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Chicago: The Cost of Clout
The Chicago Tribune has been running a series on the challenges facing the next mayor. One entry was about the Chicago economy. It described the sad reality of how Chicago’s economy is in the tank, and...
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Shrinking City, Flourishing Region: St. Louis Region
Throughout the high income world, in this age of cities, many urban centers continue to shrink. This is particularly true in municipalities that have been unable either to expand their boundaries or to...
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Pimp My Stripmall, Please!
If anything characterizes the face of Florida’s landscape, it is the proliferation of shopping malls of all types. Generation by generation, as population swelled, country roads widened into highways...
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Why Most Americans are Both Liberal and Conservative
American politics is consumed by a bitter, at times violent, debate about the overall role of government and specific governmental programs. Pundits often frame this divide in terms of geography (red...
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Regional Exchange Rates: The Cost of Living in US Metropolitan Areas
International travelers and expatriates have long known that currency exchange rates are not reliable indicators of purchasing power. For example, a traveler to France or Germany will notice that the...
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The Midwest: Coming Back?
Oh my name it is nothing My age it is less The country I come from Is called the Midwest –Bob Dylan, “With God on Our Side,” 1964 For nearly a half century since the Minnesota-raised Robert Zimmerman...
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The Death of Earmarks
Record deficit spending in Washington has many faces: Defense, Medicare, Social Security. But none has received more criticism in recent months than the infamous and notorious earmark. Conjuring up...
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The Social Side of the Internet
Is success in social networking measured by the number of “Friends” you have on Facebook, or “Followers” you have on Twitter, or “Connections” you make on LinkedIn? The jury is still out on how social...
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Orange County Vantage Point: One Eye on Egypt as Little Saigon Rebrands Tet
Scenes from Egypt, Tunisia and other places in the Middle East provide a stark reminder of the chaos that can consume entire nations. The scene on Bolsa Avenue in Little Saigon last week offered...
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Super Bowl XLV: The $10 Billion Bag of Chips
I am raining on the big parade by equating the Super Bowl with trade deficits, budget shortfalls, state bonds on the edge of default, and unemployment close to ten percent. But if thirty-second ads...
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Brown’s California Budget Proposals: a Big Step in the Right Direction
I admit it. I had low expectations for Jerry Brown’s third term as governor. After seeing his budget proposal, I’m ready to reconsider my expectations. I think it is a great effort, and it deserves the...
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A New Tribe for New Geographies: Reasonable People of Goodwill
I am Singaporean, with a half-Indian, half-Eurasian father; a half-Pakistani, half-Malay mother. Dad converted to Islam from Roman Catholicism; each year my brothers and I celebrate Eid ful Fitr, Eid...
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Australia's Housing Affordability "Outrage"
There is mounting concern in Australia about the nature and extent of country’s housing affordability crisis. Expressions of distress are not limited to the middle income households who are locked out...
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China's Empty Trains... & Other Unintended Consequences
In a technical sense, the economy has been in recovery since June of 2009. A year and a half into the rebound though, a general cloud of economic malaise continues to cover the nation. Fears of a...
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America's Biggest Brain Magnets
For a decade now U.S. city planners have obsessively pursued college graduates, adopting policies to make their cities more like dense hot spots such as New York, to which the "brains" allegedly flock....
View ArticleWhy Duany is Wrong About the Importance of Public Participation
One of the news stories circling lately is an interview with Andres Duany where he asserts that public participation requirements are too onerous to enable great work to be done. Early in my career I...
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Regional Efficiency: The Swiss Model?
Given that no one likes Switzerland’s banks, coo-coo clocks, high prices, smugness, dull cities, cheesy foods, or yodeling, I realize that it is too early to speak politically about “the Swiss Model.”...
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China Housing Market More Stable Than You May Think
The sensationalist reporting of rising China tends to celebrate the country’s ascent. But there is one area where both economists and casual observers see a potential disaster: the real estate market....
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A Leg Up: World's Largest Cities No Longer Homes of Upward Mobility
Throughout much of history, cities have served as incubators for upward mobility. A great city, wrote René Descartes in the 17th century, was “an inventory of the possible,” a place where people could...
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Mortgage Meltdown: How Underwriting Went Under
The White House remedies for the mortgage meltdown were presented on Friday. Congress will debate the life extension, death, or rebirth of federal mortgage entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during...
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