Have a few morning meetings, hit a Sweetgreen for lunch, finish up work, then go see your favorite band play a show—sounds like a day you could only pull off in a city.

Not anymore. As Axios reported, the rise of remote work has breathed new life into America’s suburbs, drowning out the roar of leaf blowers with commercial growth, an influx of new residents, and increased cultural opportunities, like legitimately good restaurants.

Retailers show the way

You’ve read headlines about major retailers closing stores in downtowns. But the reverse is happening in the suburbs, where retailers are opening new locations to meet customers where they live and, increasingly, work. The availability of urban retail topped suburban availability in the second half of last year for the first time since at least 2013, the WSJ reported citing CBRE data.

Case study: Sweetgreen.

• In 2019, 35% of Sweetgreen’s real estate footprint was in the suburbs.
• As of last summer, half of its locations are located in the burbs.

Even suburban malls, which have been given their last rites for decades, appear to be recuperating. Shopping center landlords are setting leasing and occupancy records this year, according to the WSJ.

A trickle into a flood

The US suburban population had been increasing before the pandemic, growing 10.5% between 2010 and 2020, according to the Census. But lawns and patios became even more attractive during Covid, and the desire to live your best North Caldwell life has stuck around post-pandemic. Nearly half of millennials surveyed in a recent Bank of America report (43%–45%) said they expected to buy a house in the suburbs.

And as the suburbs have ballooned, they look a lot less like Leave It to Beaver. The populations of big American suburbs are now more diverse than the broader US population, according to Brookings.

Bottom line: The WFH-fueled rise of the suburbs is a wake-up call to cities, where, in the case of NYC, 26 Empire State Buildings’ worth of office space now sits empty. According to Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, the typical office worker is spending $2,000–$4,600 less annually in city centers.

What do we do when we’re stressed out? We procrastinate, of course. Because nothing solves a problem like avoiding it!

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​​ Turkish election is headed for a runoff. In the country’s most consequential election in a generation, neither the authoritarian-leaning incumbent, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, nor his challenger Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu eclipsed the 50% threshold needed for victory, so the two men will likely square off in a runoff scheduled for May 28. If it’s anything like yesterday’s first round, it will be tense: Both candidates said the other’s vote counts were not to be trusted.

Sweden wins Eurovision. The Eurovision-obsessed country took home the top prize with Loreen’s performance of the power ballad “Tattoo.” An estimated 160+ million people tuned into the famously over-the-top singing event, which Liverpool, England, hosted on behalf of last year’s winner, Ukraine (the show featured numerous tributes to Ukraine). Sweden’s win means it’ll host next year’s competition on the 50th anniversary of the most iconic Eurovision performance of all time: ABBA singing “Waterloo.”

Ja Morant was suspended again. The Memphis Grizzlies star has been suspended from all team activities after he appeared to be holding a gun on an Instagram livestream this weekend. It’s the second time in just over two months that Morant was suspended for seeming to flash a gun in a social media video. After the first incident, in March, Morant was suspended for eight games and lost out on $668,000 of his salary. When returning from that suspension, Morant said he sought counseling to help him better deal with stress.

Five years ago yesterday, the Supreme Court lifted a federal ban on sports gambling in the US, spawning a multibillion-dollar industry that’s transformed how Americans watch, talk about, and experience sports.

We plucked five numbers from the sports betting world to highlight five years of legalization.

$95 billion: That’s how much Americans bet on sports in legal jurisdictions with consumer protections last year, Sportico reported. It’s more money than the amount spent on ride sharing, coffee, or streaming.

71%: Two sports betting companies, DraftKings and FanDuel, control more than 70% of the US market, per gambling analytics firm Eilers & Krejcik. But despite taking in ~10% of wagers, these companies have struggled to turn a profit. FanDuel recorded its first quarterly profit last year, and DraftKings has yet to report a profitable quarter.

33: That’s the number of states that currently have legal sports betting (Washington, DC, has it too). Another four states have legalized sports wagering, but don’t have any sportsbooks operating yet.

3: The three most-populous US states—California, Texas, and Florida—have not legalized sports gambling. They account for 26% of all teams in the major North American pro leagues, according to Axios.

