the most stunning urban reinvention stories in the United States.</li></ul>Last week, more than 775,000 football fans converged in downtown Detroit for three days as the city hosted the NFL Draft.Detroit obliterated the previous <a target="_blank" href="https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nfl/2024/04/27/detroit-nfl-draft-weekend-breaking-attendance-record/73482236007/">draft turnout record</a> set in 2019 when Nashville hosted roughly 600,000 fans across three days.Campus Martius Park, perhaps the most revered public gathering space in Detroit, served as the centerpiece of the festivities.Such positive developments are not atypical for Detroit these days. New residents continue to flock to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-cities-downtowns-fight-doom-loop-office-crisis-2024-4">residential developments downtown</a>, and businesses occupy early-20th-century architectural gems that sprouted when the city was at its industrial zenith.So, just how did this Midwestern city become a model for urban reinvention?<div type="image" title="NFL Draft" height="3024" width="4032" msid="109675229" hostid="261" sizebytes="2498410"></div><h2>The past informs the present</h2>In the 1980s and 1990s, downtown Detroit was a visible reminder of the "urban doom loop," when residents head for the exits and office towers empty out — leading to diminishing tax revenues that threaten core municipal services.The legendary flagship location of Hudson's department store, beloved by generations of Detroiters, closed in 1983. The 1980s saw scores of layoffs in the automobile industry and the closing of numerous factories, causing economic strain in a region once known for its prosperity and its gateway to the middle class. Many small businesses either closed up shop or moved to the region's suburbs, a trend that continued into the 1990s.But when the city of Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in July 2013, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/22/1189093540/detroit-bankruptcy-comeback-hurdle">the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in US history</a>, many wondered whether an economic comeback would ever be fully realized. At the time, even weekly trash pickup had become unreliable in many neighborhoods.Now, the city is seemingly in its best economic position in decades.Detroit beat out Miami as the fastest-appreciating housing market in the country last November, with home prices rising by 8.7% year-over-year, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240109628017/en/CoreLogic-US-Home-Price-Growth-Speeds-Up-Again-in-November">according to a CoreLogic report</a>.<div type="image" title="Hudson's" height="5584" width="8368" msid="109675230" hostid="261" sizebytes="1641784"></div><h2>People want to live in the city</h2>The allure of walkable neighborhoods, public transportation, green spaces, and businesses catering to local needs is something that many millennials and Gen Zs have embraced with open arms — but it's also a quality attractive to many boomers headed into retirement.Downtown Detroit has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/travel/architecture-detroit-albert-kahn.html">an abundance of towering, historic buildings</a> that are perfect for office-to-housing conversions and office renovations that have taken hold in downtowns across the country.Dan Gilbert, the cofounder of Rocket Mortgage (formerly Quicken Loans) and a Detroit native, has poured billions into the city's downtown to revitalize the area.Gilbert's real-estate firm, Bedrock Detroit, is building a 45-story mixed-use skyscraper at the site of the old Hudson's department store. When completed, the development will be home to General Motors' <a target="_blank" href="https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2024/04/15/gm-headquarters-rencen-detroit-hudsons-tower/73328040007/">new global headquarters</a>, a five-star hotel, and high-rise residences.GM is currently headquartered at the 1970s-era Renaissance Center, a Detroit icon. While the company's move from the Renaissance Center has certainly raised questions about the complex's future, GM is staying in the city. GM's future headquarters, which will be even closer to the residential buildings sprouting up downtown, is poised to continue contributing to the city's vitality.

