[_delirium]

This post fits WeWork into two commonly discussed trends—greater urbanization and a shift towards freelancing. One problem is that evidence for these trends being real is weak, even though many thinkpieces take them as starting points. That doesn't necessarily spell trouble for WeWork, but I think if it succeeds it will be for reasons other than riding nationwide, macroeconomic trends.

On urbanization: the proportion of Americans living in urban vs. suburban vs. rural areas is not really significantly changing. NYC is growing, and so is suburban Dallas. Even among millennials the trend is weak to nonexistent. [1]

On freelancing: Despite much discussion of the "1099 economy", the data doesn't show, at least for now, any shift towards freelancing. The proportion of Americans working full-time jobs for a single employer is actually on an upwards trend at the moment, as hiring has picked up following the economic recovery [2].

[1] http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/think-millennials-prefer-...

[2] https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/datapoints/255258/We...

[cfield]

My sense is that, by definition, evidence of ways the future will be different than the present is always weak, particularly if the evidence you're looking at is data.