When tickets for the May 11 reopening of Shanghai Disneyland went on sale, they sold out within minutes. Park officials said they are taking "a deliberate approach”, such as requiring physical distancing and sharply reducing capacity. Jen Rogers, Myles Udland and Akiko Fujita discuss what the reopening of the first major theme park says about consumer demand post-coronavirus.

Retailers that were already ailing before the coronavirus are beginning to crumble as the crisis raises the threat of store closings and bankruptcy.

General Electric (GE) shares have been on the decline as of late. As a result, many investors have been understandably worried. Such sentiments have placed the American manufacturing giant on the market spotlight, and begs the question: is it still worth investing in at current levels? Traversing turbulent market conditions, the outlook seems bleak for the 128-year-old conglomerate. Is there no way up for the aviation unit of General Electric? What about its other subsidiaries? Investor James Richman bets GE is likely to touch down $5-level. From there, the tech investor is bullish that the price will double in value and hit $10 again.Source: Flickr GE: a legacy of over 120 yearsAmid the impact of coronavirus specifically in both travel and hospitality industries, GE's esteemed aviation unit has been feeling the most pressure. The demand for airplanes has shrunk tremendously forcing the company's management to schedule a 25% workforce reduction globally. This is in consonance to the 10% layoff in its US workforce which was announced in March. These difficult cost-cutting measures are deemed necessary by David Joyce, CEO of the GE Aviation Unit that employs a workforce of around 52,000 people.Significant drops since coronavirusGE Aviation supplies jet engines to giant aircraft makers like Airbus and Boeing. The projection of Boeing, a 10% workforce drop amidst its $641m loss, certainly adds up to GE's current woes.  Investor betting on the company bouncing backHowever, one investor who is known to take a different outlook is Latvian-born investor James Richman. With investments in both public and private companies, and his most notable investments including tech giants such as Uber, Tesla, and Facebook, his approach is understood to be contrarian. Yahoo! Finance reports he is taking the opposite approach when compared to Warren Buffet as Richman bets GE's price to temporarily touch upon $5-level. From that level, it is projected to climb its way back to $10, making the 100% rally. The Monaco-based investor has also made headlines when he reportedly pledged $18m in the fight against coronavirus as he mobilizes his biomedical investments in the said efforts. Richman has been historically known to take the contrarian approach in investing. With investments that seemed unorthodox at one point, he has earned respect in the finance field because of his firm's outstanding performance during the 2008 financial crisis. Not open to the general public and mainly dealing with ultra high net worth individuals (UHNWI) and institutional investors, his clients have reported impressive annual earnings for over a decade.Comparison to the last financial crisisIt is not the first time GE had felt the backlash of market recessions. In 2008, the company's shares dropped by 78% tracing the period of the global recession. In 2 years, GE's shares dropped from $27 to $6. The broader S&P also fell that time, but with a conservative 51%.Still worth buying at current levels?GE recovered from the 2008 recession with tremendous momentum. After being bailed out by the federal government to the tune of $139 billion, it experienced an 82% uptick between March 2009 and January 2010. This is more than the 48% bounce back the S&P managed over the same period. Generally, the performance of its stock will still hinge on the developments in the handling of coronavirus pandemic, considering that the aviation division of the company is being hammered as a result. Efforts of which have been showing positive signs of recovery. Meanwhile, the demand for healthcare, government interventions, and the continuous development of treatments and vaccines is seen to help push the shares towards upwards direction in the long run: provided that its wings can weather the storm like it did in 2008.  More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: * RBC: 2 Strong Value Stocks to Buy Now * Look Beyond 2Q, General Motors Will Outperform the Sector, Says Analyst * Coronavirus Vaccine Could Add Massive Value to This Small-Cap Stock, Says Analyst * Can Seanergy Maritime Stock Add 150% Over the Next Year? This Analyst Says 'Yes'

Motorcycle enthusiasts are encouraged to take advantage of the European riding season and attend the world's largest BMW motorcycle party.

The global automotive aftermarket is rapidly evolving, with demand for starter solenoids being higher than before. T&X Starter Solenoid Manufacturers moved in supply the growing market, and their products have gained popularity the world over.

