Urban Issues

Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here, returns with a new book called An American Summer that is an extremely powerful portrait of the impact of violence in Chicago. It’s hard to really review a book that is a collection of people’s stories, but I have one up over at City Journal. An American Summer is a very moving and disturbing work I highly recommend. Here is an excerpt from my review:  read more »

For decades California’s regulatory and tax policies have undermined our middle class, driving millions out of this most favored state. Perhaps nowhere is this clearer than in a drive that seeks to destroy the single-family neighborhoods preferred by the state’s middle-income households.  read more »

The allure of Los Angeles may be the good weather, beaches, and the glitz and glam of Hollywood. However, the Los Angeles area has around 50,000 people who are currently experiencing homelessness. Natasha Sokol, a student at Chapman University, shows us how extreme the inequality really is in her video below.  read more »

The fiasco surrounding Amazon’s recent escape from New York reflects a broader, potentially devastating trend. By driving the Seattle-based behemoth out of the Big Apple, New York’s increasingly militant progressives have created a political paradigm that could resonate in cities across the country.  read more »

I wrote my latest piece about Providence, but it could apply to a lot of cities. It’s a bit of a contrarian take on civic engagement. For some people, too much civic engagement can result in a fixation on problems, which then turns them negative on the community. This makes the grass look greener in other places. Whereas if they just enjoyed the good things about a city instead of worrying about civic challenges, they might enjoy life more and be more likely to stay. Here’s an excerpt:  read more »

When we think about organizing precarious “gig” workers, the task seems biblical. The workers may be ready, or not, but the spirit and the flesh are weak. We all bemoan the rise of gig workers. Low pay, few hours, no benefits are some of them, worsened by the uncertainty of a position where you can only work to deliver something being demanded by consumers at a premium you are powerless to control.  read more »

Low fares and more bus service, rather than urban rail, is the key to improving transit ridership in Los Angeles. That conclusion can be easily drawn from a recent installment of transportation consultant Thomas A. Rubin and Professor James E. Moore II in their series on transit in Los Angeles. This article covers Improving Bus Service and Reducing Fares have Greatly Increased Transit Use in Los Angeles as part of a series entitled A Critical Review of Los Angeles Metro’s 28 by 2028 Plan being published by the Reason Foundation and its earlier installments were covered in a previous New Geography article.  read more »

Thanks to an urban-growth boundary, Denver has a housing affordability problem. Apartment rents have increased by 65 percent in the last decade, while the nationwide cost of living in that time rose by just 18 percent and rents nationwide increased by an average of 28 percent.  read more »

Our world is changing faster than ever before. As our relationships to work, place, information, place, and most importantly, each other, have massively shifted, we are stuck in an uncertain place yearning for a common ground. Can fostering character formation in these uncertain times spark meaningful change in people's lives?  read more »

The Antiplanner has often called San Jose’s Valley Transit Authority (VTA) the nation’s worst transit agency (with some competition from DC Metro). It would be nice, however, to confirm that with hard data. The question is what are the best ways to measure agency performance?  read more »