While much of the focus is on the Covid-19 pandemic, the geography of Europe’s knowledge intensive jobs is being reshaped. For the fifth year, the European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform (ECEPR) has in collaboration with Nordic Capital, a leading Nordic private equity firm, mapped the locations of knowledge intensive jobs of Europe. The brain business jobs index examines jobs in four knowledge-intensive industries—the tech sector, information and communications technology (ICT), advanced services, and creative professions.  read more »

Democrats want to build more transit infrastructure in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The only problem is that transit emits as much or more greenhouse gases, per passenger mile, as the average car. In fact, transit is less climate friendly than driving in all but a handful of cities.  read more »

For months the conventional wisdom among Democrats, amplified by their obliging claque in the media, was that lockdowns played an essential role in containing COVID-19. The great heroes, in addition to Anthony Fauci, were hardline governors like Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, California’s Gavin Newsom and, most of all, New York’s Andrew Cuomo.  read more »

It has been clear for years that net domestic migration to and from major metropolitan areas (over 1 million population) has been characterized by moving out of costly areas, like Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and New York to much less expensive areas, like Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta and Nashville. However, within these metropolitan areas, there are substantial variations.  read more »

Over the past few years California’s plight has taken on mythic proportions — a cautionary tale of progressive woe among conservatives, but a beacon for a future enlightened capitalism among its woke supporters. The current battle over the potential recall of the preening governor, Gavin Newsom, likely will enhance these extreme interpretations on both sides, but likely will not be sufficient to make the changes needed to restore the state’s legendary promise.  read more »

I’ve been asked to contribute to a book about smart cities and finance. I looked over the long list of tentative chapter titles provided by the publisher and it’s clearly meant to be an optimistic pragmatic problem solver. There’s an expectation that everything that ails our cities and towns can be fixed with the right combination of technology and creative accounting.  read more »

Frequent readers here may have seen me write about my experience growing up in 1970s Detroit. I’ve often said that seeking ways to improve the city and not abandon it, is what propelled me into a career in urban planning. I wanted to be a change agent for cities. Today, more than thirty years into my career, I’m proud of the stature cities have gained over that time; I’m proud of my contribution to it. However, I feel as if cities have risen in prominence in spite of the efforts of planners, not because of them.  read more »

Part 2: Progress and Pain Part 1 is here

Cleveland is demonized because it deindustrialized, largely through no fault of its own. You can add Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh to that list. Given that America is a country with fat eyes that looks for big things, the Rust Belt — with its stagnant population and limping job growth — is a blind spot to others when it comes to what’s next.  read more »

The current Suez Canal blockage has exposed some of Governor Newsom’s fiscal challenges that may be the driving force for the current recall efforts. Under his guidance (I did not use the word leadership), he continues to perpetuate the state’s dysfunctional energy polices and continues to do everything possible to further INCREASE the costs of energy for its 40 million residents.  read more »

The Partnership for New York City polled its members in the last month and found that, as of early March, 10% of Manhattan office workers who were working remotely (generally working at home) had returned to the office. This is unchanged from October. The purpose of the survey was to project future shares of working in the office and working at home in the nation’s largest central business district (CBD).  read more »