Typically used on older Chevy Impala, Chevy Caprice or even Datsun 280Z, rivet on the body side molding is an add-on accessory that was installed at car dealerships over in the 70's and 80's.

To accommodate rapid growth and expansion of the product line, BMS promotes one of their top dealers to lead them into the next decade.

A leader in audio electronics, Glenn Stasky turns a near-disastrous encounter with wildlife, into a life-saving mission to produce motorcycle lighting unlike anything that the market has ever seen before. Introducing Clearwater Lights.

The Transportation Equity Network (TEN) has released More Transit = More Jobs: The Impact Of Increasing Funding For Public Transit (31p. PDF). TEN is a coalition of more than 350 grassroots organizations in 41 states that has worked since 1997 to build a more just, prosperous, and connected America.

This study asks two key questions:

What would be the effect on jobs in each metropolitan area of shifting 50% of the money spent on highways to public transit?

How many jobs would be created in each metro area if we increased funding on public transit at the rate indicated by the Transportation For America proposal for the next transportation authorization act?

The report highlights several statistics in answering those questions based on data from Transportation Improvement Programs (TIPS) in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas. For example, 1,123,674 new transit jobs would be created over a 5-year period for a net gain of 180,150 jobs without a single dollar of new spending.

However, if federal spending on transit increased as proposed by TEN and Transportation For America, an estimated 1.3 million jobs over the life of the law would be created, as well as almost 800,000 more jobs than under present federal transporation law (SAFETEA-LU).

The Federal Highway Administration published the 2009 Urban Congestion Trends (8p. PDF) document last week. This brief report utilizes a dashboard format to convey year-over-year changes in key traffic measures: daily hours of congestion, time penalty for eqach trip, worst-trip time penalty. Some key observations include:

• Overall, congestion had declined in almost all monitored regions between 2008 and 2009
• Less wasted time and fewer hours of the day were devoted to stop-and-go traffic in 16 of the 23 monitored regions
• At least one of the three measures improved in 20 of the 23 monitored regions
• Congestion is lowest during the summer vacation season

The report goes on to explain how operational improvements can mitigate congestion and promote smooth, safe and consistent traffic flow.

Examples provided from around the country include high-occupancy/toll lanes, freeway ramp metering, improved information coordination, work-zone management, and traffic signal system improvement programs.

In Managing Increasing Ridership Demand (32p. PDF), The FTA's Transit Cooperative Research Program presents an overview of a study mission investigating how several transit operators and agencies in Latin America accomodate sudden and significant growth in the number of riders and increasing demand for service.

Case studies from Guayaquil (Ecuador), Santiago (Chile), Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Porto Alegre (Brazil) were selected because they have faced and successfully dealt with challenges similar to recent ridership grown in the United States.

Each city's responses offer unique insight into managing increasing transit ridership and providing various perspectives on serving the mobility needs of their communities.

Two International Transit Studies Program study missions such as this are conducted each year. They have three objectives: To afford team members the opportunity to expand their network of domestic and international public transportation peers, to provide a forum for discussion of global initiatives and lessons learned in public transportation, and to facilitate idea sharing and the possible import of strategies for application to transportation communities in the United States.

This week, we highlight three new titles from the ASPA Series in Public Administration and Public Policy.

Market disruptions, climate change, and health pandemics lead the growing list of challenges faced by today’s leaders. These issues, along with countless others that do not make the daily news, require novel thinking and collaborative action to find workable solutions. However, many administrators stumble into collaboration without a strategic orientation.

Using a practitioner-oriented style, Strategic Collaboration In Public And Non-Profit Administration: A Practice-Based Approach To Solving Shared Problems provides guidance on how to collaborate more effectively, with less frustration and better results.

Linking collaboration theory to effective practice, this book offers essential advice that fosters shared understanding, creative answers, and transformation results through strategic collaborative action. With an emphasis on application, it uses scenarios, real-world cases, tables, figures, tools, and checklists to highlight key points.

