When we think of oppressive regimes, we immediately think of the Stalinist model portrayed in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the heavy-handed thought control associated with Hitler’s Reich or Mao’s China. But where the old propaganda was loud, crude and often lethal, the contemporary style of thought control takes the form of a gentle nudging towards orthodoxy – a gentle push that gradually closes off one’s critical faculties and leads one to comply with gently given directives. Governments around the world, including in the UK, notes the Guardian, have been embracing this approach with growing enthusiasm. read more »
Newgeography.com - Economic, demographic, and political commentary about places
Do Sidewalks Make Us More Social?
Sidewalks have long been considered to be essential parts of America’s social and communal infrastructure. As Jane Jacobs recognized many decades ago, sidewalks are “the main public places of the city’’ and ‘‘its most vital organs.’’ For Jacobs and subsequent scholars of urbanity, sidewalks are active sites of socialization and allowing for open interactions and accidental encounters; they also serve as conduits to easily connect people to their communities as well as create spaces of contention and conflict. read more »
Own Nothing and Love It
From the ancient world to modern times, the class of small property owners have constituted the sine qua non of democratic self-government. But today this class is under attack by what Aristotle described as an oligarchia, an unelected power elite that controls the political economy for its own purposes. read more »
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Why the 'Old North' States Have Been Economic Laggards
My latest column is now online at Governing. It is a recapitulation of my analysis in my American Affairs piece on Indiana read more »
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Minorities Monopolize California’s Suburban and Exurban Growth
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 »
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Dot's, Rivian, Kohl's: Homegrown Successes Get Coastal Boosts
As long as we promote and encourage the growth of companies that get their start in Flyover Country the economic gains for our region will keep on coming. Often the benefits will be offset by the involvement of coastal startup or exit capital, because we're a long way from being able to completely bootstrap our own continued rise. But there are great benefits, nonetheless. read more »
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The GND Has No Plan to Replace Crude Oil Products
Two of the fossil fuels, coal, and natural gas, are used to generate continuous uninterruptible electricity, but crude oil, the third fossil fuel, is seldom ever used for electricity, but primarily used to manufacture oil derivatives that thousands of products are based upon, and the fuels for the various transportation infrastructures. read more »
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Indiana Under Republican Rule
My latest article is in the Winter edition of American Affairs Journal. It's a detailed examination of Indiana under 16 years of Republican rule. read more »
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Demographia United States Housing Affordability: 188 Markets Rated
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 »
The Socialism America Needs
Clobbered from all sides by the pandemic, climate change and disruptions in virtually every industry by the rise of artificial intelligence, the capitalist dream is dying — and a new, mutant form of socialism is growing in its place. read more »
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