Urban Planning Chair Chris Tilly was featured in a New York Times article about the increasing popularity of online grocery shopping services like Instacart. In 2020, online grocery sales rose 54%. The technology needed to fulfill orders is costly for stores, and the workers who pick customers’ items off the shelves often feel the pressure of being timed and tracked to monitor their efficiency. “The guinea pig for this is warehouse workers,” said Tilly, explaining that many of the technologies for online grocery shopping and picking are adapted from warehouses. He predicted that facilities designed specifically for online orders will eventually be expanded as the current system is creating an additional financial strain for grocers. “There is a constant search for how to make this cheaper, more efficient and, in many cases, as a transition to something longer term,” Tilly concluded.