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The Supreme Court has handed down another win for skeptics of progressive overreach. On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the authority to set national energy policy and regulate carbon emissions from power plants. The ruling was a blow to the Biden Administration, which has pursued an aggressive clean energy agenda. But it was a win for democracy—as well as for a politically sustainable approach to climate change.
You won't hear much about that in the mainstream press. Expect instead an endless litany of hysteria about our dying planet and the right-wing plot to accelerate the end of the natural world. "Run out of words to describe this court, but, among other things, it's now a threat to the planet," tweeted MSNBC host Chris Hayes in a typical missive.
Yet the issue here is not really environmental; it's fundamentally political. The new Court may be too doctrinaire in its states' rights approach, as we have seen in the sweeping Roe and gun decision, but so far it has hewn to an important principle: Major policies should have approval from elected representatives rather than being handed down from the bureaucratic Olympus.
This was the Supreme Court's primary objection to the Obama-era limitations on power plants: These limitations were never passed by Congress but imposed by decree. In this, SCOTUS identified a frightening trend that has been building for decades under both parties, and has worked to overcome it; what kind of policies we enact, and how draconian they should be, should be left to the people's representatives, the Court has ruled. Our legislative electeds may not always be the brightest bulbs, but that hardly matters. What matters is that they are accountable to us.
This is not how many in the green movement wanted things to shake out. Their modus operandi is to couple relentless exaggeration and predictions of imminent doom with a barely disguised desire to exercise direct, unconstrained control over the everyday lives of citizens, much like the medieval Catholic Church, or Stalin. Indeed, for some of the Green New folks, the draconian lockdowns from the pandemic were not so much a tragedy but a a "test run" for the kind of rule by a global technocracy that some progressive pundits now seek to impose.
Read the rest of this piece at Newsweek.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
There is no question that the Democrats are going overboard on the staged theatrics surrounding the horrific events of January 6th. This is a clear attempt by the Party to revive their electoral prospects this autumn, but they may well end up undermining the only man who can save them: Donald Trump.
The hearings already face diminished ratings. After the first day, audience figures fell by 50% and seem unlikely to persuade most fair-minded people that January 6th was anything like the ‘insurrection’ it’s painted as. What emerges instead is a confirmation of mass stupidity by addled MAGA activists set in motion by a cheerleading Chief Executive.
Trump certainly bears his share of the blame for January 6th but not as an organiser of a coordinated rebellion in the historic sense. A coup? Without guns and no military or police support? Mussolini, he is not. January 6th lacked the focus and planning of the March on Rome and there’s certainly nothing of the organised violence that facilitated the Nazi rise to power. Instead, Trump comes off as a hopeless narcissist unwilling to accept his loss even when presented with the facts by his most reliable advisors.
What is catching up with Trump is not his fascist leanings but his pathetic character as an overaged Baby Huey. Progressives and Democrats revel in the idea that the GOP is now a tool of Trump as the unassailable il duce. But in reality, the ex-President is not getting stronger, but weaker. His poll numbers, even among Republicans, have weakened, as more members claim to identify with their party rather than its titular leader. Trump does not retain the respect and loyalty that Ronald Reagan, for example, maintained among a broad part of the party.
Read the rest of this piece at UnHerd.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
The City of Minneapolis “cannot enforce its controversial long-range plan eliminating single-family zoning, but it could do so in the future if it meets certain conditions, a Hennepin County district judge ruled Wednesday in a lawsuit brought by a trio of environmental organizations.” According to Susan Du and Liz Navratil of the Star Tribune, Smart Growth Minneapolis, the Audubon Society of Minneapolis and Minnesota Citizens for the Protection of Migratory Birds “sued to force the city to conduct an environmental review, alleging that ‘that a plan allowing the increase in density would likely pollute natural resources because of the increase in hard surfaces, soil erosion and increased runoff, among other adverse effects.’”
