I’m old enough now to have grandnieces and nephews, and almost all of them have lower living standards and worse working conditions than their parents.  read more »

We will soon be leaving the first quarter of the 21st century behind us. But in the minds of our transportation planners, the punditry, and some real estate interests, the way forward is actually to step back  read more »

California continues to lose population, according to the latest State Department of Finance estimates for the year ended July 2022.  read more »

We have a relationship with AM radio that folks in other parts of the country maybe can’t understand. So our antennae go up when the electric-vehicle revolution begins to eliminate the “amplitude modulation” band from new vehicles  read more »

This chapter describes general urbanization trends in the United States and around the world, from 1950 to the present. Cities can be glamorous or exciting, but what matters most is how they facilitate higher incomes and standards of living.  read more »

It seems as if anything can be done – truly anything – if it is in the name of safety.  read more »

One of the best-known quotes was “where’s the beef?“ from Clara Peller who was a manicurist and American character actress who, at the age of 81, starred in the 1984 advertising campaign for the Wendy’s fast food restaurant chain.

Today, the huge dark cloud over EV projected sales, is the availability of electricity to charge batteries which leads us to the quote for the foreseeable future, Where’s the electricity?  read more »

When I heard that the World Economic Forum proposed to ban car ownership, I dismissed it as left-wing nonsense  read more »

The 2020 Census reveals California to have both the highest urban population density and the highest urbanization share of total population among the states.  read more »

For Americans, California once looked like the future. It was a state defined by risk-taking and utopian dreaming. Yet for most Californians today, the upward mobility so central to the state’s ethos is rapidly disappearing.  read more »