Landing pads, special mailboxes and more: A future where delivery drones buzz through neighbourhoods could prompt architects and builders to rethink.
4 min
Let’s say you want a hamburger.
With a few taps on your phone—no onions, please—the order is placed, with delivery set for within the hour. Soon, your specially wrapped burger appears on the horizon, borne aloft by a humming drone. A retractable door on your rooftop opens to reveal a landing pad and delivery receptacle. The drone places the burger into a box, preferably heated, and a small elevator brings it into the house. “Ding.” Your app alerts you that your burger is warm and waiting.
It’s getting closer: A future where droves of drones buzz through neighbourhoods to drop off and pick up groceries, food orders and packages. Architects and builders might have to rethink overall home design to accommodate remote delivery, with drone landing pads mounted on kerbside mailboxes, built onto rooftops or perched on windowsills. This, in turn, could reshape entire neighbourhoods to include designated drone airspace and traffic patterns designed to ensure the safety of residents.
Drone divisions created by Amazon.com Inc., United Parcel Service and Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. have all received permission from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration for limited deliveries, paving the way for commercial drone service. Amazon Prime Air is testing technology to deliver packages weighing up to 2.26kg in 30 minutes or less. Alphabet’s Wing trials in Christiansburg, Va., allow residents to get deliveries from FedEx Corp., Walgreens and local restaurants. In Florida, UPS subsidiary Flight Forward and CVS Health Corp. deliver prescription medications to residents of the Villages, the largest retirement community in the U.S.
Still, none of the major players have figured out a seamless way for consumers to receive their deliveries at home. Cargo landing in backyards and driveways raises safety questions regarding both people and packages.
At least one tech startup is working on a solution. Valqari, a Chicago company founded in 2017, is developing drone-delivery mailboxes that can accept all types of shipments, from retail packages to restaurant meals. The top of the mailbox acts as a landing pad, and the drone activates a retractable door to a space where packages can be safely deposited, explains Valqari founder and chief executive Ryan Walsh.
Mr Walsh says he envisions drone-delivery mailboxes mounted on rooftops and windowsills of homes or part of a centralized bank of mailboxes that can serve a neighbourhood or apartment complex. Someday, drone-delivery mailboxes will be “as common as a garage,” he says.
The idea isn’t far-fetched. In South Florida, the Paramount Miami Worldcenter condo building was designed to include a “skyport,” a platform on the roof that could someday accommodate vertical takeoff and landing, or VTOL, vehicles as a shuttle for residents. While the possibility of air taxis is years away, “I could see package delivery as happening sooner,” says developer Dan Kodsi, chief executive of Royal Palm Cos. “We have capability because elevators run all the way to the roof.” He adds that the skyport concept has been a selling point at Paramount Miami, where apartments are for sale from about US$750,000 to US$11 million for a penthouse. “Some people bought [units] knowing that it could potentially raise the value of their property,” he says.
Another concept for potentially incorporating drone delivery into residential development comes from Walmart Inc. The retailer <a”icon none” href=”https://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?PageNum=0&docid=20190300202&IDKey=1EE7B2FDEDBE&HomeUrl=http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1%26Sect2=HITOFF%26d=PG01%26p=1%26u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html%26r=1%26f=G%26l=50%26s1=20190300202.PGNR.%26OS=%26RS=” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>submitted a patent application for a delivery chute mounted onto an apartment building. Drone deliveries would be dropped through the chute and onto a conveyor belt, which would transport packages into the building’s mailroom for distribution.
When the majority of homes are outfitted with drone-delivery mailboxes and landing pads, they could form the cornerstone of “smart cities,” Mr Walsh projects. Outfitted with solar panels, the mailboxes could provide their own electricity—and even generate enough electricity to sell back to the grid. Data from meteorological sensors could ensure that drones will be able to land safely, with the added benefit of making weather forecasting hyper-local. Masses of mailboxes would also provide a place to put transportation sensors that could report real-time road and traffic conditions or telecom technology that could bolster wireless signals, making cities smarter. Mapping sensors would be particularly useful in remote or rural areas, which tend to be the least mapped.
