Expanding mass-transit systems is a pillar of green and “new urbanist” thinking, but with few exceptions, the idea of ever-larger numbers of people commuting into an urban core ignores a major shift in the labor economy: More people are working from home. read more »
Demographics
Urban Talent Sheds Say a Lot About Cities
Jim Russell pointed me as the workforce report program that LinkedIn runs. They use their data to show trends in 20 major job markets.
For each market they track, they put together a map of the 10 cities that market gains the most workers from and the ten in loses the most workers too. read more »
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Las Vegas Lessons, Part II
A couple weeks ago I wrote some thoughts after a recent visit to Las Vegas. Most of what I wrote about concerned the Strip and downtown areas of the city, without question the two most recognizable and most frequently visited parts of the region. read more »
Amazon Eats Up Whole Foods as the New Masters of the Universe Plunder America
“We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” —Justice Louis Brandeis
With his $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has made clear his determination to dominate every facet of mass retailing, likely at the cost of massive layoffs in the $800 billion supermarket sector. read more »
Is America Now Second-Rate?
President Donald Trump’s recent renunciation of the Paris climate change accords has spurred “the international community” to pronounce America’s sudden exit from global leadership. Now you read in the media aspirations to look instead to Europe, Canada, or even China, to dominate the world. Some American intellectuals, viewing Trump, even wish we had lost our struggle for independence. read more »
Connecticut's Future is Suburban, Not Urban
Connecticut is now grappling with a fiscal and economic crisis that, according to some leading Democrats, has been caused by ineffective urban policy. In late May, Hartford-based insurer Aetna confirmed long-discussed rumors that it will be moving its headquarters from Connecticut. General Electric announced plans to move from Fairfield, Connecticut to Boston in January 2016. read more »
The Superstar Gap
The biggest challenge facing many cities in transitioning to the knowledge economy is a shortage of “A” talent, especially true superstars.
All “talent” isn’t created equal. Crude measures such as the percentage of a region with college degrees, or even graduate degrees, don’t fully capture this. It is disproporationately the top performers, the “A” players and superstars that make things happen. read more »
Where Manufacturing Is Thriving In The U.S.
Throughout the dismal presidential campaign, the plight of America’s manufacturing sector played a central role. Yet despite all the concerns raised about factory jobs leaving the country, all but 18 of the country’s 70 largest metropolitan regions have seen an uptick in industrial employment since 2011. read more »
Las Vegas Lessons, Part 1
I spent much of last week in Las Vegas for the International Council of Shopping Centers' RECON 2017, the world's largest real estate convention. It's a gathering for developers, brokers, property owners, retailers, architects, landscape designers, construction companies, municipalities and more to get together to discuss real estate possibilities, in the one city that owes its very existence to aggressive real estate ventures. read more »
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America's Most Suburbanized Cities
Recently, The Wall Street Journal and Newsday, in a photographic spread, trumpeted the 70th anniversary of Levittown, the New York suburban development that provided the model for much of the rapid suburbanization that occurred after the Second World War in the United States. Levittown's production line building also set the stage for the similar suburbs of cities in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. read more »
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