I know I've touched on this topic before and I truly believe it has very important investment impact for commercial property owners & investors. Why today though? Well, as a guy who is perhaps on the verge of becoming a relatively young tech dinosaur, this topic is close to my heart. Meeting a friend at Starbucks this morning, she wanted to give me some songs so I could update my Ipod workout playlist. I was handed a microscopic 4meg chip that she easily popped out of her smartphone. My one year old Blackberry had no apparent slot for this media card. I had to open the back plate, pull out the battery and then dig for the media card to take out. Obviously not a new enough smart phone for 2009! Also, today the big media buzz is about the new Palm Pre and the price slash on the 3G Apple IPhone.
My concern over technology and real estate is - not the "what happened to all the retail space taken by travel agencies" but now: What will this freedom and freeflow of information and entertainment do to how we live our lives and where we spend our money? I would like to throw this question out there and ask for ideas on where this will take our need for housing space, retail space and office space. Square feet per occupant has got to go down (just think of all the saved space when the tube tvs and rack stereo systems are replaced by a flatty and an ipod - yes I know this already happened...) and in the workplace everything is shrinking except the size of the employees (think better nutrition). Any thoughts? (See what a tall soy latte is capable of doing?)