Enthusiasts say that drone deliveries require less manpower than delivery trucks and would reduce both traffic congestion and fuel emissions. But before hamburgers can fly through the sky, a lot of things have to happen. Chief among them is a drone air-traffic control system to manage unmanned aircraft and protect the airspace from attacks. Currently, the FAA is working on a way to link drone registration to uniform tracking requirements, allowing the agency to identify drone operators and digitally follow their vehicles from takeoff to landing. Tech innovators must ensure that collision-avoidance technology can avert drone crashes. And companies themselves must surmount logistical challenges in stocking, deploying and recharging drones.
On the consumer end, the public will want assurances that their peace and privacy is protected. For example, in Australia, drone-delivery trials by Wing resulted in complaints from residents in suburban Canberra that the crafts were noisy and intrusive. Based on that feedback, Wing developed new propellers that emit a quieter, lower-pitched sound, an Alphabet representative says. In terms of privacy, she added that drone cameras take still, low-resolution images that are used strictly for navigation.
Overall, the main concern is safety, says German academic Mario Schaarschmidt, who specialises in logistics, technology and innovation management in services. Earlier this year, Dr Schaarschmidt and his colleagues at the University of Koblenz-Landau released a paper that aimed to assess whether consumers would willingly adopt drone deliveries. People who were interviewed in the research most frequently cited fears about their personal safety as well as financial risks of property loss.
Over time, Dr Schaarschmidt thinks widespread drone deliveries could become the norm for homes, “but only if the first deliveries with drones go smoothly. If you experience any problems, people won’t accept them.”
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Nearly half of American adults under 30, pinched by the high cost of housing, are living with a parent. It can be an adjustment for both.
5 min
Samantha Stobo was fresh off a breakup and unable to afford her Manhattan two-bedroom alone. So the 29-year-old decided to move in with her mom in Miami until she could get back on her feet. She told herself it would only take a few months.
Now 33-years old, Stobo has no plans to move out.
“I thought it was going to be temporary,” Stobo said. “But it’s been three years now, and I love it.”
Living at home as a 20-something was once viewed as a failure to launch and even a source of embarrassment in a culture that places a premium on independence. That is no longer the case. Living at home is now often viewed as a sign of financial prudence, and for some, a long-term prospect.
Chronically high living costs are helping reshape the milestones of early adulthood in America. The national median home price hovers above $400,000. Rents are at record highs in cities across the U.S., and many recent college graduates are saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt.
Even though some of these young adults pay their folks rent, it tends to be well below the cost of living on their own.
“Everything is just out of reach,” said 28-year-old Megan Talley, who lives at home with her mom in the Atlanta suburbs. If a young person wants to live alone, “you could do it, but you would be dead broke at the end of the month.”
Last year, 49% of adults under age 30 said they lived with a parent, up 12 percentage points from 2019, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking. Nearly a third of those adults were 25 or older.
Some economists put that figure lower and note that the Fed study doesn’t distinguish between children living in their parents’ homes versus parents living in their children’s homes.
Still, young people say that living at home in 2026 doesn’t carry the stigma it once did because of how unaffordable life has become. About 55% of young adults who moved back home said it was out of financial necessity, according to a spring survey by financial services firm Thrivent.
So many parents and adult children are living together now that it is beginning to transform aspects of American society—from when members of the younger generation start a family to the way builders think about designing homes.
Far from hiding it, some now broadcast their lives as “stay-at-home daughters” or “stay-at-home sons” on social media. Stobo says posting about her mother-daughter living situation on TikTok has earned her a friendly comment section filled with others in the same position—and makes her some money.
“No one ever judges me,” she said. “The conversation tends to be more like, ‘That’s awesome, and I bet you’re saving money.’”