Detroit's 'doom loop' was unlike any other American city. Its downtown is now a model for urban reinvention.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Pet ownership is on the rise, and Americans are spending more time and money on their furry friends.</li><li>Dogs, in particular, are increasingly being welcomed into public spaces.</li></ul>Your next wedding might be full of drooling guests.The Dog Bar — a sprawling dog venue in Saint Petersburg, Florida —has had at least six (human) proposals, and one wedding. Some of the couples who got engaged met at the dog-catered venue; others just love it so much that that's where they wanted to make things official.It's not just romance brewing at the Dog Bar. Politicians come by to do <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.facebook.com/MayorKenWelch/videos/thanks-for-coming-out-to-support-last-night-at-the-dog-bar-st-pete-99-days-until/834832220788817/">some stumping</a> (and, presumably, dog petting). Young professionals convene for meet-ups. And a good chunk of customers don't even have dogs; they just want to hang out amongst both friends human and furry.It's all part of a new shift in American public and social life: It's gone to the dogs.Virtually all <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/07/about-half-us-of-pet-owners-say-their-pets-are-as-much-a-part-of-their-family-as-a-human-member/">US pet owners</a> now say their furry companions are part of their family — up from 86% of dog owners and 78% of cat owners <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2006/03/07/gauging-family-intimacy/">in 2006</a>. This might be in part because many younger Americans are having kids later than previous generations, or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/child-free-millennials-dont-want-kids-to-hamper-travel-life-2024-9">not having them at all</a>."People are really combining their social life with their dog ownership nowadays," Kendal Kulp, the co-founder and CEO of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wagbar.com/">Wagbar</a>, a dog park and bar in Asheville, North Carolina, that regularly hosts weddings, dog birthday bashes, and Halloween parties. The space is currently hosting hurricane relief efforts for the local community.If you feel like you can't turn a corner without seeing a four-legged friend, you're not alone. America's younger workers are getting hooked on their dogs, and they're generating their own revenue streams — and popping up everywhere, occasionally to some people's chagrin."The dog today is not the dog of 10 years ago," Bobby Boivin, the co-owner of Boo's Dog Bar in Sarasota, Florida, said. "The dog today is literally a child in the family. It is a family member. And well, when people go out to dinner, they want to bring the whole family with them."You can feel that at the Dog Bar. Some of their community events are directly inspired by the other type of kids — the human variety. Stephanie Marble, the events coordinator and membership director, said she's taken inspiration from the birthday parties she threw for her sons when they were little."One thing that we do that's really simple in Florida is we just put sprinklers out in the yard," Marble said, "because in the summertime when you're trying to get the kids to do something, get out of the house and stop complaining, you just turn the sprinkler on and throw them all outside in the front yard and they can play for hours with their little pools and their little sprinklers. And so we do that once or twice a year at Dog Bar."She offers party packages, Santa for holiday photos, and an Easter egg hunt for dogs. Santa Steve, in particular, is a big hit — his photos with dogs frequently end up in their owner's digital Christmas cards. He has almost 200 sittings with dogs every year, broken up across two days.The obsession with canines is shaping our built environments, from bars to apartments to your favorite coffee shop. Our urban infrastructure and lifestyles are increasingly designed around pet ownership. Call it the invasion of the dogs.<h2 id="e6e1611e-a9f7-4ff4-b264-e769292d445a">Everyone got dogs</h2>In Washington, DC, a single-story laundromat and parking lot just off Logan Circle is being transformed into a 6,000-square-foot "dog-friendly garden" called Dog Daze. The turf and tree-dotted venue will feature vendors serving coffee, beer, pizza, smoothies, and acai bowls. The idea is to create a place where both people and dogs want to be regulars."You can go to a dog park, and you can sit down for a quick amount of time, but it's really more of a check-the-box activity versus actually somewhere you want to stay and hang out," said Dog Daze managing partner Kyle Cissel. "We wanted to make sure that it was somewhere they felt at home, they're willing to spend time, and they would actually stay for longer periods of time and make it part of their daily, weekly, and monthly schedule."Over the last few decades, the percentage of households with kids <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-share-of-childless-adults-in-u-s-dont-expect-to-ever-have-children/">has plummeted</a>, while the share that owns a pet has ticked up. The percentage of homebuyers with a child under 18 living with them has fallen by nearly half since the 1980s, according to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nar.realtor/blogs/economists-outlook/a-stunning-stat-for-international-cat-day-there-are-more-american-households-with-pets-than-children">a NAR analysis</a> of US Census data. At the same time, the share of households with pets has grown <a target="_blank" href="https://americanpetproducts.org/industry-trends-and-stats#:~:text=2024%20APPA%20National%20Pet%20Owners,type%20and%20by%20generational%20segment.">from 56% in 1988 to 66% today</a>. And during the pandemic alone, over <a target="_blank" href="https://www.aspcapro.org/resource/new-aspca-survey-vast-majority-dogs-and-cats-acquired-during-pandemic-still-their-homes">23 million US households</a> welcomed dogs into their homes."We see dogs all the time where people are like, 'Yeah, this is my covid baby. I never liked dogs before, but I got one, and now it's my favorite thing in the world,'" said Kulp, of Wagbar.That dog boom coincided with a few other key trends: Americans were <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/modern-loneliness">feeling lonely</a>, they couldn't afford to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rising-cost-dating-millennials-gen-z-soaring-cost-love-apps-2024-8">sink more money into dating</a>, and larger homes with yards were financially out of reach.Nearly one in five homebuyers factor pets into their housing and neighborhood choice, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nar.realtor/blogs/economists-outlook/a-stunning-stat-for-international-cat-day-there-are-more-american-households-with-pets-than-children">according to data</a> from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). That's up from 15% in 2018. Among unmarried couples, the number jumps to 29%. A third of those who consider their pets needs when choosing a home say they want to be close to parks and recreation, NAR found. Inside the home, features like dog and cat doors, outdoor "catios" for felines, and fenced yards are all in demand.It pays for landlords and homebuilders to provide for their non-human customers. After all, the dog business is booming. Spending on US pet care alone <a target="_blank" href="https://americanpetproducts.org/news/u.s.-pet-industry-reaches-147-billion-in-sales-in-2023">has ballooned</a> from $53.3 billion in 2012 to $147 billion in 2023. Americans are also increasingly spending more time on their fuzzy friends; in 2003, according to the American Time Use Survey, Americans ages 25 to 34 spent just over four minutes a day on average on animal and pet care (that includes Americans without pets). By 2023, it had risen to nine minutes a day.And while playgrounds have traditionally been a social hub for parents and kids alike, dog amenities offer a new kind of community or third place. That might explain why dog-centric bars and restaurants — where dogs aren't just a patio feature but the main attraction — are popping up all over the country.Cissel thinks the future is bright for dog-friendly third spaces. He argued that a dog social club like Dog Daze is similar to a local gym or convenience store — an amenity neighbors would use multiple times a week, as opposed to other leisure amenities like movie theaters. "It's definitely something that I think you'll see in every neighborhood in the next 10 years," he said.Tara Downs, the owner of the seven-year-old Pub Dog in Colorado, said that she's noticed some economic shifts from her customers — three or four years ago, someone would come in and order a few beers and food for themselves, and food for their dogs. Now, they're seeing humans cut back on what they're spending on themselves but still getting their dogs the same treats."So they're still finding ways to make sure that they're giving their dogs everything that they want for them — no matter what it means for them in the human sense," she said.Take Fred Metzler. He was working a corporate job selling automatic doors when he decided he wanted a change. After adopting two puppies, he fell in love with a dog bar in his neighborhood. He and his former business partner decided to bring that concept down to St. Petersburg, Florida and ended up opening the Dog Bar in 2016.Metzler also noticed something else over the last decade or so: "The pet industry seemed to be kind of recession-proof. I mean, through '07, '08, when things were just terrible, and our business was way down in construction, companies like PetSmart never slowed down." Even in 2009, PetSmart's store sales growth slowed down to what the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304607104579212232612242394">Wall Street Journal</a> hailed as a "respectable" rate that rebounded and then some. After all, as Kulp, the co-founder and CEO of Wagbar, said: "People spend more money on their dogs sometimes than themselves."According to a survey from the American Pet Products Association of 10,156 pet owners from December 2023 to January 2024, 27% of dog owners said that they hold holiday or birthday parties for their dogs — up from just 14% in 2018.In some tangible ways, today's dog owners indeed see their pets as children. It does make sense: In a country where the cost of living is rising and raising a kid <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-kids-cost-raising-child-inflation-childcare-tax-exemptions-2024-1">costs $26,000 a year</a>, becoming a dog parent might feel more financially sound — and still help stave off loneliness."People are lonely, people take dogs as serious as children," Luke Silverman, the CEO and co-founder of Bark Social, a social club for dogs and humans with locations across the country, told BI. "All that together brings together these really unique opportunities to create a community."<h2 id="20b14fe7-56a0-4109-839f-fcf696ab8d55">What it means to have dogs everywhere</h2>Stephanie Chez, 26, first noticed more dogs around when she spent the summer of 2021 working at IKEA. Since then, she's seen them everywhere, from Sephora to Target to coffee shops.Chez loves dogs, but her fiance is allergic. Obviously, she said, some dogs are service animals and people with allergies will have to contend with that. And she enjoys seeing dogs around — but she's still adjusting to the new normal."Sometimes it's like, oh, did you have to bring your dog into this tiny little coffee shop?" she said.It's a question that Americans might be reckoning with more, especially as society becomes more dog-centric. According to the APPA survey, 15% of dog owners are bringing their dogs with them in the car daily to run errands or go about their daily routines — up from 10% in 2018. More dog owners are also bringing their dogs with them on vacation; around a third of them have brought their dogs on a two-plus night trip via car, and around a fifth did the same via plane.Other pet owners might be looking to do the same. Silverman said that someone once called and asked if they could bring a miniature horse in. His answer: If it was a service animal, yes. The horse ultimately never made an appearance.Unleashed Hounds and Hops in Minnesota has had one cat come in a backpack, according to founder Kevin Knutson. The cat mostly kept to itself; as long as it wasn't disrupting the dogs, it was okay for the not-dog to attend."It's the same thing with kids," Knutson said. "We do allow kids at our facility too, but we have a strict rule about they have to stand up within arms reach of an adult. This is not a playground for kids. This is a playground for dogs."Dog bars are also increasingly becoming a site of life's big moments. Multiple dog bars BI spoke with touted their singles events. Kulp said that couples have met, gotten engaged, and even gotten married at Wagbar.Some — like the Dog Bar in Florida — also use their spaces as a neutral ground for dog parents to meet adoptable dogs and see if their current pups get along with a potential new sibling. That neutral stomping ground has also made it a good space for broken-up dog couples to do custody hand-offs; Metzler has heard of one or two break-ups happening there, too."I think the individual was like, this was a good-energy place. My partner can only get so mad," he said.And as dog bars and dog-centric spaces have become a larger part of life for many Americans, some have also become a place for a send-off from life. Kulp said that a customer in his 80s found Wagbar, and came every day like clockwork. When he passed away, his family got in touch; they'd never been to the venue before, but they knew what a big impact it had on his final years. They decided to hold his memorial there — with dogs in attendance."That's just not something you see at very many places and businesses," Kulp said. To him, that's a testament to the power of dogs. "They just are a catalyst for that connection and conversation."

Invasion of the dogs: How surging canine ownership is reshaping cities and businesses

