In 2012 I started my career as a structural engineer in the industrial suburbs of Johannesburg. This was my first job after completing my studies and the only rent that I could afford was a granny flat in the backyard of a property that belonged to an old Zimbabwean couple named Archie and Gayle. They were by then in their late 70s and they were still working to earn a living. read more »
Urban Issues
Is it About Black Lives or Is It About Power?
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The Great American Land Rush of 2020
The Great American Land Rush of 2020 is underway in many metro areas across the country. Large numbers of American workers are untethered from a central office. As a result many are moving to less dense areas with less expensive land (and homes) and more of both. The greater New York City and Los Angeles metros are the hardest hit. Take NYC where single-family residential land per acre is 24 times as expensive in the densest quintile of zip codes as compared to the least dense quintile ($3.06 million vs. $129,000). read more »
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Reform, Not Defunding
Protests have spread across the United States for months now, along with calls for defunding local police departments. But the movement to defund police has a crucial flaw: the policy that it seeks would harm the minority communities whom the protesters claim to care about. Moreover, those communities don’t even agree with it. read more »
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Three Things Trump is Getting Right and Democrats Ignored
Right on cue, the country’s dominant political and media voices, after wildly applauding Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, have responded to Donald Trump’s week in the spotlight with laughter, derision and anger for its supposed amateurism, lack of star power, and racism. read more »
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Japan Prefectures: COVID-19 Fatality Rates and Urban Densities
Japan has done remarkably well in controlling the Covid-19 virus. The nation’s death rate per million population at 0.9, is very low by international standards and the lowest among the G-7 nations. Yet there are significant variations among the prefectures — as elsewhere — by urban densities. read more »
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The Rust Belt's Strange Demographics
Many Heartland cities continue to suffer the after effects of deindustrialization. One of them is South Bend, Indiana, the former mid-sized automobile manufacturing center home to the now defunct Studebaker. read more »
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Cities Are Suffering
Urbanists have been singing the virtues of the city and density over the past few decades, from the practical benefits of density — including more efficient forms of living in apartments and access to public transit — to the economic, social, and cultural opportunities found in urban areas. read more »
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Bicycles: A Refuge for Transit Commuters?
This may come as a surprise, but bicycles provide more 30-minute job access than transit for the average worker in 50 large metropolitan areas (combined). This is evident from data produced by the University of Minnesota Accessibility Laboratory. The 50 metropolitan areas all have more than 1,000,000 population, though do not include Memphis, Grand Rapids or Tucson, the three others of that size. Reports have been produced for job access, by travel time for the average worker in the metropolitan areas. read more »
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The Heartland's Revival
For roughly the past half century, the middle swath of America has been widely written off as reactionary, backward, and destined for unceasing decline. read more »
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Driving Bounces Back
The mayor of San Diego wants to spend $177 billion expanding the region’s transit system in order to make San Diego like “Barcelona, Madrid, Paris.” Meanwhile, Barcelona, Madrid, and Paris are becoming more like U.S. cities, at least in terms of the transportation habits of their residents. read more »
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