Casey Wright, 28-years-old, moved back home to Oxford, Mich., three years ago after being laid off from two consecutive jobs. She redecorated her childhood bedroom to match her adult aesthetic, tearing down her Twilight posters and choir awards and hanging a floral tapestry and framed landscapes.
She and her parents have come to an agreement on living together as adults. She no longer has a curfew, for instance. But before she goes out, Wright’s parents require her to tell them where she’s going and what time she expects to be back.
The Wrights have dinner together every night and go golfing or walking together a few times a month. Casey still hangs out in her parents’ room occasionally to talk about movies with her dad or to gossip with her mom.
She just doesn’t spend time with her parents quite as often as she did when she was a child and is more often in her room playing videogames or reading. “It’s not as much as when I was younger, because I feel like there’s almost that separation that’s needed as an adult,” she said. “You’re not just living in your childhood home as a child.”
Multigenerational living has long been more of a norm among Hispanic, Asian and Black households, along with immigrant families.
During the pandemic, a broader swath of 20-somethings returned home. It was supposed to be short-term; then came record inflation and double-digit rent increases.
By July 2020, 52% of young Americans age 18 to 29 lived with at least one parent, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data. It was the first time a majority of young adults in the country had lived with parents since the Great Depression. That share has likely dropped since then, but for some people the arrangements have stuck.
Living with parents became a “dominant living arrangement in America for people in this age group,” said Laurence Steinberg, a Temple University psychology professor who recently wrote the book “You and Your Adult Child.”
States such as California and New York have loosened regulations around building accessory dwelling units in recent years. Once nicknamed “granny flats,” ADUs are now used to house budget-squeezed adult children.
Villa Homes, a California home builder, is used to this kind of customer. The firm is seeing more families add detached ADUs for their grown children or other relatives, to live in for a few years and save money for a starter home.
Carmen Johnson, 33, has loved living with her parents in the Detroit metro area since the start of Covid. She doesn’t pay rent, splits grocery bills with her family and invests those savings in her music career and toward a future home. It beats barely making ends meet in her old Los Angeles apartment.
“Covid flipped the script,” Johnson said. “It’s a blessing in disguise.”
She isn’t ashamed of living at home, and doesn’t judge other people for it either. But she wouldn’t necessarily reveal it to a first date unless asked directly.
Bringing home a date also requires a bit of mental calculus.
“It’s like, ‘OK, is my dad going to be in the living room watching TV?’” Johnson said.
Sometimes, that kind of strategizing goes both ways. Jessica Suzio, a 52-year old widow in Michigan, has tried to get back into the dating scene in recent years. But with her two sons living at home, both in their mid-20s, bringing back a new boyfriend is uncomfortable for all involved, she said.
Suzio is happy to have her sons at home, and they help with household expenses by paying her some rent.
“When they were younger, I was daydreaming about the days that I would be an empty-nester,” she said. “But I’ve grown to really appreciate them sticking around.”
Kevin Grolig, a 59-year-old real-estate agent in the D.C. metro area, started noticing that his clients were delaying downsizing their homes because their adult children were still living there. So he came up with a “four-step plan” to get grown children out of the house. The most important: agree on a move-out timeline before the child even steps back in the door.
Casey Wright in Michigan doesn’t pay rent, but her father, Craig, said she has been a big help around the house. She does much of the grocery shopping, helps with the cooking and has learned to use the riding lawn mower, manicuring the yard when Craig is busy.
About five times a day, she says, her mom knocks on her door, often to ask for help with technology.
“If I had the ability to, I would move out tomorrow,” Wright said. Nothing against her parents, “I would just love to have the freedom to do what they were doing at my age.”
Wright’s father wishes the same for his daughter. He and his wife expected to have an empty nest by now.
But he realizes that the housing market is different today than when he was in his 30s in the 1980s and bought a three-bedroom home for $70,000, less than a fifth of today’s median home price. He estimates his salary back then was about $35,000.
Some of Craig’s friends also have adult children living at home. “It’s kind of normal,” he said.
