Blogs

Efforts are underway by the Taiwan government for a government led restructuring to avoid bankruptcy (Plan to stop Taiwan's high-speed rail going bust set for review). Since opening in 2007, this privately financed and operated system has been plagued with ridership well below projections.  read more »

The doubtful claim that low density US cities impose a cost to the economy of $400 billion is countered by their being the most affluent in the world. Nine of the top 10 cities in GDP per capita are in the US and more than 70% of the top 50.  read more »

What’s often forgotten in politics and governance is municipalities are the creation of state legislatures.  A good deal of the population growth in major cities in the second half of the nineteenth century was due to annexation. One of the best examples is New York‘s amazing growth due to annexing Brooklyn. Few people are talking about it but it’s time to consider smaller political units.  read more »

Maps have been published illustrating the City Sector Model functional urban classifications for the 52 major metropolitan areas in the United States. The maps are available at Demographia City Sector Model Metropolitan Area Maps.

Functional Classifications of Metropolitan Areas  read more »

A New York Times article by Sam Roberts indicates that
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Today, there are about 30 megacities in the world, where more than 10 million residents live. The largest is Tokyo, at about 38 million. Recent announcements by the government of China could lead to the worlds' first gigacity (for want of a better term, used here to denote a city of more than 100,000,000 population, see note).  read more »

It seems that Destination LI, “a nonprofit community building and educational organization dedicated to helping people create and sustain vibrant centers” on Long Island, has been quietly busy in recent months.
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Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund cited the need for housing market reform at the conclusion of discussions with the government of the United Kingdom on Friday, June 6.  read more »

In a Wall Street Journal commentary entitled Turning the Twin Cities Into Sim City, Katherine Kersten of the Center of the American Experiment describes how "a handful of unelected bureaucrats are gearing up to impose their vision of the ideal society on the nearly three million residents of the Minneapolis-St.  read more »

Economist Thomas Sowell, who has taught at Cornell University and UCLA and has worked at the Urban Institute and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University summarizes the economics of the housing market in a recent article:

"Anyone who has taken Economics 1 knows that preventing the supply from rising to meet the demand means that prices are going to rise. Housing is no exception."  read more »