With inflation soaring, trust in governments plummeting, and the global economy teetering on the brink of collapse, one might expect to see the masses out in the streets, calling for the heads of their rulers. But instead of rage and rebellion, we mostly see apathy. Rather than getting radicalised, people are dropping out. read more »
Newgeography.com - Economic, demographic, and political commentary about places
Learning From Las Vegas: Sustainable vs. Susceptible
I hear a great deal about sustainability in the built environment that sounds both encouraging and delusional. These messages come from well intentioned environmentalists as well as corporate marketing departments. The general tone of the conversation is similar either way. Everyone can continue to live the way we do now, but by making a few minor adjustments we’ll transition away from coal, oil, and natural gas to benign materials and clean renewable energy. This transition will save households money, preserve nature, and be profitable for private enterprise. read more »
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May Transit 59.5% of Pre-Pandemic Levels
Transit ridership remained below 60 percent of pre-pandemic levels in May 2022, according to data released by the Federal Transit Administration recently. This was only a slight improvement over April’s 58.7 percent despite average fuel prices climbing from a little over $4 in April to more than $4.50 in May. read more »
Media War in Ukraine: Class and Gender
Like all physical conflicts, the current war in Ukraine is also an ongoing war of narratives, in this case one making heavy use of visual imagery. As they have played out, the threads of these narratives have a telling sequence of their own, revealing the tragic arc of most wars as they confront the ultimate—and ultimately gendered and classed—victims of modern warfare: women, children, the elderly, the poor and working classes. read more »
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Densification in Toronto: The Evolving Urban Form
Like many of the world’s largest cities (Note 1), public policy seeks to densify Toronto, which is already the densest urban area (the international term) or population centre (the Canadian term) in North America (as used here, north of Mexico). An urban area is continuously built up urbanization and is routinely at the core of a metropolitan area (in Canada, a Census Metropolitan Area, or CMA). read more »
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Biden is Disconnected from American’s Reluctance to be Regulated Out of Fossil Fuel Prosperity
Civilization has benefited from more than 6,000 products made from the oil derivatives manufactured out of raw crude oil at refineries. None of these products were available to society before 1900. With no known replacement for crude oil in the foreseeable future, President Biden has stated “we are going to get rid of fossil fuels” implying that he is going to change society’s lifestyle and economy demands for the products made from fossil fuels that were not available before 1900. read more »
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Europe's Entrepreneurial Paradox
When mapping the concentration of superentrepreneurs in the world, we find a paradox in Europe. Half of the top-ten countries with the most superentrepreneurs are found in Europe, yet Europe is far behind the US and Canada when it comes to high-end entrepreneurship. Another perhaps surprising fact is that gender equal Europe has a particularly strong deficit of women superentrepreneurs. read more »
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Deteriorating Housing Affordability in Canada
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has released the 2022 edition of Demographia Housing Affordability in Canada. read more »
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Why Many Poor Neighborhoods Fear Development
I remember being very surprised the first time I read about activists in poor communities opposing investment in their parks. I had always thought of such activists as lobbying for public investment into their communities. read more »
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Dark Clouds on the Horizon for Electric Vehicles
There are a couple of dark clouds hanging over the optimistic growth of electric vehicles (EV’s) that may decimate the supply chain of lithium to make the EV batteries, and how to safely transport EV’s across wide oceans: read more »
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