Cities may be crowded, dirty, loud, and expensive, but they've always offered one clear advantage over America's rural areas: more money.Workers in urban centers have traditionally raked in significantly more than their rural counterparts, a phenomenon known as the urban wage premium. For decades, both college-educated workers and those without college degrees reaped the rewards, even when factoring in the higher housing costs that come with city dwelling. Everyone benefited from the job opportunities and plumper paychecks that cities could provide.But the golden promise of cities is cracking. In the past decade and a half, a steep rise in housing costs has flipped the equation for lower-skilled workers. A study published last year in the Journal of Public Economics found that instead of enjoying an urban wage premium, non-college-educated workers now effectively pay a penalty for living in a city. Based purely on dollars and cents, it appears they might be better off moving someplace less crowded. While college-educated workers are doing better, they're still moving to cities at a slower clip than in decades past, a sign of big trouble for the places that once promised prosperity.In a <a target="_blank" href="https://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/TAWP-Veuger.pdf">recent essay</a> for the bipartisan Economic Innovation Group, the economist Stan Veuger, one of the study's coauthors, argued that the problem is simple: Cities aren't building enough housing for all the workers who want to live in them. Places like San Francisco and New York City have fallen victim to strict zoning laws and tedious permitting processes that make it incredibly difficult to build new housing. This leaves a growing population to scramble for fewer and fewer homes, bidding up the prices of what is available. Cities are supposed to offer better job opportunities and wages than smaller outposts, but they'll lose that edge if people can't afford a place to lay their heads. There's hope, though. Forward-thinking cities like Minneapolis, Nashville, and Austin offer proof that building more homes does — shockingly! — ease prices for residents. The steps they've taken could offer a playbook for leaders in other cities who want to avoid becoming the next San Francisco or Seattle.College grads may be better off working in cities for now, but there's no guarantee that will always be the case. And as more non-college-educated people get priced out of cities, everyone suffers: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/restaurants-america-eating-out-crisis-your-fault-labor-shortage-tipping-2024-2">Restaurants struggle</a> to find workers, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cities-fight-homelessness-nationwide-spike-chicago-new-york-seattle-philadelphia-2024-2">rates of homelessness rise</a>, and basic services go understaffed. Office jobs can't power downtowns all on their own. If cities stop working for noncollege workers, they may very well stop working for everybody."It's not necessary to have these inflated home prices," Veuger told me. "We're just making housing artificially expensive by restricting construction in the places where people want to work and want to be the most productive. And that affects everyone."When lots of workers and employers cluster together, they create a positive feedback loop that lifts everyone. People have better odds of landing a job in their desired field, while companies can pluck employees from a larger talent pool. This is why cities often turn into hubs for specific industries, like San Francisco and software companies or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/detroit-downtown-urban-reinvention-doom-loop-historic-buildings-gm-2024-4">Detroit and auto manufacturing</a>. Workers want to be where the jobs are, and the Apples and Fords want to be where the workers are, especially if those workers have useful skills. This is also why, as my colleague Aki Ito writes, big cities offer a kind of "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moving-away-big-city-bad-career-job-market-suburbs-2024-4">career insurance</a>." Working in an area with lots of jobs, she writes, "sets you up for success to land your next job — and the job after that."In many cases, city living also means bigger paychecks. Economists don't all agree on why the urban wage premium is a thing, but there's plenty of evidence that it exists: Workers who live in big cities like Chicago or Seattle tend to earn much more — without factoring in expenses — than similar workers who live in smaller places. The Harvard economist Ed Glaeser told me that workers who move to cities not only get a raise but often see their wages increase at a faster rate in the future. The problem for lower-skilled workers, though, is that this urban wage premium is shrinking. One leading theory, promoted by the MIT economist David Autor, is that the job market has changed in ways that hurt noncollege workers, with well-paying clerical or admin jobs shifting overseas or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/economist-ai-prediction-rebuild-middle-class-worst-case-scenario-death-2023-5">giving way to software</a>. The urban wage premium hasn't disappeared for these workers — in 2019, workers with only a high-school diploma or less earned about 10% more by living in dense areas than they would have by living in rural areas. But that's not nearly as strong as it was back in 1970, when the premium was about 35%. On the flip side, white-collar workers in 2019 still earned about 50% more by living in the biggest cities compared with the most rural areas. Concrete jungles offer the kinds of jobs that smaller cities or towns simply don't have, and highly educated workers still benefit from living where these opportunities are plentiful (especially since <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/remote-wfh-jobs-application-odds-tech-market-rto-2023-9?utm_source=linkedin&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=insider-author-post">fully remote jobs are a lot harder to come by</a> these days).The problem with these figures, though, is that people can't just stash away their entire paychecks. While city dwellers may earn more, the cost of living in these areas is also higher. So Veuger and his coauthors, Philip Hoxie and Daniel Shoag, went a step further by factoring in the most important of these costs: housing. They wanted to see if the big-city bargain still worked as promised — if higher wages were enough to justify the steep sums city workers were shelling out each month to keep a roof over their heads. They found that back in 1970, wages (minus housing costs) for all kinds of workers were about 13% greater in high-density places than they were in low-density places. But that's not the whole story. The fortunes of college-educated and noncollege workers diverged significantly; by 2000, noncollege workers basically netted the same amount in high- and low-density places. Rising housing costs had erased their urban wage premium. And by 2019, these workers appeared to be better off moving out of the city. There are benefits of living in cities that aren't captured in this data, to be sure. Poorer residents, for example, have a better chance of getting around without a car in a city than in a suburb or rural area, saving them money. The plethora of job opportunities — that "career insurance" — may provide the peace of mind that smaller places don't. Or they may see more upside in their wages, a better chance of making more money in the future. At the end of the day, though, everyone would be better off paying less for housing. And the shift for noncollege grads isn't bad for just those individuals. Companies want to be in highly productive places with lots of workers, but the implication of these findings is that low-skilled workers end up leaving for less productive locales. And cities need all kinds of workers, not just lawyers and software engineers, to function. They also <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moving-to-new-york-city-nyc-weather-expensive-jersey-city-2024-1">risk losing population</a>: New York City, for instance, had a net loss of 160,000 residents from domestic outmigration from mid-2022 to mid-2023. Even the highest-skilled workers are moving to bigger cities less frequently, implying that they're deterred by expensive housing — even if they might earn more by relocating there."There will always be people who are saying, 'Look, I don't want to pay these high home prices,'" Veuger told me. "At the margins, there are people who are not moving to the places where they would be most productive."The root causes of this mess are no secret. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-priced-out-of-cities-into-suburbs-housing-crisis-2024-1">Cities have been underbuilding</a> for decades, crimping housing production via <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/national-zoning-map-home-prices-down-real-estate-new-houses-2024-2">strict zoning rules</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/america-build-infrastructure-transportation-housing-regulation-environment-2023-11">lengthy review processes</a> that make new construction either more expensive or impossible. Concerned neighbors turn out in droves to public hearings where they shout down plans for new apartments and condos, complaining about traffic, noise, or a change in the "neighborhood character." Elected officials also play a huge role in turning down projects or slow-walking rule changes that might enable taller structures on limited available land."This sort of caution on the part of local governments, and delegating a lot of their power to existing residents, is kind of the heart of the problem," Jenny Schuetz, a housing-policy expert at the Brookings Institution, told me.Homebuilders have also been more cautious since the global financial crisis, building at roughly half the rate of the prior three decades. That's especially <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-house-home-real-estate-mortgage-rates-rent-debt-boomers-2022-9">bad news for millennials</a>, who represent the largest living generation and are now in the thick of their prime homebuying years. Cities have also, in many cases, run out of the "easy" land to develop on the periphery of downtowns since workers are willing to commute only so far. The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/affordable-home-house-prices-americans-danger-death-climate-change-2024-8">alternative to urban sprawl</a> is infill development, or filling in the spaces between existing buildings. But that's a lot <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/austin-housing-market-real-estate-prices-rent-multi-unit-adus-2024-4">harder and more expensive to do</a>, so cities see less new construction than they did in their heydays.Coastal cities like Seattle, Portland, Boston, and New York are "very difficult places to build," Schuetz told me. The middle of the country, particularly the Sun Belt in the lower half of the US, has traditionally been more permissive of growth — think of places like Charlotte, North Carolina; Atlanta; and Phoenix. But again, those places also risk running out of easy development parcels. So how can cities get their mojo back? Some of it comes down to patience: In the past few years, pro-growth <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/yimbys-winning-lower-house-prices-rents-build-more-homes-neighborhoods-2023-9">yes-in-my-backyard activists have scored significant legislative wins</a> to loosen up local zoning laws and make it possible to build bigger and taller in places that previously allowed only single-family homes. But it'll take some time — three to five years, Schuetz told me — to start seeing the effects of any new statewide rules. Ultimately, these kinds of reforms leave their mark on the housing supply over decades, not overnight."We've been underbuilding for maybe about four or five decades in high-productivity places," Schuetz said. "It's going to take a long time before we start building enough to catch up."Austin, Nashville, and Minneapolis offer examples of how pro-growth local leaders can spur more building to keep prices in check. Schuetz said Austin had encouraged a "ton of vertical construction downtown" while also trying to make it easier to do infill development in lower-density residential neighborhoods. Nashville is a similar story. Minneapolis has made changes to zoning laws to encourage apartments around light-rail stations. All three are pursuing changes to their building codes that would <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/single-stair-apartments-condos-housing-crisis-solution-rent-home-prices-2024-7">allow single-stair apartment buildings to stretch higher than three stories</a>, a seemingly small change that could have huge ripple effects.Every city has a vested interest in making sure workers of all kinds can live there. Affordable housing is good for both individual workers and huge corporations — just look at the efforts of companies like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/company-towns-facebook-google-tesla-elon-musk-housing-real-estate-2023-12">Google, Meta, and Disney to develop more homes</a> in places where they have a ton of employees. If city leaders don't heed the call to build more housing, they risk throwing away their built-in advantage."At the end of the day, if your elected leaders want to make housing happen, they will figure out ways to make it work," Schuetz told me. "And if your elected leaders don't want to add housing, they will figure out ways to stop it."<a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/james-rodriguez">James Rodriguez</a> is a senior reporter on Business Insider's Discourse team.