45%: The number of women joining sportsbook apps jumped 45% last year, marking the third straight year that new women users exceeded men. DraftKings said that bets on women’s sports had increased 61% annually last year.

Stat: Snapchat influencer Caryn Marjorie made more than $71,000 in one week after releasing an AI version of herself, CarynAI, and charging fans $1 per minute for CarynAI to be their virtual girlfriend, Fortune reported. As of last week, CarynAI had more than 1,000 “boyfriends” (aka paying subscribers), and Marjorie estimates she could eventually bring in $5 million/month from her chatbot.

Quote: “I do not understand what is happening but I am incomprehensibly grateful to bigolas dickolas.”

It’s quite reasonable that writer Amal El-Mohtar doesn’t understand what is happening, because it is strange. A book she co-authored in 2019, This is How You Lose the Time War, has shot up to the top 10 on Amazon’s bestseller list thanks to a tweet by an account called Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood. Last Sunday, Bigolas implored his followers to go buy this novella, writing, “read this. DO NOT look up anything about it. just read it.” The post went mega-viral and now the lives of everyone involved have changed forever.

Read: Before his killing, tech executive Bob Lee led an underground life of sex and drugs. (Wall Street Journal)

Debt ceiling talks resume. President Biden and GOP leaders will continue negotiations on raising the debt ceiling early this week. Biden said the talks were “moving along,” and the structure of the deal is starting to emerge, according to the FT. It will involve capping government spending in some form.

Cannes Film Festival: Truckloads of rosé will be consumed during the 76th Cannes Film Festival in southern France, which begins tomorrow. If you go, you’ll catch new films from Wes Anderson and Martin Scorcese, but don’t try to protest: The region’s government has banned all types of demonstrations amid heightened tensions over France raising the retirement age.

Lots of sportsball: The NBA (curse you, Sixers) and NHL will begin their conference finals series, the Preakness Stakes will be run in Baltimore, and the PGA Championship will tee off at Oak Hill in Rochester, NY.

Everything else…

• Walmart and Target highlight a busy week for retail earnings.
• The 11th installment of the Fast & Furious franchise, Fast X, will hit US theaters on Friday. Many vehicles were harmed in the making of this film.
• The Bitcoin 2023 Conference returns to Miami, a one-time crypto haven that has mostly moved on.

Teaching chess: One chess player at NYC’s Washington Square Park gives a lesson to a surprising student. (YouTube)

Just watch: This has to be the best 1:9 scale diorama of Mel Gibson’s drunk-driving arrest on YouTube.

Zoom-from-patio: Upgrade your outdoor office with these tips and products.

Get your mind healthy: For Mental Health Awareness Month, this website is an all-in-one guide to improving your mental wellness.

Don’t leave the fundamentals behind: Our Business Essentials Accelerator will teach you the business school basics in just four weeks. Apply now to join us on June 5.

Good vibrations: Meet the wearable that trains your body to embrace sleep and banish stress. Apollo Neuro’s touch-therapy technology uses soothing vibrations to improve sleep, relaxation, and focus. Keep calm with $40 off.*

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Turntable: Fans of Boggle, Words With Friends, or any other spelling game will love our word puzzle, Turntable. Today’s Turntable asks you to find 43 words—see how many you can get.

Name popularity trivia

Let’s revisit 2022’s most popular baby names list for today’s trivia.

We’ll give you five names each for boys and girls. You have to place them in order of popularity last year. (Popularity = the percentage of names given, not the total number.)

Boys

Axel
Gregory
Elijah
John
Reid

Girls

Amanda
Jenna
Isabella
Lisa
Nora

Navigating finance careers in today’s job market can be overwhelming. So we’ve called in the experts to help. Check it out.

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Boys: 1) Elijah 2) John 3) Axel 4) Reid 5) Gregory

Girls: 1) Isabella 2) Nora 3) Amanda 4) Jenna  5) Lisa

Facet Wealth, Inc. (“Facet”) is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. This is not an offer to sell securities or the solicitation of an offer to purchase securities. This is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice.

*Source: https://www.cnbc.com/select/why-americans-are-stressed-about-money/