It's an interesting puzzle. The “cool cities”, the ones that are supposedly doing the best, the ones with the hottest downtowns, the biggest buzz, leading-edge new companies, smart shops, swank restaurants and hip hotels – the ones that are supposed to be magnets for talent – are often among those with the highest levels of net domestic outmigration. New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Miami and Chicago – all were big losers in the 2000s. Seattle, Denver, and Minneapolis more or less broke even. read more »
Urban Issues
From Mahwah to Rahway
I have never lived in New Jersey. Indeed, of the 49 states where I have driven a car, New Jersey was 47th or 48th on the list. And it is only in the last couple of years that I've lived close enough to visit the state regularly – I now live less than an hour from Mahwah.
Years ago, I made some initial hypotheses about the Garden State:
1. New Jersey is extraordinarily wealthy.
2. New Jersey has the best highway system in the country.
3. New Jersey deserves the moniker "The Garden State."
4. New Jersey embodies the American Dream.
Let's see how these have withstood the test of time. read more »
When the Fat Lady Sings: The Fate of Commercial Real Estate
During the first ten days of October 2008, the Dow Jones dropped 2,399.47 points, losing trillions of investor equity. The Federal Government pushed TARP, a $700 billion bail-out, through Congress to rescue the beleaguered financial institutions. The collapse of the financial system was likened to an earthquake. In reality, what happened was more like a shift of tectonic plates.
*********************************** read more »
Think Globally, Regulate Locally
It was during a recent tour of a sun-baked Los Angeles schoolyard that theories on state regulations developed by the latest Nobel Prize-winning economist came into focus. The Da Vinci Design Charter School is an oasis in an asphalt desert. Opened this year by the appropriately named Matt Wunder, the school draws 9th and 10th graders from some of the most difficult and dangerous learning environments in the country, and introduces them to a demanding, creative atmosphere. read more »
California: The Housing Bubble Returns?
To read the periodic house price reports out of California, it would be easy to form the impression that house prices are continuing to decline. Most press reports highlight the fact that house prices are lower this year than they were at the same time last year. This masks the reality of robust house price increases that have been underway for nearly half a year. The state may have forfeited seven years of artificially induced house price escalation in just two years but has recovered about one-fifth of it since March. read more »
Predicting the Future of British House Building
People are expecting British house building to pick up. Sadly they will be disappointed, even as the housing market inflates into another bubble.
There have been declines and recoveries in British house building before the 2007 collapse in construction activity. Data is in abundance. The total number of homes built annually has more than halved since the late 1960s, as successive governments withdrew from publicly funding the post-war welfare programme of council house building. read more »
- Login to post comments
A Canadian Autobahn
Canada is the largest high-income nation in the world without a comprehensive national freeway (autobahn, expressway or autoroute) system. Motorways are entirely grade separated roadways (no cross traffic), with four or more lanes (two or more in each direction) allowing travel that is unimpeded by traffic signals or stop signs. read more »
Reducing Carbon Should Not Distort Regional Economies
A pending bill in Congress to reduce carbon emissions via a “cap and trade” regime would have significant distorting effects on America's regional economies. This is because the cost of compliance varies widely from region to region and metro to metro. This is all the more important since such legislation may do very little to reduce overall carbon emission according to two of the EPA's own San Francisco lawyers. read more »
- Login to post comments
Bowling Alone or Bowling Along?
It has long been cultural sport to mock or to misunderstand the social life of suburbs. More recently, however, sport itself has been identified as a major arena for social decline in suburbia.
In his Bowling Alone, published with an almost apocalyptic sense of timing at the beginning of the present century, the esteemed social scientist Robert Putnam focused upon the decline of the American bowling leagues as symptomatic of a lost America. read more »
Obama Still Can Save His Presidency
A good friend of mine, a Democratic mayor here in California, describes the Obama administration as "Moveon.org run by the Chicago machine." This combination may have been good enough to beat John McCain in 2008, but it is proving a damned poor way to run a country or build a strong, effective political majority. And while the president's charismatic talent – and the lack of such among his opposition – may keep him in office, it will be largely as a kind of permanent lame duck unable to make any of the transformative changes he promised as a candidate. read more »