America's big cities are losing their one big advantage

<keyword id="19896956" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Swiggy" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Swiggy" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Swiggy">Swiggy</keyword>’s stock market debut has been awaited for a long time and recent reports suggest that the Bengaluru-based company is expected to raise more than USD 1 billion through its IPO. Reports also suggest that the company might soon file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the <keyword id="19901204" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Securities-and-Exchange-Board-of-India" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Securities and Exchange Board of India" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Securities and Exchange Board of India">Securities and Exchange Board of India</keyword> (Sebi), potentially launching its IPO as early as this week. Meanwhile, Swiggy has been busy implementing several notable changes across its operations, probably to gear up for its IPO. From changing leadership to expanding Instamart’s reach, let us take a look some changes implemented by Swiggy in the last few months. <h2>Leadership overhaul </h2> One of the most significant shifts has been at <keyword id="19939135" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Swiggy-Instamart" source="keywords">Swiggy Instamart</keyword>, the company's quick commerce arm. Swiggy appointed <keyword id="22954620" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Amitesh-Jha" source="keywords">Amitesh Jha</keyword>, a seasoned executive from Flipkart, as the new CEO of Instamart last month. This move marks the third leadership change for Instamart in just 18 months. As part of this transition, Phani Kishan, the outgoing head of Instamart, was announced to take on a broader role within Swiggy, overseeing the Central Growth unit and working closely with co-founder Sriharsha Majety on new initiatives. <h2>Expanding Instamart’s reach </h2> Swiggy Instamart has also been on an expansion spree, recently launching in 11 new cities across India, including Rajkot, Thrissur, and Kanpur. This expansion marks a strategic push into Tier 2 and 3 cities, broadening its customer base beyond metropolitan areas. The platform, which offers delivery of daily essentials in just 10 minutes, also said in a press release that it has seen encouraging results in these new locations. In Mangalore, for example, a new store achieved 1,000 orders in a single day faster than many larger cities. This localised approach, featuring partnerships with regional vendors, has enhanced Instamart’s appeal and efficiency in serving diverse customer needs. "Users across India already recognise the convenience Swiggy provides," Amitesh Jha said in a press release and added, "The enthusiastic demand from smaller towns and cities has been incredibly encouraging. Our expansion into these new locations marks a significant milestone, allowing even more people to experience the ease of having thousands of products—from everyday essentials to electronics and toys—delivered in just 10 minutes from both national and local brands." <h2>Changes in management </h2> Swiggy has also made notable changes in its management team recently. Himavant Srikrishna Kurnala, previously with Reliance Retail’s JioMart, was appointed as the head of product for Instamart earlier this year. His appointment is part of a broader strategy to strengthen the team ahead of the IPO. Other key hires include Mayank Rajvaidya, who has been named vice president of fruits and vegetables, and Manu Sasidharan, who joined as associate vice president of the FMCG category. These additions come in the wake of several high-profile departures from the company, signalling a recalibration of Swiggy’s leadership structure. <h2>Policy changes for restaurant partners </h2> Swiggy’s founder recently revealed that the decade-old startup partners with over 3 lakh restaurants today. And thus, when a policy change decision was announced that impacted restaurant partners directly, it made headlines. In a move to standardise its service fees, Swiggy extended its gross value service fee policy to restaurants in non-metro areas. This change, effective from August 14, involves charging a service fee on the gross value of orders, including GST and packaging fees. This adjustment was expected to lead to an increased commission for restaurant partners in smaller towns and cities. The policy shift aligns with the fees already applicable to restaurants in larger urban areas and reflects Swiggy’s efforts to streamline its revenue model. <h2>Converting into a public limited company </h2> To facilitate its upcoming IPO, Swiggy also transitioned from a private limited company to a public limited company. Earlier this year, Swiggy updated its name to <keyword id="23191546" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="swiggy-limited" source="keywords">Swiggy Limited</keyword>, removing the term 'Private' to better align with its public offering aspirations. This strategic move was intended to prepare the company for public investment and enhance its market presence. As Swiggy readies itself for its IPO, these changes underscore the company's commitment to growth, innovation, and adaptability. The upcoming listing marks a significant milestone in Swiggy’s journey, reflecting its ongoing evolution and strategic realignment in the competitive food delivery landscape.

Swiggy is preparing for its IPO soon: A look at some recent changes in the company

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Urban Revivo has been touted as a rival to Zara in Asia and is looking to expand to the West.</li><li>I tried on clothes at both shops, but my shopping experience at Urban Revivo was better.</li></ul>Urban Revivo is quickly emerging as a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-24/chinese-zara-rival-urban-revivo-is-said-to-weigh-hong-kong-ipo">rival to Zara</a> in the Asian fashion market, with competitive prices, similar store aesthetics, and a large selection of clothing items.The fast-fashion brand, founded in 2006, has <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://urbanrevivo.sg/pages/about-us#:~:text=The%20brand%20has%20more%20than,United%20States%2C%20Europe%20and%20more">more than 300 outlets</a> in mainland China and Southeast Asia.But it now plans to expand its business to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/urban-revivo-us-uk-expand-fast-fashion-nyc-london-fmg-2024-7">cities like New York and London.</a>Meanwhile, Urban Revivo's competition — the Spanish fast-fashion powerhouse Zara — is <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2023/dec/12/zara-pulls-uk-ad-campaign-images-gaza">weighed down</a> by <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.newsweek.com/zara-boycott-controversial-ad-bodies-sheets-israel-hamas-1851186">boycotts over the Israel-Gaza war</a>, impacting its reputation.I checked out the two brands' outlets in Singapore's Jewel Changi Airport and put together basic outfits in each store. Here's my review.<h2 id="baca7690-c343-4a6f-8321-42ad80b9f1ee">Urban Revivo's fits felt way better than Zara's</h2><div type="image" title="(Composite image) The author trying out basics from Zara and Urban Revivo." height="768" width="1024" msid="112163879" hostid="261" sizebytes="54848"></div>I wear US size 6, but I found it difficult to find pieces that fit me properly in Zara.I tried on four basic white tops, but some were too loose around the armholes, while others were too tight around the waist.I tried on a couple of pairs of jeans, too, but was again faced with the same issue.<div type="image" title="The outfit that the author picked out at Zara, consisting of a pair of jeans, a white tank, a beige cardigan and a handbag." height="960" width="1280" msid="112163870" hostid="261" sizebytes="163576"></div>I finally settled on a no-frills white tank ($18.50), a beige knit cardigan ($49), and the straight-leg jeans ($45.90). I added a basic white handbag ($56.60), bringing the total to $170.In contrast, the first thing I noticed about Urban Revivo's offerings was the quality of the pieces. They felt sturdier than the clothes at Zara. The first tank top I put on fit me like a glove, as did the first pair of jeans I tried.<div type="image" title="The outfit that the author picked out at Urban Revivo, consisting of a pair of jeans, a white tank, a black cardigan and a handbag." height="1280" width="960" msid="112163873" hostid="261" sizebytes="75446"></div>My picks included a black-outlined white tank top ($10), a cropped black cardigan ($41.60), a pair of dark wash jeans ($41.60), and a sparkly black handbag ($57.90), for a total of $151.10.However, one drawback for Urban Revivo was the range of sizes available in the store. The largest jeans size I saw was a US size 8, whereas, in Zara, the range went up to size 14.As the name suggests, Urban Revivo's pieces were more street-style than Zara's. Most pieces had a neutral color scheme compared to Zara's more colorful offerings.<h2 id="373b5067-cb9a-40b6-a406-858acacfd69c">The Urban Revivo store experience rivals Zara</h2>The two stores have similar aesthetics, with clean white interiors.Zara's store was largely open concept — a rectangular-shaped floor plan with most products hugging the walls.<div type="image" title="(Composite image) Zara's storefront in Singapore's Jewel, and a picture of its interior." height="768" width="1024" msid="112163880" hostid="261" sizebytes="62830"></div>It was also very brightly lit. The store design worked fine, but it wasn't anything spectacular.In contrast, Urban Revivo felt like it had intentionally curated its space with a flow in mind. The products were displayed in aisles, prompting shoppers to follow a proposed pathway.The store also had arches, adding visual interest to the outlet's design. <div type="image" title="Urban Revivo's interior." height="813" width="1083" msid="112163865" hostid="261" sizebytes="126878"></div>Unlike Zara's bright lights, Urban Revivo was lit more dimly, creating a more relaxed environment.Mário Braz de Matos, the cofounder of Flying Fish Lab, a branding consultancy agency in Singapore, told BI that Urban Revivo invests "far more than any other fast fashion brand in the shopping experience," something other brands like Zara, H&amp;M and Uniqlo are focusing less on.<h2 id="e4618bb1-1337-41b5-8074-989376f78d2a">But Zara doesn't have to worry just yet, experts say</h2>While I thought that Urban Revivo was a strong alternative to Zara, experts told BI it doesn't pose a major threat yet. For one, they say the two brands cater to different target demographics."The UR (Urban Revivo) styles are mostly cute and youthful, while Zara offers more sophisticated clothing, most likely for working," said Marcie Cooperman, a professor from the fashion marketing department of Parsons School of Design.Gregory Angel, an assistant professor of fashion at Parsons, echoed Cooperman's sentiments."Urban Revivo has a variety of products, but there is a 'sophomoric' feel to it," Angel said.And while one might think the Gaza boycott would have people searching for a Zara alternative, the experts are skeptical that political activism will have a lasting impact on the Spanish brand's business."Customers do not have the courage of their convictions for very long," Cooperman said."If they even have a conviction to boycott a brand, they will forget about it as soon as they see something cute on its website," she added.They also say that it's too early to determine if Urban Revivo will be a true threat to Zara."Fighting the incumbents is always an uphill battle," Braz de Matos of Flying Fish Lab said."For now, Urban Revivo is too small outside China to be felt as a threat to Zara. They can compete with Zara in every market where they are present but may not be seen as a menace," he added.Angel said: "Will it be a competitor or a little sister? The market has yet to find out."Richard Tang, CEO of international business at Fashion Momentum Group, Urban Revivo's parent company, said that his firm did identify Zara as a primary competitor. Tang added that while both companies have a broad consumer base, Urban Revivo is gunning for customers who are "quality-driven elites, white-collar professionals, and the new generation of fashion pioneers.""Urban Revivo has evolved, particularly with its global expansion, into its own distinct market position, despite price and product range similarities to Zara," Tang told Business Insider."This strategy is not only about competing with Zara but also about creating a distinct brand image and influence in the foreign market," Tang said. Representatives for Zara did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