The appendix includes supplemental resources such as collaboration operating guidelines, a meeting checklist, and a collaboration literature review to help public and nonprofit managers successfully convene, administer, and lead collaboration. The book presents a framework for engaging in collaboration in a way that stretches current thinking and advances public service practice.

A guidebook through the minefield of government contracting and procurement, Government Contracting: Promises and Perils describes the dangerous practices commonly applied in the development and management of government contracts and provides advice for avoiding the sort of errors that might compromise their ability to protect the public interest.

It includes strategies for increasing profits for government contractors, rather than incurring burdensome costs, through compliance with government mandated subcontracting and financial management systems.

Drawing from his in-depth investigation of government agencies across the country, the author examines present-day scenarios that regularly lead public servants and government committees to manage contracts with tools that are less than optimal and to select contractors that may not be the best qualified. He then delineates practical processes, contracting documents, and contract management tools to mitigate detrimental outcomes and alternative approaches to supplant the imperfect methodologies.

The author includes a CD-ROM with the book that provides a number of practical tools that you can apply as well as examples of contracts and templates that are the best he discovered during his research. The book also outlines an approach for performing advance contract planning, conducting contract negotiations, and administering contracts useful when planning for the management of the contracting process throughout the contracting cycle, negotiating a contract that protects the interest of all contracting parties, and ensuring successful contractor performance.

Filling a gap in project management literature, Managing Public Sector Projects: A Strategic Framework for Success in an Era of Downsized Government supplies managers and administrators—at all levels of government—with expert guidance on all aspects of public sector project management.

From properly allocating risks in drafting contracts to dealing with downsized staffs and privatized services, this book clearly explains the technical concepts and the political issues involved.

In line with the principles of Total Quality Management (TQM) and the PMBOK^® (Project Management Body of Knowledge), David S. Kassel establishes a framework those in the public sector can follow to ensure the success of their public projects and programs. He supplies more than 30 real-life examples to illustrate the concepts behind the framework—including reconstruction projects in Iraq, the Big Dig project in Boston, local sewer system and library construction projects, and software technology.

This authoritative resource provides strategic recommendations for effective planning, execution, and maintenance of public projects. It also:

• Highlights the differences between managing projects in the public sector versus the private sector
• Explains how to scrutinize costs, performance claims, and the backgrounds of prospective contractors
• Presents key safeguards that should be included in all contracts with contractors, consultants, suppliers, and other service providers
• Details the basics of project cost estimation, design and scheduling, and how to hold contractors responsible for meeting established project standards

In an age of downsized government and in the face of a general distrust of public service, this book is a dependable guide for avoiding management practices that are common to projects that fail and for adopting the practices common to projects that succeed in terms of cost, schedule, and quality.

Each and every day, social media tools change the way that organizations
interact with their users.

A recent report from the Center For Urban Transportation Research at University of South Florida titled Routes To New Networks: A Guide To Social Media For The Public Transportation Industry (66p. PDF) explains how these new platforms offer not only more personal one-on-one interaction than traditional media, but also represent the essence of niche marketing.

It is undeniable that social media is all the buzz. For some, utilizing new media tools may come as second nature. For others, however, entering the world of social media means taking a giant leap into the world of online communications.

One thing is certain – social media platforms are allowing a new opportunity for transportation providers to directly communicate with their target audiences. Communication is moving in this direction – with or without your organization.

The report analyzes the usefulness of and applications for social networks, written blogs, audio/video blogs, microblogs (e.g. Twitter), photo sharing, video sharing, user-generated content and mobile web content.

The report states that key points to consider when determining which tool(s) to use are:

1) Who is my target audience and what tools are they using?
2) What type of information do I want to communicate?

Content must always resonate with your audience. What can you provide that would be of value?

Earlier this year, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) published Funding The Public Transportation Needs Of An Aging Population (57p. PDF).

It explains how rapid growth in the number of older people in the United States during the coming decades will lead to greatly increased needs for expanded and enhanced public transportation services. This report:

a) identifies the range of actions that will be needed to expand mobility options for older people, including accessible public transportation services;
b) quantifies the demand for these public transportation services; and
c) estimates the funding that will be needed to provide them.

