If there’s one location advantage for the heartland that’s become clear during the last several years, it’s the edge we enjoy over the coasts in housing affordability.  read more »

From time to time, we hear of the demolition of an historic or architecturally significant home in the news. Inevitably, there’s an outcry. Community leaders agree: “Something must be done!”

But what can be done?  read more »

Has the California proposition changed fundamentally? And does it matter for real estate?

The answer to the first question is yes—the state had a net population decline in 2021, the first drop since it began annual counts more than a century ago.  read more »

Housing is rapidly becoming the key economic issue facing America's beleaguered middle class. Even as interest rates rise, rents are on a wild binge, up near 20 percent in the past year or more in some cities. Meanwhile, home prices have hit a high and appear to be climbing further still. Higher prices are emerging even in what have long been relative bargain communities in the southeast, as refugees from the high-priced Northeast pour in with their greater resources.  read more »

The hydrocarbon processing industry, i.e., refineries, has a rich history of discovery, challenges, breakthroughs, trial and error, collaboration, and success.  read more »

Perhaps nowhere is the gap between America’s cognitive elite and its populace larger than in their preferred urban forms. For nearly a century—interrupted only by the Depression and the Second World War—Americans have been heading further from the urban core, seeking affordable and safe communities with good schools, parks, and a generally more tranquil lifestyle.  read more »

Some metropolitan areas continue to have higher costs of living relative to the national average. The most important component is the extent to which higher housing costs contribute to these differences. Our Urban Reform Institute Standard of Living Index showed that more than 85% of the difference between costs in the more expensive metropolitan areas and the nation was attributable to housing (Figure 1).  read more »

The record meltdown of Meta stock earlier this month suggests turbulence in the tech world and a difficult period ahead for the company formerly known as Facebook. But even as Meta’s stock has fallen, the record profits being posted by fellow oligarchical tech firms Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon indicates that Silicon Valley’s hegemony is far from over.  read more »

It’s always been in the background of the nation’s ongoing transition to electric transportation, but now a significant reality has been brought to the forefront by some data-crunching journalists: There’s a strong regional divide in our willingness to adopt EVs.  read more »

The current crises in eastern Europe reflect more than just Kremlin mischief-making—they reflect the first fruits of an emerging world order that spans the vastness from Beijing to Berlin. Unlike the longstanding liberal status quo, with its roots in classical civilization and the Enlightenment, this emerging alternative draws upon a mélange of German geopolitics, the legacy of Chinese emperors, the Mongols, and Orthodox Russian autocracy.  read more »