I shopped at Urban Revivo, Asia's answer to Zara. I'm a convert, but experts say Zara has nothing to worry about — yet.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Commercial real-estate <keyword id="6374217" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="landlords" source="Orion">landlords</keyword> are giving up on once trophy <keyword id="12161" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="san-francisco" source="Orion">San Francisco</keyword> properties.</li><li>A lack of hope among real-estate owners stems from office vacancies, but crime is also a factor.</li></ul>Downtown San Francisco's fall from grace is unfolding quickly. Landlords large and small are waving the white flag over the increasing pressures facing the city, stemming in part from the downsizing of some of the <keyword id="6507481" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="largest" source="Orion">largest</keyword> employers and the inertia of remote work. In May, <a href="https://www.placer.ai/blog/placer-ai-office-index-may-2023-recap" target="_blank">foot traffic to San Francisco offices was down nearly 60%</a> compared to 2019 — the largest deficit of the major <keyword id="18037780" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="us-urban" source="Orion">US urban</keyword> centers tracked by Placer.ai, and it shows. The city's 18 million square feet of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-chronicle-map-shows-vacant-office-buildings-downtown-2023-5">empty office space is so vast that it could house 92,000 people, according to the San Francisco Chronicle</a>. Since April, the office tower at 350 California Street sold for an alarming 75% less than its estimated value before the pandemic. The owner of the flagship Hilton San Francisco Union Square and the nearby Parc 55 <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-defaults-office-buildings-park-hotels-725-million-loan-2023-6">handed the keys to its creditors</a> rather than try to make payments on a $725 million loan. Days later, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and coowner Brookfield <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-westfield-mall-goes-bust-2023-6">gave the San Francisco City Centre back to their lenders</a> after the exit of retailers left the mall just over <a href="https://abc7news.com/westfield-mall-san-francisco-sf-union-square-nordstrom-closure/13373746/" target="_blank">half occupied</a>. The capitulation of some of real estate's most sophisticated players after tech job cuts and a growing permanence of remote work is a dark omen for the city's downtown. Real-estate defaults have been long expected, but not all at once: Many investors thought they'd trickle in as owners tap options to extend the maturities of their loans, which could kick their losses down the road. What's more troublesome, the loss of workers, the business travelers they attracted, and the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/san-franciscos-union-square-store-closures-since-2020-2023-5">stores where they shopped</a> is creating a vicious cycle that won't be disrupted any time soon, said Manus Clancy, a senior managing director at Trepp, which tracks corporate and commercial real-estate debt. "San Francisco is in a sinkhole that's growing bigger by the day," Clancy, who is based in New York, told Insider. "Store closings, crime, and other quality-of-life issues are leading to an epidemic of negative headlines that are keeping tourists and workers away. It will probably get worse before it gets better." A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-layoffs-google-microsoft-salesforce-amazon-cut-thousands-employees-2023-1">wave of downsizing by big tech companies</a> including Snap, Meta, and Salesforce helped inflate the city's office vacancy rate to nearly 30% last quarter, up from less than 5% three years earlier, according to CBRE. The workers who are still employed have resisted their long commutes, which are common in the city that sits on a peninsula, Placer.ai data show. Last quarter, just 36% of workers going to San Francisco offices were making commutes of more than 5 miles, the smallest percentage of long commuters making their way back to cubicles in Boston, Chicago, Houston, and New York, the data shows. But for workers living closer to their San Francisco offices, the percentage making a daily commute is relatively high. <h2>The good side of vacancies: room for startups</h2>Some of those workers are likely to belong to the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-generative-ai-san-francisco-hayes-silicon-cerebral-valley-2023-1">explosion of generative-AI startups in San Francisco</a>, with some 22% of them concentrated in the area. The founders of Krea, which creates models for high-grade image generation and asset-management services, last year packed their bags in Miami and headed to San Francisco's Hayes Valley neighborhood, which isn't far from Union Square and is turning into a haven for companies like theirs. But with startups being small by nature, they're not offsetting the population drain. The flight from the city has reduced the population by more than 65,000 people from April 2020 to July 2022, according to the Census Bureau. With housing demand down, <a href="https://www.redfin.com/city/17151/CA/San-Francisco/housing-market" target="_blank">median home prices inflated during the pandemic have dropped nearly 18%</a> in the year through April, nearly triple the declines in Manhattan. As for rentals, the landlord Equity Residential has had "limited pricing power" in the downtown market and is making concessions to attract tenants, the company's chief operating officer said on an earnings call in April. <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=ee913ecfb25f7dbfb9837fa9d5f4f6b6bd22ab13aafa5fbad7af4278384dfa6a&amp;postID=6489d2e49c8bef13c30f3735&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fjeffberg32%2F" target="_blank">Jeff Berg, a real-estate investor</a> who had been buying and renting out small apartment buildings since 2002, said he's given up on the city, citing <a href="https://bornstein.law/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/SFRentRegistryGuide.pdf" target="_blank">burdensome regulation</a>. "I have unloaded all of my San Francisco rental properties in the past year and just moved my family out for good," Berg told Insider via LinkedIn. "After 23 years, we're moving on with our lives. Whatever is going on in San Francisco, we are not interested in being part of that any longer." <h2>Fear of crime taints the city</h2>Crime, or the fear of it, often creeps into conversations about San Francisco, too. Thomas Baltimore, the CEO of Park Hotels &amp; Resorts, which gave up the Union Square hotels last week, said in a statement that "street conditions" were adding to the burden of the properties, in addition to record-high office vacancies. Some neighborhoods — including the <a href="https://www.sanfranciscodowntown.com/Tenderloin/Map" target="_blank">Tenderloin District</a>, which is adjacent to Union Square and the Westfield Mall — have seen more homicides this year, though citywide, <a href="https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-crime-rate-bob-lee-sf-violent-map/13091172/" target="_blank">San Francisco's murder rate is near the bottom of major cities</a>, according to ABC 7. Crime hasn't seemed to stop tourists, with their numbers climbing 29% last year to 21.9 million and likely to reach 23.9 million this year, according to the <a href="https://www.sftravel.com/media/press-release/san-francisco-travel-association-announces-2022-results-2023-forecast" target="_blank">San Francisco Travel Association</a>. Nonetheless, signs of crime in San Francisco are pervasive. The number of assault cases and robberies is up, even as rapes have declined, <a href="https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-crime-rate-bob-lee-sf-violent-map/13091172/" target="_blank">ABC 7 recently found</a>. And social-media posts, including one from Elon Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1643545966811975680" target="_blank">decrying "horrific" violent crime</a> after the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cash-app-bob-lee-dated-suspect-nima-momeni-ex-2023-5">stabbing death of the tech executive Bob Lee</a> in April, magnify the fear. A rash of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/30/us/san-francisco-whole-foods-crime-economy.html" target="_blank">crimes became so pervasive at a Whole Foods market</a> in the Mid-Market district — also near Union Square — that managers simply closed the location in April after opening last year. According to The New York Times, 568 emergency calls originated from the store over a 13-month period, many of them about violence and drug use. One commercial real-estate broker who declined to be named told Insider that on a recent family trip to the city, his tour guide said that the Tenderloin had become so sketchy that policemen were paid more to walk the beat. People experiencing homelessness have long congregated in the Tenderloin neighborhood, while the number of unhoused people across the Bay Area has ballooned 35% since 2019 to 38,000, <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-sector/our-insights/the-ongoing-crisis-of-homelessness-in-the-bay-area-whats-working-whats-not" target="_blank">McKinsey &amp; Co. found.</a> Frank Scavone, a veteran commercial real-estate-debt investor who is now managing partner of Third Point Real Estate Strategies, was reflective about why workers weren't coming back but <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/third-point-real-estate-manager-preps-for-distressed-office-debt-2023-6">more certain of the outcome — falling building values.</a> "I ask, what's the driver" of the San Francisco office vacancies, Scavone told Insider. "Is it that no one feels safe in downtown San Francisco? Is it because the ground-level merchants and the amenities associated with being downtown have evaporated because of crime?" He continued: "Is it because downtown San Francisco is somewhat of a difficult commute from suburbs in Marin County or the East Bay?" "Collectively these issues set the stage for workers saying, 'We don't want to be there because we don't feel safe, or it's no longer an enjoyable place to work, or because we feel we're entitled to a different workweek design,'" he said.

