Urban Issues

It appears my alma mater will fall short of pre-season expectations in football. So I’ve pretty much already accepted the likelihood that the Wisconsin Badgers will disappoint their fans on the gridiron for at least the second year in a row.  read more »

Sub-Saharan Africa has grown quickly, at a rate about 1.5 times the rest of the world from 1960 to 2020. This has principally been the result of its higher fertility rates and increasing life expectancy.  read more »

Let me clearly state this up front. I’m doing something you won’t see very often. I’m writing a review of a book review. And providing an opinion of a book I haven’t read. Given what I’ve read in the review, I do not plan to read the book.  read more »

Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser thinks people worldwide have a “human right” to come to the United States, legally or illegally. Our nation’s capital proudly proclaimed itself a “sanctuary city” in 2016.  read more »

For much of the 20th century, Los Angeles symbolised the future. Over the course of the century, the population grew 40-fold to nearly four million people.  read more »

There’s much talk today, from left and right, about threats to democracy, yet little focus on the social dynamic critical to its survival. In this respect, we may see the current, and troubling, escalation of violent political rhetoric, and even political violence, not so much as the cause of polarization but the result of changing class dynamics, most notably the increasingly perilous state of the yeoman middle class.  read more »

Shortly after Indiana passed a new law restricting abortion, Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly condemned the law and announced that it would seek to expand outside the state.  read more »

Ah, Sri Lanka.

In 2020: a beautiful, agriculturally self-sufficient island nation full of tea and tourists and holder of the highest “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) investor rating in the world.  read more »

Hulu’s series The Bear, oddly labeled as a comedy, takes viewers inside a hectic, crowded, struggling Chicago sandwich shop that Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen Wright) inherited from his brother, Michael,  read more »

Canada’s housing affordability crisis is a matter of considerable concern especially for young people trying to buy a house. The worst problems are in the Vancouver and Toronto markets with their excessive land use regulation.  read more »