Blogs

For the first time, oil has been exported from the United States to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE has been one of the world’s leading producers of oil, which has financed the urban centers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, with their spectacular architecture. This is an indication of the rise over the past decade of the United States as a fossil fuel producer.  read more »

When Amazon’s list of 20 cites that will move forward was announced, I noted that cities like Indianapolis and Columbus win just from making the cut. You could also add Nashville and Raleigh to that list.

I’m just following up with some brief evidence of how this played out. First, the New York Times coverage of the Amazon cut list selection led with an image of downtown Indianapolis and also featured a large picture of Columbus, Ohio.  read more »

Amazon released its first cut of 20 cities in the bakeoff for its new 50,000 job HQ2, down from 238 initial bids submitted.

It’s hard to know exactly how to interpret this, but one takeaway is that Amazon wants to keep us guessing about where they are heading. There are bigger cities and smaller cities, high cost cities and low cost cities, red state cities and blue state cities, cities in every area of the country, etc.  read more »

The Wall Street Journal reports good news for Detroit, with a somewhat rare expansion of production in Detroit (specifically in Warren, suburban Macomb County). Fiat Chrysler will be moving some of its truck production to Warren from a plant in Saltillo, Mexico, creating 2,500 new jobs. The Detroit move is to be contrasted with the near monopoly that Southern states have enjoyed in attracting vehicle manufacturing by foreign suppliers.  read more »

•  Annual new home starts were up 14% compared to 3Q16 – and this is the first time since 1Q08 that annual starts were above 6,000.  read more »

The San Francisco Bay Area (home of the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas), which has often been cited as a place where natural barriers have left little land for development. This is an impression easily obtained observing the fairly narrow strips of urbanization on both sides of San Francisco Bay, hemmed in by hills.  read more »

At ParcelHero, we’ve gotten to know cities all over the world. In order to share some of our favourites, we’ve put together a fiendish quiz called CurioCities, which features a hundred cities from around the world. You’d be forgiven for thinking that doesn’t sound all that exciting, which is why we put our own twist on it.  read more »

The suburbs of the future are almost here. Contrary to mass media's belief, many millennials are choosing to live in the suburbs, especially as they get older.  read more »

Texas cities may well be the cutting edge of American urban life. Here are two videos by Amanda Horvath that reflect the reporting done in the recent Texas Way of Urbanism report from the Center for Opportunity Urbanism.  read more »

A confluence of potent forces is creating an era of localism and decentralization across the planet making local decision-making and action more important than ever before. This is particularly true in the economic realm, where cities and regions must take full advantage of their unique combination of resources, culture, infrastructure, core competencies in industry and agriculture and the skills of entrepreneurs and workers.     read more »