I’m writing this from my overpriced, $4,000-a-month, 900-square-foot apartment in San Francisco debating if I’m gonna move or not. Here’s proof.

I just finished reading about Bay Area rents being down ~12%.

Based on what I’m seeing on Facebook and Twitter (more proof), a 12% drop isn’t even close to representing how many people are truly leaving San Francisco and other major American cities.

I asked members of our Trends group what they think will happen. 170 people replied. A few favorites:

• “I’ve seen at least 1 moving truck per day on my street in San Francisco for the past month. I’m moving to Austin next month!”
• “Naysayers have been predicting the demise of cities for millennia. So far that hasn’t happened, and it probably never will. Cities are adaptable and flexible and mostly they have been reinventing themselves ever since they were first created.”
• “I live in Chicago and can see the exodus happening in front of my eyes.”
• “New Hampshire is seeing a big influx of both second-home buyers and full-timers.”
• “I’ve lived in NYC more than three decades, born just outside. Eighty percent of our building fled by April and has not returned. Forty to fifty percent of our neighborhood left.”
• “People left NYC in the years after 9/11, but the losses were more than replaced by new people moving in as everyone found their new normal.”

So, help me predict the future. There’s over a million of you. If enough readers answer, we’ll surely have interesting data covering the yuppie-ish/young professional demographic (most of you dear readers fall into that category).

Click below to tell me if you’re moving in the next 6 months or not.

I’ll show you the results tomorrow. Answer the survey here.

–Sam, Founder & CEO of The Hustle

Please spare a thought for the motel’s hip cousin who went to Berlin that one time. 

Hostels were not exactly built for a pandemic — these days, you don’t hear many people exclaiming, “Man, I wish I could wake up near a dozen total strangers on bunk beds!”

But as Europe reopens to travelers, hostels are trying to figure out how to add social distancing to a business model based on throwing together total randos. 

A few of their strategies: 

• Cut the number of beds crammed into each room by half. 
• Tape markings on the dance floor.
• Pivot to long-term stays — who doesn’t love 3 months in a hostel? 

Extroverts, beware

In normal times, hostels offer more than a place to sleep. Some host yoga classes, open mics, movie nights, and pasta-making tutorials. 

But right now, they look… suspiciously like hotels. Take Tomas Polansky, a student from Slovakia who booked a 6-person room at a hostel in Amsterdam. 

When he arrived, there was almost no one there — so he got his own private room. 

What about the rest of the dorms-for-adults biz? 

Hostels are sitting empty, but one of their spiritual compatriots has never looked better: co-living communities.

One startup, Common, signed its most leases ever last month, according to OneZero. 

Scarcity, another co-living company, at first saw new inquiries fall by ~5x — but the numbers were up again last month. Plus: Scarcity just raised $30m.

How do you reduce contact for… contact sports?

That’s the Catch-22 big-league officials are wrestling with as they try and restart seasons safely. 

While there’s no clear path back — testing delays and player opt-outs have already dampered pro baseball and basketball reopening plans — leagues are experimenting with some creative tech to clear the many, many hurdles.

These innovations could be the MVP

As Wired tells it, here are some of the newest gadgets in the game:

The NBA purchased 2k Oura rings that track players’ sleep levels, heart rates, and activity. The rings can calculate “risk scores” and flag potential COVID-19 symptoms. Oura’s CEO says that so far, half of the NBA’s players have agreed to wear the rings. But some have privacy concerns — one Lakers player tweeted that the monitors “look like a tracking device.” 

Sunglasses manufacturer Oakley is designing a new mask-helmet hybrid for the NFL. The medical director of the NFL Players Association told Wired they’re pushing for masks to include an N95 internal filter to block particles. 

Facial recognition software could be deployed throughout stadiums for contactless concessions and ticket entry. Fans could pre-register and link their credit cards to their images to purchase hot dogs or merchandise. 

The SAYCam project takes the concept of baby monitoring to the next level. 

Parents strap GoPro-esque cameras to their babies’ heads to give researchers a better understanding of how the young’uns interact with their environments.

Goo goo ga… what?

As OneZero explained: Environmental factors play a huge role in a kid’s development, and differences can lead to advantages or disadvantages that pile up later in life.

Trouble is, we don’t always know which elements help a child thrive. But taking a closer look — that is, getting a baby’s-eye view — could help.

It’s way more than baby talk

Here’s how the research works: Typically, babies wear the cameras 2x/week between the ages of 6 and 32 months. None of these tiny filmmakers is the next Scorsese, but their videos do show developmental psychologists what the world looks like from their perspective.

That could mean views of the carpet as seen by a crawler or shaky, “Blair Witch”-style footage from a toddler learning to walk.

The footage could help grown-ups learn, by becoming more mindful of their interactions with the little ones.