Economics

Even before the Wall Street meltdown, the New York area was going through its own de-clustering. No it hasn't - and probably never will - become a multi polar area in the style of Los Angeles, Houston or Phoenix, but the trend to deconcentrate jobs has been inexorable over the last thirty years, according to a new report by our friends at the Center for an Urban Future.

The report states:  read more »

Lost amidst headlines of bank nationalization, credit market woes, and a worldwide equities rout, was news that the Baltic Dry Index, an index seen as a measure of world trade flows and future economic activity, has been in freefall this week. A drop of 8% on Tuesday was bookended by drops of around 11% on both Monday and Wednesday.

According to the Guardian, the index is  read more »

After several days in New York, I encountered serious climate change — in terms of atmosphere — at a USA-Canada Summit in Grand Forks, ND. Sure people were concerned about the market meltdown, but the talk was all of new plans for expanding the economy across both sides of the border. The distressed martinis of Manhattan nights were gone in a place where drinks also came with good cheer.  read more »

The late Jesse Unruh, longtime speaker of the California Assembly, was a giant of a man, both in accomplishment and girth. But he will be forever remembered for having said that “Money is the mother’s milk of politics”.  read more »

America, the world's most advanced continental nation, could be on the verge of a great resurgence, much of it based in regions largely unacknowledged by many pundits, academics and the media. What is needed now is an infrastructure strategy to make it happen.

So say New Geography contributors Delore Zimmerman and Joel Kotkin in recently released white paper proposing a new method of infrastructure financing for the heartland of America: a Heartland Development Bank.  read more »

Writing in the Wall Street Journal last week, native Kansan Thomas Frank isn't too complimentary on the state of affairs:

...you will find that small-town America, this legendary place of honesty and sincerity and dignity, is not doing very well. If you drive west from Kansas City, Mo., you will find towns where Main Street is largely boarded up. You will see closed schools and hospitals. You will hear about depleted groundwater and massive depopulation.  read more »

The Financial Times recently made note of the biggest drop in commodity prices in 28 years. This, of course, is a fall from record highs and some analysts are continuing bullish forecasts. The Reuters/Jeffries CRB index has continued its decline the past few days  read more »

Yesterday, an article appeared in the SF Chronicle by C.W. Nevius about an Internet salesman who lives in a tent in Golden Gate Park because housing costs are too high. He works by day at a cafe and pitches his tent at night getting up before dawn when the police do raids to evict illegal campers.  read more »

Over half of the nation lives in metropolitan areas of more than 1 million people, but bizjournals.com suggests many may indicate another preference:

Yet a substantial number of these residents of big cities and inner-ring suburbs don't have their hearts in it. They would prefer to live on the suburban fringe or in small-town America, as repeatedly shown by surveys during the past decade.  read more »

The American Wind Energy Association just announced that the US has overtaken Germany as the worlds top wind power generator, you're certainly familiar with T. Boone Pickens's wind obsession, and DOE is claiming we could be generating 20% of our power with wind by 2030.  read more »