New Geography in the News

The loss of Dodd is no loss. He was tainted by Wall Street slavishness and represented the very gentry liberalism that threatens the future and credibility of the Democrats. If we are to be ruled by Wall Street, why not support a party that doesn’t mind if the rest of us try to get rich? Dorgan is another story. He has been a legitimate, if sometimes crusty, populist. He is just not another pampered society socialist like Dodd. He spoke for the Heartland and the middle class in tones that recall some of the great true progressives. He will be missed.

Joel on WSJ

It takes one back to Paris and that question, and maybe it was this way for more than a decade, or so argues Michael Lind in a discussion of what was called the New Economy in the nineties.

Michael on Just Above Sunset

The recession may have slowed the pace of net migration, but the essential pattern has remained in place. People continue to leave places like New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles for more affordable, economically viable regions like Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio. Overall, the big winners in net migration have been predominately conservative states like Texas--with over 800,000 net new migrants--notes demographer Wendell Cox. In what Cox calls "the decade of the South," 90% of all net migration went to southern states.

Joel on Brothers Judd Blog

The Clintonites were wrong. The "new economy" was an illusion. Neoliberals have to admit that before they can stop the bleeding.

Michael on Which Way California?

If you read them carefully, you’ll notice that their visions aren’t entirely incompatible. Kotkin focuses on America’s enduring economic strengths: Our demographic balance (which compares favorably to Europe and Asia alike), our still-vast natural resources, our entrepreneurial culture, our ability to assimilate immigrants, and so on. Deneen emphasizes the weakening of our liberal political order, with its threefold emphasis on liberty, equality and prosperity.

Joel in the NY Times

The same goes for Joel Kotkin as regards his home state of California. Kotkin, who is a fellow at Chapman University and executive editor of NewGeography.com, was quoted in the article comparing high-tax California to low-tax Texas. A couple of decades ago, he said, services in Texas were noticeably inferior to services in the California. "Today, you go to Texas, the roads are no worse, the public schools are not great but are better than or equal to ours, and their universities are good," he was quoted as saying.

Joel on NJ.com

Joel Kotkin, a Chapman University fellow focused on urban planning, said he doubts anyone wanting the urban experience of living downtown would flock to Riverside instead of true urban centers. People have historically moved to the Inland region for the opposite of condo-living: a single-family home with ample space.

Joel on The Press-Enterprise

“The danger is that a slow city ends up as a city for the geriatric rich and the trustafarians,” said Joel Kotkin, an urban analyst and author of “The City, a Global History.”

Joel in the NY Times

Why so down on the United States? asks Joel Kotkin in New Geography (and Forbes), taking shots at prophets of decline on both the right and the left.

Joel in The New York Times

Joel on Burber

Kotkin is a very rare thing: a principled moderate. He went Obami in the last election. He's over that now.

Joel on Often Wrong, Never in Doubt

When Congress has found time not occupied with nationalizing healthcare, they have introduced a series of laws designed to curtail suburban living. This column by Wendell Cox explains why that is a mistake.

Wendell on the Reason Foundation

It reminds me of the introductory anecdote from the book Up From Conservatism by Michael Lind. Lind describes the 4-way 1948 Presidential election between Democrat Harry Truman, Republican Thomas Dewey, Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace, and Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. He traces each of those candidates’ ideologies into the ’90s (when the book was written). Thurmond, he suggests, is a modern day Republican: Right-wing, conservative, and Southern – which he uses as a code for racist throughout the book. Wallace, he argues, is New Left – the predecessor to George McGovern, Jerry Brown, and (if Lind had waited a decade to write his book) the Markos Moulitsas Left. Thomas Dewey is the DLC: centrist, pro-business, inoffensive to all, and indifferent to labor. But, there’s no modern equivalent to Truman.

Michael on Free Silver

I like the idea. And Aaron Renn has pointed out that Detroit has one distinct advantage: an ineffectual and inefficient municipal government.

Aaron on Dustbury

JOEL KOTKIN: The Green Movement’s People Problem. “The movement needs to break with the deep-seated misanthropy that dominates green politics and has brought it to this woeful state.”

Joel on Instapundit