Newgeography.com - Economic, demographic, and political commentary about places

The Revenge of the Analog Economy

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The last few decades have seen the emergence of two rival economies: an older analog one built on the actual production of goods, and another that profits from financial transactions, images and customer surveillance.  read more »

The Connection: Housing Affordability and Inequality

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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 »

Rent Forever and Love It

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Housing is an industry, but it is also where people live, raise families, and stake their future. Yet increasingly, all around the world, housing has increasingly become just a commodity to be traded  read more »

Our On Again, Off Again, Infrastructure Future

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Over a long summer weekend a group of the usual suspects got together and rented a cabin in the Sierra foothills about three hours east of San Francisco. It was an idyllic landscape of modest homes tucked into the forest around a small lake.  read more »

Inflation Reduction Act Will Hinder EV Growth

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After his mandate to transition to electric vehicles (EVs), President Joe Biden then signed The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that requires EVs to contain a battery pack and other parts built in North America with minerals mined or recycled in America.  read more »

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Collapse or Evolution?

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An article in Salon by anti-capitalist Chris Hedges argues that our civilization is on the verge of collapse. As evidence, he points to the 65 percent decline of the population of St. Louis since 1950.  read more »

America Has An Oedipus Complex

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As in Sophocles’s tragedy Oedipus Rex, we are witnessing a generational drama in which inheritors kill their proverbial father to marry their mother, in this case Mother Earth. The psychology behind this pattern is above my pay grade, but many of the richest people on the planet, and their heirs, now seem anxious to disparage the economic system that created their fortunes.  read more »

Total Fertility Rate: Metros — San Francisco (Lowest) to Jacksonville (Highest)

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As we previously reported, US total fertility rates have dropped markedly since 2010. The total fertility rate (TFR) is “the expected number of lifetime births per woman women given current birth rates by age.”  read more »

The Unexpected Future

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We are entering an unanticipated reality—an era of slow population growth and, increasingly, demographic decline that will shape our future in profound and unpredictable ways.  read more »

Tim Allen Loves It Here, and He's Always Happy to Show It

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Tim Allen is a Hollywood celebrity, but he’s the rare one who hasn’t abandoned his roots in favor of the glitz. And that has been a good thing for Flyover Country.  read more »

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