Hennepin County District Judge Joseph Klein issued a summary judgment writing that: "The City has not put forth any evidence showing that a full build-out will not have any of the potential adverse environmental impacts."
Judge Klein “criticized the city's defense for ‘vaguely’ dismissing the risks that the plan presents to the environment by arguing "a full build-out of almost 150,000 new residential units is extremely unlikely to occur," The Star-Tribune noted that despite the City’s “extremely unlikely” argument, the 150,000 units could be permitted throughout its duration.
Demographic Note: Like most central cities that have not annexed or consolidated with other jurisdictions, the city of Minneapolis has suffered significant population loss. The city of Minneapolis population peaked at 522,000 in 1950, dropping to 368,000 in 1990 and recovering to 430,000 in 2020. The 92,000 city population loss over the period contrasts with the growth of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, from 1,330,000 in 1950 to 3,690,000 in 2020 (present geographical definition), an increase of 2,360,000, or 177%. All of the metropolitan area’s growth has been outside the city of Minneapolis since 1950. The metropolitan area (labor market area) now covers 15 counties, 13 in Minnesota and 2 in Wisconsin.
Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a founding senior fellow at the Urban Reform Institute, Houston, a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.
Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985) and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.
The most recent elections in California resolved little about the future, but did suggest that there’s a growing electoral unease with progressive dogma. This was made most clear in the recall of San Francisco’s arch-radical district attorney, Chesa Boudin, and in the first-place finish of billionaire Rick Caruso, on an anti-crime and anti-homelessness ticket, in the primary race for LA mayor.
The drivers of electoral change are quality-of-life issues, like homelessness, petty crime and a general deterioration of civic order. Yet the biggest issues have hardly been discussed, notably economic trends and policies that underlie the state’s housing problems, entrenched poverty, massive inequality and loss of attractiveness to investors.
To be sure, candidates like Caruso and business interests funding the Boudin recall are aware of the economic issues. Yet they, and for that matter Gavin Newsom, who won a majority in the Democratic primary for California governor, have not focused on the economic crisis that could supplant all other issues in the coming year. The state media, which should be focusing on this, seem more interested in explaining away the economic problems that are clearly facing California.
Read the rest of this piece at Spiked.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
In yesterday’s primary elections, California took a small step away from the brink. San Franciscans recalled one of the most notorious “progressive prosecutors”—ultra-lenient DA Chesa Boudin—while in Los Angeles, voters made billionaire and former Republican Rick Caruso the front-runner for the November mayor’s race.
These are encouraging developments for anyone who wants a return to sanity in the Golden State, though they fall far short of what conservatives hoped would be a red wave. Nothing better illustrates the lack of a conservative or even centrist counterpoint in California than its not particularly popular governor, Gavin Newsom, winning 56 percent of the vote in an open primary with extraordinarily light turnout. Michael Shellenberger, a skeptical and reality-based progressive, generated lots of positive coverage for his stinging critiques—but alas, few votes, as he polled below 4 percent. The leading Republican, the barely known Brian Dahle, could not break 17 percent.
Why wasn’t voter reaction stronger in a state that most here think is past its prime, becoming ever more unequal and crushed by high taxes and regulation? It’s called political monopolization. Democrats control every statewide office and seem assured of a veto-proof majority in both houses. They dominate local media. They are, in effect, the only party with power and reach statewide, and, notes analyst Dan Walters, they now operate in increasingly stealthy fashion, with few worries about Republican or media scrutiny.
Read the rest of this piece at City Journal.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
California may be the incubator of some of the worst political trends of our times — affirmative action, climate hysteria, identity politics — but it is also capable of reversing those trends, and those of the nation as well. Yesterday the Golden State shattered the Left’s urban wall, replacing a far-Left prosecutor, Chesa Boudin, in San Francisco. There is now a growing drive to remove LA’s leftist DA, George Gascon, Boudin’s predecessor, who will face Rick Caurso in a run-off.