Needed actions have been identified by means of a review of the extensive literature on this
subject. The actions needed to expand mobility options for older people include:

• Enhancements to fixed-route public transportation operations and planning such as additional bus operator training, incorporating travel needs of older people in route planning and stop placement, and coordination with other agencies and transportation providers
• Enhancements to public transportation vehicles such as low-floor buses, kneeling buses, improved interior circulation, additional stanchions and grab bars, ergonomic seating designed for older riders, and accessibility features either required or encouraged by ADA like lifts and ramps, larger letters on head signs, and stop announcements
• Actions to help older people take advantage of existing services, like presenting information in ways that are easy to read and as clear as possible, information and assistance programs to connect older people with appropriate services, and outreach and training programs
• Expansion of supplementary services including flexible route and community transportation services, ADA complementary paratransit, non-ADA demand-responsive services, taxi subsidy programs, and volunteer driver programs
• Application of universal design strategies at transit facilities, bus stops, and on streets and sidewalks in the immediate vicinity of transit facilities and stops

These are the actions of greatest concern to public transportation agencies, but they are not the
only actions needed.

Other important actions include assuring supportive services to caregivers
who provide transportation, encouraging further development of unsubsidized private
transportation services, increasing the availability of accessible taxicabs, coordinating with non-emergency medical transportation provided under Medicaid and Medicare, and supporting
modifications to automobiles and roadways to increase the safety of older drivers.

Finally, we wanted to take a closer look at U.S. Parking Policies: An Overview Of Management Strategies put out by the Institute For Transportation And Development Policy in New York.

This report highlights best practices in parking management in the United States.

In the last decade, some municipalities have reconsidered poorly conceived parking policies to address a host of negative impacts resulting from private automobile use such as traffic congestion and climate change. Unchecked, these policies have proven to be a major barrier to establishing a balanced urban transportation network.

Many aspects of current parking management in the United States do not work reliably or efficiently for anyone: Motorists find themselves circling for long periods in search of a place to park; retail employees take choice parking locations away from potential customers; developers are compelled to provide more parking than the market requires; and traffic managers encounter difficulty handling traffic generated by new parking as there is often no link between parking price, supply and the amount of available road space.

Finally, the old parking paradigm doesn’t work for the environment, as hidden subsidies encourage over reliance on private car use — a major, growing contributor to global warming and air pollution.

This report identifies core sustainable parking principles and illustrates how smarter parking management can benefit consumers and businesses in time and money savings, while also leading to more livable, attractive communities.

There is a wealth of research and literature explaining suburban sprawl and the urgent need to retrofit suburbia. However, until now there has been no single guide that directly explains how to repair typical sprawl elements.

Everyone is calling for smart growth...but what exactly is it?

In The Smart Growth Manual (New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2009), two leading city planners provide a thorough answer. From the expanse of the metropolis to the detail of the window box, they address the pressing challenges of urban development with easy-to-follow advice and broad array of best practices.

With their landmark book Suburban Nation, Andres Duany and Jeff Speck "set forth more clearly than anyone has done in our time the elements of good town planning" (The New Yorker).

In this long-awaited companion volume, the authors have organized the latest contributions of new urbanism, green design, and healthy communities into a comprehensive handbook, fully illustrated with the built work of the nation's leading practitioners.

This work also features a valuable Smart Growth Directory, with contact information for national, regional and state organizations.

Lieutenant Governor-Elect Gavin Newsom, writing as Mayor of San Francisco, touted The Smart Growth Manual as "an indispensable guide to city planning. This kind of progressive development is the only way to full restore our economic strength and create new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete in the first rank of world economies."

An extensive interview with the authors is featured on the American Society of Landscape Architects "The Dirt" blog.

The conventional wisdom says that we need strict planning to build walkable neighborhoods around transit stations - even though these neighborhoods are like the streetcar suburbs that were common in America before anyone heard of city planning.

In reality, many of our greatest successes in urban design have occurred when we treated the issues as political questions - not as technical problems that the planners should solve for us.

