City Sector Model

A few months ago, we reported on the strong attraction of the suburbs and exurbs in the growth of the largest metropolitan areas (a City Sector Model [Note 1] analysis, Minorities Dominate Suburban Growth). That article showed that from 2000 to 2015/2019 (middle year 2017), White Non-Hispanics accounted for only four percent of suburban and exurban population growth in the 53 major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 population).  read more »

The Urban Reform Institute has published the 2021 edition of Demographia United States Housing Affordability, which rates middle-income housing affordability in the third quarter 2020.  read more »

Advances in information technology have made it possible to provide estimates of job access by transportation mode in metropolitan areas. The University of Minnesota’s Accessibility Observatory has positioned itself as the leader in this field.  read more »

In the middle of October, something astonishing happened: the Government and the National Party held a joint news conference to announce that they had agreed on the way to make housing more affordable.  read more »

“Almost all theories of the city are largely qualitative, developed primarily from focused studies on specific cities or groups of cities supplemented by narratives, anecdotes, and intuition.” Geoffrey West, Scale, 2017

This recent quote recalls Jane Jacobs’s seminal book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961)  read more »

There is an expectation in some quarters that densification of existing urban areas will lead to improved housing affordability. This argument is used to justify densification policies around the world.  read more »

Back in 2008 was I one of the first people to start talking about how corporate headquarters were moving back to the global city in the form of the “executive headquarters.” An executive headquarters is one with just the top executives in the firm - from a handful of people up through 500 or so.  read more »

The pandemic has cut a swath through our sense of normalcy, but as has been the case throughout history, a disastrous plague also brings opportunities to reshape and even improve society. COVID-19 provides the threat of greater economic concentration, but also a unique chance to recast our geography, expand the realm of the middle class, boost social equity, and develop better ways to create sustainable communities.  read more »

No matter what else it may have already caused and/or will continue to cause in the coming future, one thing that we know for sure is that the COVID pandemic has done is alter how people will approach land use planning and development issues in the coming years, possibly even decades.  read more »

Recently on Twitter I came across a post about the NSW Panning Minister's announcement banning dark roofing for detached houses in fringe housing estates to minimise the heat island effect. Scrolling down the comments, I noticed one by the Sydney Morning Herald’s anti-suburban architecture critic, Elizabeth Farrelly.  read more »