Urban Issues

“The future ain’t what it used to be,” Yogi Berra famously observed. Nowhere is that truer than regarding the future of work, particularly in cities.  read more »

In a previous post, I commented on the difficulties faced by the Calgary CBD (downtown), with its huge office vacancies resulting from the mid-decade oil bust  read more »

Oregon’s new governor, Tina Kotek, has made housing her top priority and has proposed a number of unrealistic and idiotic remedies to high housing costs and homelessness.  read more »

From the end of World War II until 1970, owner-occupied housing was broadly affordable across the entire country. The standard measure for measuring affordability —the price-to-income ratio— was at about 2.8 in 1950, 2.5 in 1960, 2.6 in 1970, 3.4 in 1980, and 4.2 in 2020.  read more »

If there is one thing Californians agree on, it is that we have to do something about the inhumane drug addiction and mental health crisis proliferating across our cities and towns.  read more »

The immutable law of supply and demand is nevertheless pulling off a mutation in Downtown Los Angeles when it comes to one of the least glamorous and most interesting asset classes of commercial real estate in the area: parking lots.  read more »

Ryan Atwood was the juvenile delinquent from the slums of Chino, just east of the county line, as depicted in the popular show The O.C. However, Chino was not a crime-ridden pocket in the Golden State  read more »

"Town and country must be married and out of this joyous union will spring a new hope, a new life, a new civilization.”
— Ebenezer Howard, 1898"

All cities must evolve over time. Those that fail to do so end up, at best, like Venice, Vienna, or Florence: lifestyle and tourist hubs. This fate now awaits our greatest urban cores if they cannot address the demographic, social, and economic forces transforming the metropolitan landscape.  read more »

It's always been a mug's fame to best against New York City, which was counted out only to quickly bounce back after 9/11 and again in 2008 after the financial system nearly collapsed and took the world economy with it.  read more »

One of the arguments against single-family zoning is that separating housing from other uses forces people to drive to shops, work, and other destinations.  read more »