LA’s election represents arguably the biggest pushback thus far to progressivism. The city, which has been solidly left-of-centre for a generation, placed Caruso, a former Republican billionaire, in first place for LA’s Mayoralty against longtime progressive political leader, Karen Bass. There’s even growing talk of a similar takedown next winter in Chicago, the home of Barack Obama, where crime problems and economic challenges easily match those of its Californian counterparts.
Read the rest of this piece at UnHerd.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
When it comes to preening, no American politician excels more than California Governor Gavin Newsom. His latest achievement, if you want to call it that, has been signing America’s first “reparations” bill for African-Americans. Although the terms are vague, there are promises of new free tuition and housing subsidies to anyone proving they are descendants of slaves. All this is supposed to be overseen by an Office of African American/Freedmen Affairs.
Given that California was never a slave state (in 1852 it was home to a total of 1500 enslaved people), the adoption of this statute seems a bit absurd. Generally the most persistent racial discrimination was aimed at larger populations — native Americans, the old Californios (descendants of Mexican/Spanish settlers) and, most of all, Asians, who were banned from landownership and were subject to brutal pogroms, with the worst occurring in Los Angeles in 1871.
Indeed, despite the existence of racism and often hostile relations with law enforcement, African-Americans saw California as a liberation from far more oppressive conditions in the South. Moving to LA en masse in the 1920s and 1930s, their numbers increased during World War II thanks to good jobs in the burgeoning aircraft, automobile, and construction economies. While black people no doubt faced some discrimination during this period, they experienced far less than they did elsewhere; in L.A., wrote Ralph Bunche, black people were “eating high up” off the hog.
Read the rest of this piece at UnHerd.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Related Companies, developer of Hudson Yards in New York, the largest private real estate development in the nation’s history has announced a 270 housing units geared toward the needs of top management executives working hybrid schedules. This would provide such executives housing nearby their offices when they work in the city, splitting their work schedules with remote work from home or elsewhere at other times. Peter Grant describes the project in a Wall Street Journal article that also summarizes similar high-amenity executive products under offer by other companies. The full article is here.
Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a founding senior fellow at the Urban Reform Institute, Houston, a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.
Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985) and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.
Joe Biden’s Presidency is unravelling, but Democrats hope that Republicans will snatch victory from the maw of their own miscalculations. The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has energised warhorses like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to see a way to rescue their now fading prospects.
Chiding California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, a strong abortion rights activist, for not being hysterical enough, Pelosi wants to throw some red meat to her downbeat progressive Democratic base, and even persuade some centrist suburbanites. The New Republic, once a respectable source of opinion but now largely a mouthpiece of the Democratic party, warns of “devastating political fallout for the Republicans”.
But the abortion issue may not be the silver bullet issue for Pelosi and her minions. Given that the administration has been tied to such things as high crime, inflation and now a troubled stock market, abortion barely registers for most voters.
Indeed, if the Democrats read the polls better, they would see that their absolutist position could prove as problematic for them as the abortion ban zealots are for the GOP. Gallup reveals, for example, that over the past decade, barely one in five Americans support a total ban on abortion, but only one-third favour no restrictions at all. Most Americans, according to a recent Pew survey, including in both parties, favour generally limited rights to abortion, but the current Democratic Party line of essentially no restrictions wins barely one-fifth of the electorate.
Read the rest at UnHerd.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
What primarily intrigues me about people who willingly show themselves and their oversized properties off in places like the Wall Street Journal’s Mansion section is…why? I know we are in the age of oversharing, but these are obviously wealthy people, usually with children–just the sorts you’d expect to want privacy.
Of course, if they seek to peddle their supposed dream home, that would explain it, but often, as in this Mansion piece from last week from Montana and Idaho, the profiled households say they’re staying. So then I figure someone involved in the property–the architect, the designer, maybe the Realtor–leans on the homeowner to put their prize on parade.
Read the rest of this piece at Tim W. Ferguson.
Tim W. Ferguson, the former editor of Forbes’s Asia edition, writes about business, economics and society.
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