Empty offices, abandoned malls, concerns over crime: Why San Francisco, the Golden City, is losing its luster

Tucked beneath a 48-story San Francisco skyscraper, at the far end of the parking lot on the first subbasement level, is a door with a keypad lock. An unimposing sign reads "Utility Meter Room." Behind the door is a tangled clot of pipes: yellow, blue, and orange, each one as wide as a 100-pound barbell plate. The pipes — along with thousands more just like them, winding their way under more than 600 American cities, campuses, hospitals, and airports — are more than a blast from our industrial past. They're a steampunk vision of the future.I've come to 345 California Center, a postmodern hexagon that towers over San Francisco's financial district, to get a look at the hottest new idea for how to break the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-doom-loop-fix-american-city-housing-transit-2023-7">urban doom loop</a> — the post-pandemic, remote-work apocalypse that is hollowing out America's cities. And when I say "hottest," I don't mean it metaphorically. It's like a sauna down here. Because the Utility Meter Room doesn't run on a self-contained, industrial-sized boiler, like most big buildings. Instead, it's drawing a feed of blistering, high-pressure, vaporized water from a century-old loop of steam pipes that runs beneath the city's streets. The steam loops are a relic of the 19th century, as forgotten as the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/41/steenson.php">pneumatic tubes</a> that used to shoot mail all over American cities. But unlike the pneumatic tubes, the steam loops are still there — and they can provide enough heat to keep a building like 345 California Center nice and toasty, even on the coldest of days.The steam loops are part of an antiquated system known as "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/recycling-waste-heat-abundant-sustainable-energy-source-2023-7">district energy</a>." It was basically a shared-services model: a utility would make steam at a central location and then pipe it out to every building in the city. Nobody had to provide their own heat — it was way more convenient, and cheaper, to get it from a common source. But then cities began to abandon district energy. Buildings, businesses, and homes started making their own hot water in boilers fueled by coal, then oil, then natural gas. Sometimes it was cheaper, and maybe it was more convenient. But it also set the planet on fire. More heating meant more greenhouse gases, and more <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-global-warming-extreme-heat-inflation-global-economy-impact-2024-3">global warming</a>. Which brings me back to our steampunk future. Today, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-brag-green-but-offices-have-long-way-to-go-2022-4">cities are starting to price the looming climate catastrophe</a> into their energy costs. Starting this year, commercial buildings in New York City will be slapped with steep fines if they're emitting too much carbon. Boston and Washington have similar "decarbonization" laws in place, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.kqed.org/science/1992085/san-francisco-will-continue-enforcing-gas-ban-in-new-buildings-despite-berkeleys-repeal-of-similar-rules">San Francisco isn't allowing natural gas</a> in any new construction. That means businesses need to find a cleaner, cheaper source of heat. And those ancient steam loops beneath the streets are starting to seem like a ready-made solution."The real benefit of a district-energy system, especially in cities, is the distribution system," says Kevin Hagerty, the CEO of Vicinity Energy. "If a city wants to decarbonize, and they have a district-energy system, it's much easier. They don't have to change things on a building-by-building basis."<div type="image" title="An orange upright pipe vents steam into the night sky in front of a building with stone arches and gaslamp-type lights, and parked cars on an urban street" height="2946" width="3927" msid="110505068" hostid="261"></div>In July, Vicinity is installing what will be the nation's first zero-carbon urban steam loop. Drawing electricity from the increasingly decarbonized New England grid, powered by solar and offshore wind, the utility will use the energy to boil water and then deliver steam directly to Boston office buildings and restaurants and storefronts through the city's antiquated maze of pipes. It's a remnant of the Industrial Revolution being used to forestall a lethal climate evolution.District energy could also be a godsend to businesses struggling to survive the current landscape of empty offices and boarded-up shops. By taking steam right out of the street beneath them, commercial landlords can pay less for their utilities and avoid carbon fines — which means they can lower their rents and hold on to tenants who might otherwise bail. District-energy loops also eliminate the need for boilers and other cumbersome building infrastructure, freeing up space for tenant-grabbing amenities like gyms, roof-decks, and golf simulators. (Yep. That's a real thing.)The other choice? Spend thousands to upgrade a building's energy systems — cash that landlords don't have on hand, and an expense they can't pass along to tenants. "If you're a building owner, district energy allows you to pay a small premium on your service to get that type of steam," says Blake Ellis, a principal at the engineering firm Burns &amp; McDonnell. "Then you don't have that big capital outlay you probably don't want right now." Especially if, as in many downtowns, your building is only 70% occupied.About a third of the cost of running a commercial building is energy. And according to one major study, a building as energy-efficient as 345 California Center can charge 20% more for rent than a comparable, inefficient building. Every dollar saved in energy costs, the study found, equates to 3.5% higher rent. And it's a lot easier to be energy efficient if all you have to do is plug into a carbon-free steam loop. "This building is 40 years old," Tim Danz, the chief engineer for 345 Cal, tells me. "But we're using the latest technology to manage our energy." He points to the gnarl of pipes that shoots the steam up to the 36th floor, where it's used to cook a water supply large enough to heat the entire building. Having a boiler, Danz explains, "would be another system we would have to provide care and feeding for." District energy, by contrast, is just there for the taking, right beneath our feet.The most convincing evidence that steam loops make economic sense comes from who's getting into the district-energy game. Vicinity, the nation's biggest clean-steam provider, is owned by Antin Infrastructure Partners, a leading private-equity firm. Cordia, an energy provider operating in 10 cities, is partially owned by the private-equity giant KKR. Everyone needs heat — which makes it a highly bankable investment. "These private-equity funds come in and find areas where they can put capital into a business and get a nice steady rate of return," Hagerty says. "Decarbonizing takes capital, and private equity is a great source of capital." In the long run, of course, private equity may decide to do what it always does and load up these new energy businesses with massive amounts of debt before dismantling them for parts. But for now, the big money sees big profits to be made from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/america-build-infrastructure-transportation-housing-regulation-environment-2023-11">America's forgotten infrastructure</a>. Outside of places like airports and college campuses, the idea of district energy fell out of favor long ago. We let the systems go fallow — but fortunately, all the accumulated infrastructure we buried on top of the old steam loops made it impossible to dig their little-used pipes out of the ground. So the whole thing was still down there, waiting, when COVID drove millions of city dwellers to head for the countryside. Now, by drawing heat from their old steam loops, America's cities have an opportunity to jump-start all the downtown commerce that was crippled by the pandemic. And it could happen all over the place! Dozens and dozens of cities have steam loops they can use, from New York and Chicago to Miami to San Diego and Portland and Milwaukee. What's more, lots of companies these days are looking for greener buildings, both to save money and to burnish their environmental bona fides. From AI startups to biotech companies, steampunk-heated buildings could become the cool new place to be. "Forward-minded companies want to be in a building that doesn't have any on-site fossil-fuel combustion," says Costa Samaras, the director of the Scott Institute for Energy and Innovation at Carnegie Mellon. "The best, greenest buildings will be net-zero buildings. They'll be considered a premium asset. The challenge is, are we going to get enough premium assets in time?" Meaning: Can we use steam loops to fix the urban doom loop before the climate doom loop dooms us all?<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/adam-rogers">Adam Rogers</a> is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

