In defiance of the conventional wisdom in the national media and among most planning professionals, Americans continue not only to prefer, but to move into single family detached houses. Data from the 2010 American Community Survey indicates that such housing attracted 79.2% of the new households in the 51 major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 population) over the past decade. read more »
Newgeography.com - Economic, demographic, and political commentary about places
Florida Gets Dragged Into the 21st Century
Righteous cries of outrage and anger dominate Florida these days, as unreasonable assaults upon common sense seem to roll with regularity out of the governor’s office. Recently, Governor Scott published a list of Florida’s higher education faculty, matching salaries to names. This act was disingenuously styled as an effort towards transparency, but it was really a good old-fashioned right-wing poke at the eggheads. read more »
Arab Spring - American Winter
2011 brought us the Arab Spring, a year of protests, turmoil, and revolution. 2012 will usher in the American Winter, a new era of withdrawal and separation for America and the Middle East. Contrary to conventional wisdom, America is poised to step back from the dominant role it has played in the Middle East since 1948.
The author has traveled to the Middle East for more than two decades during which time there was little change among the dictators, strongmen and mullahs that ruled the desert lands. read more »
Overpopulation Isn't The Problem: It's Too Few Babies
The world’s population recently passed the 7 billion mark, and, of course, the news was greeted with hysteria and consternation in the media. “It’s not hard to be alarmed,” intoned National Geographic. “We should all be afraid, very afraid,” warned the Guardian. read more »
HELP WANTED: The North Dakota Boom
The nation’s unemployment rate has been hovering at nearly nine percent since 2009. But not every state is suffering an employment crisis. In the remote, windswept state of North Dakota, job fairs often bustle with more recruiters than potential workers. The North Dakota unemployment rate hasn’t risen above five percent since 1987. In the state's oil country, unemployment hovers at around two percent, and pretty much everyone who wants a job—as long as they are old enough and not incarcerated—is employed. read more »
Major Metropolitan Commuting Trends: 2000-2010
As we indicated in the last article, solo automobile commuting reached an all time record in the United States in 2010, increasing by 7.8 million commuters. At the same time, huge losses were sustained by carpooling, while the largest gain was in working at home, which includes telecommuting. Transit and bicycling also added commuters. This continues many of the basic trends toward more personalized employment access that we have seen since 1960. read more »
America's Demographic Opportunity
Among the world’s major advanced countries, the United States remains a demographic outlier, with a comparatively youthful and growing population. This provides an unusual opportunity for America’s resurgence over the next several decades, as population growth elsewhere slows dramatically, and even declines dramatically, in a host of important countries. read more »
A Century of Change in the US Black Population, 1910 to 2010
2010 was the 100th anniversary of the start of the “Great Migration” of the “Negro” population to northern cities from the mainly rural South. The midway point occurred in 1960 when black urban population was beginning to peak. read more »
Have i-Phone, Will Travel
Much in the way that fax machines, Fed Ex, and home computers changed residential living several decades ago, portable technology is now changing how we spend our time when moving from place to place. To better understand traveler behavior in the digital age, our DePaul University team has been tracking how passengers on intercity trips engage with technology. We’ve compiled data using (ironically) hand-held electronic devices on 112 air, bus and rail departures encompassing 18,000 passengers. read more »
Dense Urban Thinking Down Under
Ku-ring-gai is a piece of suburban paradise in the inner rings of Sydney. A district of modest homes and quaint small-scale shopping districts, it sits near one of the last remaining stretches of blue-gum forest inside Australia’s largest city. You can still catch the occasional cockatoo luxuriating on a branch. read more »
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