According to Unplanning: Livable Cities And Political Choices (Berkeley, Calif.: Preservation Institute, 2010), the anti-freeway movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the anti-sprawl movement of recent decades were both political movements, and citizen-activists often had to work against projects that planners proposed and approved.

This book uses an intriguing thought experiment to show that, in order to build livable cities, we should go further than the anti-freeway and anti-sprawl movements by putting direct political limits on urban growth.

Political choices about how we want to live can transform our cities more effectively than planning.

From animal paths to superhighways, transportation has been the backbone of American expansion and growth.

Asphalt And Politics: A History Of The American Highway System (New York: McFarland, 2009) examines the interstate highway system in the United States, and the forces that shaped it, includes the introduction of the automobile, the Good Roads Movement, and the Lincoln Highway Association.

The book offers an analysis of state and federal road funding, modern road-building options, and the successes and failures of the current highway system.

Independent analysis of software rates technology providers across seven product and customer assurance evaluation categories

Designed to help real estate brokers and agents get their MLS listings published across the web on up to 154 MLS publisher sites

Paulson brings more than 30 years of commercial real estate brokerage experience, including investment sales, and landlord and tenant leasing.

Top 10 Producer Honors Are Awarded to Brian Lefkoff and Courtney Brumbelow of Ackerman Retail and John Speros of the Land Group

The firm received PSN's 6- Star and 5-Star recognition for its Balanced Portfolio for the 5-year period ending December 31, 2019

Boutique Style of Managing Properties Equals Measurable Results

Vice President Stephen Lapierre represents developer Verdad Real Estate in acquisition of properties for two Popeyes restaurants

MLD Wealth Management announced that it had been selected as a Finalist for Discretionary Manager of the Year and Multi-Service Advisory Team of the Year in the 6th annual Wealth Professional Awards.

Illumitex's FarmVisionAI provides remote visualization, AI analysis, and labor management alleviating COVID-19 driven operational constraints

With the capability to analyze huge amounts of data, including medical information, human behavior patterns, and environmental conditions, big data tools can be invaluable in dealing with deadly outbreaks.

Aprimo CMO says marketers are currently struggling with what he calls “digital sameness” — where everyone is doing the same thing online.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

With the workforce at home, a rise in agile adoption, and organizations making major pivots in strategy, the need for these types of platforms is likely to continue.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

It’s one step closer to the podcast analytics advertisers have been waiting for.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Kate Ludeman and Eddie Erlandson, authors of "Alpha Male Syndrome." Also: Judith Ross on using trust as a strategic management tool.

John Boudreau, USC Marshall School of Business professor and coauthor of "Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital."

Gill Corkindale, executive coach and former management editor of the Financial Times.

Tom DeLong, Harvard Business School professor.

John Boudreau, USC Marshall School of Business professor and coauthor of "Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital."

Tammy Erickson, McKinsey Award-winning author.

Peter Cappelli, Wharton School professor and author of the HBR article "Talent Management for the Twenty-First Century."

Rakesh Khurana, Harvard Business School professor.

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist and op-ed columnist for The New York Times.

Paul Osterman, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of "The Truth About Middle Managers."

Ron Heifetz, founder of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and coauthor of "The Practice of Adaptive Leadership."

Paul Hemp, HBR contributing editor and author of the HBR article "Death by Information Overload."

Stewart Friedman, Wharton School professor and author of "Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life."

Bill Sahlman, Harvard Business School professor and Senior Associate Dean for External Relations.

Julia Kirby, HBR editor at large.

Michael Schrage, research fellow at MIT Sloan School's Center for Digital Business and author of "Serious Play."

Tony Schwartz, president and CEO of The Energy Project and author of "The Way We're Working Isn't Working."

Jeff Cruikshank, coauthor of "The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century."

Peter Cappelli, Wharton School professor and coauthor of "Managing the Older Worker: How to Prepare for the New Organizational Order."

Frank Flynn, Stanford Business School professor and subject of the HBR article "Guilt-Ridden People Make Great Leaders."

Bernd Vogel, assistant professor of leadership and organizational behavior at the Henley Business School and coauthor of "Fully Charged."

Jonah Keri, sports and stock market writer; author of "The Extra 2%."