New Geography in the News

Joel Kotkin, distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, has spent a lot of time thinking about exactly what those changes might look like in 2050. He previously wrote a book about the history of American cities, but in his new book, The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, he looks ahead to how recent economic and demographic trends may play out over the next few decades. Here are a few of the book's most striking predictions.

Joel in US News & World Report

“Suburbanites may not yet be conscious of the anti-suburban stance of the Obama team,” writes Joel Kotkin, editor of New Geography, “but perhaps they can read the body language.”

Joel in the NY Times

"You have to create jobs for this growing population or else you're headed for catastrophe," said Joel Kotkin, an internationally recognized researcher on economic, political and social trends. "I hope Sacramento understands this."

Joel in The San Bernardino Sun

The book, released next week, explores how the nation will evolve in the next four decades. Last week, Dr. Kotkin published an essay in Forbes Magazine about what he called "America's Agricultural Angst." Among other things, the professor explained that current political efforts will have a profoundly negative impact on farming, particularly "stricter rules on the use of pesticides, prohibitions on the caging of chickens and a growing movement to ban the use of genetic engineering in crops." These policies, and others like them, "could undermine a sector that has performed well over the past decade and has excellent long-term prospects," he said.

Joel on The Times Gazette

In a book due out next month, the international futurist says China isn't likely to overtake the United States as the world's economic superpower in coming decades, countering predictions of some forecasters who believe the Chinese economy will be the global leader by 2020.

Joel on The Washington Post

But I sense that something more fundamental is at stake. Obama in his first year adopted the priorities of what pundit Joel Kotkin, a Democrat himself, calls the "gentry liberals." Obama called for addressing long-term issues like health care and supposed climate change. He and his economic advisers, like many analysts across the political spectrum, underestimated the rise in unemployment. Talk about "green jobs" has proved to be just talk.

Joel on The Washington Examiner

“What we find in the Fargo-Moorhead economy, with very few exceptions, is that a lot of things are growing and they are growing very substantially. Weʼre firing on all eight cylinders.
The investments being made in science and technology in Fargo-Moorhead are having a definite impact. Our strategy is right, and the world is our market."

Check out the article in todays Oregonian authored by The Urbanophile himself Aaron Renn, entitled 'Picture Perfect Portland' explores if our fair city is worthy of the praise it receives on a regular basis. The verdict... sure, with a few caveats.

Aaron on Landscape+Urbanism

Why is this? Perhaps Portland is actually a bit too livable. As urban scholar Joel Kotkin put it, "Portland is to today's generation what San Francisco was to mine: a hip, not too expensive place for young slackers to go."

Joel on Oregon Live

Two Chapman U. professors have stirred up some high-level chatter about moving the United Nations to Dubai from New York!

Joel in The OC Register

Joel Kotkin, an author who writes about urban policy and often cites Houston as a model for successful cities, agreed that Houston's transit plans could benefit from the new rules because of the city's dispersed activity centers.

Joel on Chron

Another core obstacle to reform is what author Joel Kotkin calls Democratic "regressives" – so-called liberals, or progressives, who are mainly interested in protecting their quality of life by knocking various rungs off the economic ladder for the state's working class and growing minority communities. He refers to the wealthy liberal elites who live predominantly in high-end coastal communities and who fight economic growth, impose absurd restrictions on land use and whose excessive environmental sensibilities are regulating businesses out of existence.

Joel in The OC Register

Recent rankings of the “best” cities around the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Monocle magazine and the Mercer quality of life surveys settled on a remarkably similar list. For the most part, the top ranks are dominated by well-manicured older European cities such as Zurich, Geneva, Vienna, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Munich, as well as New World metropolises like Vancouver and Toronto; Auckland, New Zealand; and Perth and Melbourne in Australia…

Joel on Planologie

Not only are there more biggish cities and big-city-ish places for a company to choose from—smaller cities are more like big cities than they used to be. “A lot of what I call the amenity structures that used to exist only in one or two U.S. cities now exist in ten or twelve—not in the same depth as a New York or Chicago, maybe, but sufficient,” says trend guru Joel Kotkin. “Let’s say I’m a Columbia University-trained MBA. Thirty years ago, if I landed in Dallas or Houston or St. Louis or Atlanta, I’d say, ‘Gee, I’m in the sticks.’ Now …”

Joel on TCB Review

Further out, the future seems brighter. As Joel Kotkin writes, this could be yet another American century. We're still an entrepreneurial hotbed, our energy resources are plentiful, most of our rivals will be in decline by 2030, we retain the edge in military hardware, we're an agricultural superpower, and we're unparalleled in our ability to absorb different races, religions and cultures, "an increasingly critical factor in maintaining global pre-eminence.

Joel on McClatchy DC