The steampunk technology that could save America's cities

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Saudi Arabia wants The Line to be a high-tech "eco-city."</li><li>Officials say the city will have no cars or emissions and run on 100% renewable energy.</li></ul>Neom's flagship city, known as The Line, has grand plans to be a futuristic "eco-city."Officials say the linear city will be built between two giant mirrored skyscrapers, each 1640 feet high and 656 feet apart, and be free of roads, cars, and emissions.While plans for The Line have <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabia-neom-the-line-urban-design-linear-pros-cons-2024-6">baffled architects and designers</a>, Saudi has continually touted the project as one of the most sustainable in the world.It's part of Saudi ruler <a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabia-mohammed-bin-salman-power-broker-mbs-crown-prince-2023-12">Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 plan to reorient the country's economy away from fossil fuels, which are the source of its wealth,</a> toward innovation, technology, and tourism.Even the unusual materials used for The Line aim to foster a sense of coexistence with the natural world."With a mirrored facade, wherever you are looking you will see the land behind you, which will be a natural environment. It will blend in perfectly with the surrounding environment. The Line becomes part of its environment, at one with nature," Giles Pendleton, Neom's chief operating officer, said in a press release.But recent reports have raised questions about how sustainable the city really is.A May report from The Wall Street Journal said that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-neom-line-construction-99b3f54f">Neom officials</a> were recently seeking out contractors to build two gas power plants to power the region until greener energy could be sourced.In the same month, Neom also axed a $1.5 billion project to build a water desalination plant for the city that ran on 100% renewable energy. The exact reason for the cancellation is still unclear.Experts told Business Insider that while The Line's eco ambitions were visionary, issues with its construction and design could undermine some of the Kingdom's sustainability goals.<h2 id="d2b204c4-1f3e-4eaa-be62-88f676a0a20f">Harmful design</h2>Initial designs for The Line have already faced criticism about their potential<a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neom-the-line-mirrored-tower-birds-kill-saudi-arabia-2024-5"> impact on wildlife</a> and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-line-neom-completely-ludicrous-design-saudi-arabia-2024-6">everyday appeal.</a>The mirrored structure is set to be built on a migration route used by billions of birds, something that has reportedly left planners concerned the city could lure a "significant number" of them to their deaths.In documents reviewed by The Journal, designers wrote that it was "inevitable that a significant number of birds will perish," illustrating their concerns with a drawing of a dead northern flicker.Anirban Adhya, a professor of architecture and urban design at Lawrence Technological University, told Business Insider that the city's design could harm the surrounding environment."The development seems to be very uniform with external mirrors on both sides," he said. "This could be harmful ecologically in terms of unnecessary heat gain as well as detrimental for birds and their flying path."Whether the construction of the "eco-city" is as sustainable as the finished project is another question."The energy that's going to be used to build it is not going to be sustainable — even if once Neom is built, it might have a sustainable component," Andreas Krieg, a Gulf specialist at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at King's College London, told BI.Philip Oldfield, head of school at UNSW Built Environment in Sydney, has estimated that building The Line would produce billions of tons of embodied carbon dioxide.He said after calculating the amount of floor area, how big it will be, and how much concrete it might need the amount of carbon produced could be equivalent to the UK's total emission over three to four years.<h2 id="7c47ff44-3192-470c-96ff-052bd5d47858">Ambitious goals</h2>Neom claims that 95% of land and sea in the region will be protected for nature and is <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neom-weird-jobs-needed-run-smart-city-2024-5">already recruiting</a> for roles dedicated to rewilding and land preservation.It has also promised to be a zero-carbon city, relying on public transport instead of cars and roads.Experts told BI that these plans offered exciting solutions for issues like urban sprawl, excessive carbon emissions, and inefficient energy use.Even just the focus on AI-enhanced sustainability was an important step in pushing the boundaries of urban design, said Mona Lovgreen, a partner and architect at design company Dialog.However, its construction did pose some potential negative ecological impacts, she said.Lovgreen pointed to issues "such as disrupting natural habitats, carbon emissions from building materials, and the transferring of these materials to areas remote from where they are produced."Mara Baum, an architect and sustainability expert also at Dialog, added that while Neom's effort to reduce transport emissions was important, "this ignores the substantial environmental impact of building a new city from scratch.""Transportation accounts for less than a quarter of global carbon emissions, while the construction and operation of buildings represent nearly 40% of emissions," Baum said.She added that it can be particularly difficult to maintain sustainable construction in hot and dry regions of the world.<h2 id="fae98238-3d7c-4af0-aeae-406ff07502de">Gulf greenwashing</h2>Saudi's green ambitions for Neom also serve to redirect attention away from the country's heavy reliance on oil and gas.While megaprojects like Neom are part of a plan to pivot Saudi's economy away from fossil fuels, the projects are still largely funded by the country's vast oil revenues.Krieg said projects like Neom were part of a wider greenwashing trend across Gulf nations."These countries don't talk about oil and gas," he said. "For Neom and all these bigger projects, part of the PR of it is saying that it's going to be green and it's going to be sustainable.""These little efforts that they're making are supposed to compensate for the massive percentage of dirty energy that they're producing," he said.Representatives for Neom did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.With additional reporting from <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/ben-bauer">Ben Bauer</a>.

Saudi says The Line will be the world's first 'eco-city.' Construction and design specialists aren't so sure.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The billionaires backing a new utopian city outside San Francisco have put some of their plans on hold.</li><li>The California Forever company said it won't put forward a planned ballot initiative this year.</li></ul>The Silicon Valley billionaires behind an effort to build a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-billionaires-flannery-associates-solano-county-mystery-utopian-city-2023-11">controversial new city</a> near San Francisco will delay further development of the utopian project for at least two years, the California Forever company <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://eastsolanoplan.com/news/joint-statement-solano-county-california-forever">announced</a> Monday, just days after a county report on The East Solano Plan raised new concerns about the endeavor.Over the past few years, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/solano-county-flannery-associates-northern-california-forever-build-new-city-2023-9">several tech investors</a> have raised over $800 million and bought up more than 50,000 acres of primarily agricultural land in the Bay Area. They aim to build a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/images-new-city-northern-california-could-look-solano-county-flannery-2023-9">walkable urban community</a> that will provide desperately needed housing for some 400,000 people in the overpopulated state.However, the project stoked tensions between the billionaire backers and Solano County stakeholders, who quarreled over California Forever's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/flannery-silicon-valley-billionaires-build-new-california-city-solano-county-2023-8">anonymous approach</a> to buying land and investors' desire to implement their plans quickly. Throughout the process, California Forever CEO <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/california-forever-jan-sramek-goldman-sachs-silicon-valley-city-future-2024-4">Jan Sramek</a> has pushed for an expedited approvals process, arguing that the need for more housing is urgent.While a report published by California Forever earlier this month said the project would funnel billions of dollars in economic activity back into the county and create tens of thousands of jobs, a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.solanocounty.com/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=43304">report</a> ordered by the Solano County Board of Supervisors last month estimated the utopia would cost billions of dollars in county funds and hurt agricultural production in the rural region. The report also noted that the development could threaten local water supplies and "may not be financially feasible.California Forever took issue with some of the data used in the county's report, Sramek told Business Insider, saying he hopes the reconfigured timeline announced Monday will help bridge the gap between the company and county and allow the two to work more cohesively.California Forever planned to put a ballot initiative before Solano County voters this November, but that idea has now been scrapped, according to a joint statement from Sramek and Solano County supervisor Mitch Mashburn.Instead, California Forever will spend the next two years preparing a report on the development's environmental impact while continuing to work with the county on a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mayor-told-billionaires-go-back-silicon-valley-solano-county-flannery-2023-9">developmental agreement</a>.Mashburn said he believes the decision reflects Sramek's understanding that the timing of the project has been "unrealistic.""Delaying the vote gives everyone a chance to pause and work together, which is what is needed — not a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-california-forever-farmers-pressured-to-sell-land-2023-10">fight between friends</a> throughout the County on both sides of the issue," Mashburn wrote.Sramek, meanwhile, framed the delay slightly differently, saying the company is "reordering" the steps in a way that will prioritize an environmental impact report ahead of zoning approvals but stressing that the switch will not impact the project's "ambitious timeline."Sramek told Business Insider that California Forever feels "pretty excited" about the new plans despite the timing switch-up."It's something we didn't expect in the beginning, but it's emerged organically over the last few weeks," Sramek said.The brains behind the utopia cited strong community support for the city. In the Monday statement, California Forever pointed to an Impact Research poll that shows a majority of Solano likely voters support the development but believe the project is moving too fast.The plan will still need voter approval before it can get final approval. Sramek said in the statement that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-california-city-solano-county-silicon-valley-details-ballot-flannery-2024-1">California Forever</a> still plans to submit the full package for approval in 2026.Business Insider reached out to Solano County for additional comment.Update — July 22, 2024: This story has been updated to include comments from California Forever CEO Jan Sramek.

Silicon Valley billionaires press pause on plans for $800 million utopian city amid growing tensions with county

The Goldman prodigy behind Silicon Valley's glorious city of the future

<ul><li>Inflation has been eating into the purchasing power of lower and middle income groups with many essentials’ sales falling.</li><li>Majority of the upper and upper middle class respondents saw their household incomes go up more than inflation.</li><li>There is a dichotomy seen in online festive sales too as premium products are bought with discounts and purchase options say experts. </li></ul>There are two Indias within the great sub-continent. One where the day-breaking drink of tea has become dearer for many this year and the other half is doubling down on wine purchases. Neither of them are affected by the base effect of last year. <keyword id="2653343" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="tea-sales" source="Orion">Tea sales</keyword> were down last year too, and <keyword id="806378" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="wine-sales" source="Orion">wine sales</keyword> were up — darkening the ‘K’ line on economic recovery charts. Madan Sabnavis, the chief economist of Bank of Baroda calls it a schizophrenic pattern of consumption. “Sales are doing better in categories where price does not matter,” he tells Business Insider India. <div type="image" title="grocery demand" msid="104810160" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Source: Pixabay &amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> It’s discretion not price The categories of goods where price matters are seeing low growth in output – a reflection of demand. Some of the casualties are detergent powders, groundnut oils, shampoos and hair dyes. Their output fell between April to August 2023, compared to the year before, as per BoB economics research. Inflation has a more indirect effect on these purchases. For example, tea and shampoo saw moderate inflation but their demand fell. Inflation was high in coffee, toothpaste and soaps but their demand grew. “The generalized inflation factor has been at work where real income has come down thus leading to lower purchasing power,” said BoB. In a survey conducted by UBS, about 46% of respondents said that they’re buying less personal care and packaged food compared to last year. For purchase of home care products, the respondents were largely neutral versus last year, it added. India’s largest FMCG player Hindustan Unilever with a large presence across rural and urban India has seen a direct impact of it in the quarter that ended in September 2023. Its overall urban volumes grew 3% and rural volumes fell 1%. “Rural recovery is likely to remain gradual,” the company said in its investor presentation indicating that the situation might not see any dramatic recovery in the coming months. Rural India saw reverse migration during the pandemic, but not all of them have gone back, opines Sabnavis. A chunk of downtrading is also being seen in urban areas amongst income groups that are facing the heat of inflation, experts add. At the other end This is, however, only one half of the story. At the other end, many Indians are not blinking while making discretionary purchases. A majority of the upper and middle class respondents – 65% – surveyed by UBS, saw their household incomes go up more than inflation. “The top 20% of the population account for the bulk of discretionary consumption. The survey results support our view that affluent consumers‘ income levels are holding up, as reflected in corporate wage growth that continues at double digits,” said UBS. Lalit Jhawar, co-founder and CEO, LandCraft Retail says that high-end gourmet products in urban areas have been steadily increasing over the last few years. He owns a luxury gourmet retails store- Food Square in Mumbai, which sells cheeses, truffles, caviar, artisanal breads and all the other international food items. “Affluence in urban areas has grown, resulting in a larger number of consumers with higher discretionary income,” Jhawar tells Business Insider India. Online sales: A story of dichotomy Another sign of higher spending is seen in the e-commerce festival sales. The first week of the many festival discount sales saw ₹47,000 crore worth of goods being sold, which is 19% higher than last year, says Redseer Consulting. Online sales, which now sees a good measure of metro and demand from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, is showing a dichotomy as well, say experts. “Two Indias have come into play where one India is saving up and waiting for prices to come down to clinch a good deal on premium products. On the other hand, there are low-value product sales i.e value-for-money purchases that are being bought more frequently,” said Abhishek Tandon, engagement manager at Redseer Strategy Consultants. The sale season, which is manna for bargain hunters, is also enthused by the number of Buy Now Pay Later and EMI options. “When it comes to big ticket purchases, premiumization is bolstered by financing options and discounts that make it affordable,” adds Tandon. In the pre-festive period between April and August,however, most consumer durable sales were in a negative zone, due to the high-base effect of last year, says Bank of Baroda’s report. Refrigerators, mobiles, readymade garments all showed a negative output – also indicating that discounts play a large role in discretionary purchases. Indian consumers have always been complicated and price has always played a big role in purchase decisions, choice of brands and more. But it’s no longer a linear story. One end of the market, driven by affluence, is veering towards premium purchases. The other end is looking for ways to survive with less in hand as inflation is eating into their purchasing power. SEE ALSO <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/mamaearth-this-fmcg-scion-is-all-set-to-gain-a-windfall-from-honasa-ipo/articleshow/104721052.cms">This FMCG scion is all set to gain a windfall from Honasa Consumer IPO</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/careers/news/genzs-millennials-wants-to-be-back-to-offices-even-as-costs-pinch/articleshow/104700780.cms">GenZs, millennials want to be back to offices even as costs pinch</a>

Wine vs Tea: India’s consumption trends show a sharp divergence

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A former PepsiCo exec sued the company for fraud and defamation after it said he didn't invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos.</li><li>Richard Montañez said he proposed the idea while working as a janitor and ultimately rose through the company's ranks.</li></ul>A former executive at <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pepsico-pepsi-high-prices-putting-off-us-shoppers-sales-america-2024-2">PepsiCo</a> has sued the company, claiming he should get credit for being the brains behind Flamin' Hot Cheetos.Richard Montañez has frequently spoken of his rags-to-riches story, from starting out as a janitor to pitching the idea for Flamin' Hot Cheetos to PepsiCo's CEO to becoming an executive himself at the drink and snack giant, which formed the basis of his successful career as a motivational speaker. He published a memoir in 2021, and his life story was made into the film <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/flamin-hot-cheetos-movie-devon-franklin-eva-longoria-richard-montanez-2023-3">"Flamin' Hot"</a> in 2023.But an explosive Los Angeles Times investigation in 2021 claimed to debunk his claims about the origins of the Flamin' Hot flavor, supported by evidence from PepsiCo. Montañez filed a six-count lawsuit against his former employer on July 18, accusing it of fraud and defamation for making the comments to the publication.PepsiCo declined to comment when contacted by Business Insider, citing ongoing litigation. Frito-Lay did not respond to a request for comment. <h2 id="50d637c8-24bb-4f4b-b71e-955486143747">Montañez says he pitched spicy Cheetos while working as a janitor</h2>Richard Montañez's PepsiCo career began in 1976 when he started working as a janitor at its Frito-Lay factory in Rancho Cucamonga, California, per the lawsuit.During his time at the company, he experimented with making various flavored snacks at home to potentially pitch to the company, according to the lawsuit. But his big breakthrough came when a machine in the factory broke, and he was able to take home a batch of unflavored Cheetos, which he dusted with chile powder to try to replicate the flavor of elote, Mexican grilled corn with chile powder, per the lawsuit.In 1991, Montañez set up a meeting with PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico to present his idea for spicy Cheetos, which he thought would be popular with the Latino community. Enrico liked the idea so much that he ordered PepsiCo to start making spicy Cheetos, the lawsuit says.But PepsiCo "attempted to cut Mr. Montañez out of parts of the process," the lawsuit says.PepsiCo launched nationwide sales of Flamin' Hot Cheetos in 1992. The product has since become a huge success for the company.PepsiCo sent Montañez on speaking engagements at places including Walmart, Target, and Harvard University to talk about how he developed the product, the lawsuit says.Montañez continued to develop other spicy snacks for PepsiCo and ultimately became PepsiCo's vice president of multicultural marketing and sales, according to the lawsuit.Montañez left PepsiCo in 2019 to dedicate his time to motivational speaking, charging between $10,000 and $50,000 per talk, per the lawsuit.<h2 id="8aaa9bfb-7665-40b0-802a-bb8d71ca3b4f">Frito-Lay says the 'facts do not support the urban legend'</h2>Montañez's story has been disputed. In 2021, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-16/flamin-hot-cheetos-richard-montanez">The Los Angeles Times</a> published an investigation that seemed to debunk Montañez's claims. More than a dozen former Frito-Lay employees, as well as the company itself, told the outlet that Montañez wasn't behind the development of the Flamin' Hot flavor."We do not credit the creation of Flamin' Hot Cheetos or any Flamin' Hot products to him," a spokesperson for Frito-Lay told The Times, adding that its records didn't show that he was involved "in any capacity" in the product's test market."The facts do not support the urban legend," the spokesperson said.Instead, Flamin' Hot Cheetos were developed by a team of snack food professionals in Frito-Lay's Texas headquarters, designed to compete with products sold in inner-city mini-marts in the Midwest, The Times reported. Enrico, the PepsiCo leader that Montañez said he met to pitch the product, didn't become CEO until nearly six months after Flamin' Hot Cheetos were launched in test markets, the Times reported.Montañez didn't start taking public credit for developing the products until nearly two decades after they were invented, per The Times.The lawsuit said that PepsiCo had made "false and misleading statements" to The Times in what it described as "an inexplicable about-face." The article was "defamatory," the lawsuit says.The lawsuit says the article made potential business partners and members of the public "distrustful" of Montañez to the detriment of his livelihood and mental health. This includes a significant drop in speaking bookings.The lawsuit says that Montañez was unaware that PepsiCo was already testing spicy snacks in some Midwestern markets at the same time that he was working on his own product.In a later statement, a spokesperson for PepsiCo told <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://variety.com/2021/film/news/pepsico-defends-richard-montanez-claims-earlier-statements-were-misconstrued-1234979160/">Variety</a> that it attributed the launch and success of Flamin' Hot Cheetos "and other products" to several people, including Montañez.Montañez "had a remarkable 40-plus-year career at PepsiCo and made an incredible impact on our business and employees," the spokesperson said. PepsiCo's previous comments had been "misconstrued" and fractured its relationship with Montañez, the spokesperson said.The lawsuit accused PepsiCo of fraud and defamation and said the company discriminated against Montañez because he was Mexican. It is seeking damages and an order preventing the company from making comments suggesting Montañez didn't create the product.

You Searched For "urban company cities" and got 12 results

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