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Tulsa, Oklahoma Will Pay You $10,000 to Move There
Tulsa is joining the parade of places that are providing economic development incentives to people who are willing to relocate there. I previously mentioned Vermont’s program and also that of a...
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How Much Density Is Enough?
Portland New Urbanist Joe Cortright has rarely seen a high-density development he didn’t like. Like Marxist economists who always begin their papers by referring to quotations from Karl Marx, Cortright...
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Class Prejudice and the Democrats’ Blue Wave?
Two days after the mid-term elections, The Washington Post published an analysis under the headline “These wealthy neighborhoods delivered Democrats the House majority.” That headline is false in...
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Update on Australian Urban Areas (with a Photographic Tour)
Australia is one of the world’s most urban nations, with nearly 90% of its population living in urban areas, according to the United Nations (2018 estimate). Only four nations with as many residents...
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The Benefits of Homeownership Mean We Should Still Believe in the American Dream
In 2004, President George W. Bush announced the aim of promoting a broader “Ownership Society,” in which more Americans could benefit from owning a home, retirement accounts, and other financial...
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The Soul Of The New Machine
Thirty-five years ago Tracy Kidder electrified readers with his “Soul of a New Machine,” which detailed the development of a minicomputer. Today we may be seeing the emergence of another machine, a...
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Louisville Bridges Project Is the Biggest Transportation Boondoggle of the...
I have been a steadfast critic of the project to build two new bridges across the Ohio River in Louisville for over a decade. In fact, my first critical post on the bridges proposal was put up in 2007...
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California Doesn’t Have a Budget Surplus
It’s become common folklore that California is booming and incoming Governor Newsom and the Democratic supermajority have more taxpayer money than they will know how to spend, save, or invest. Nothing...
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ABC Sitcom The Conners: The Struggle is Real
Life expectancy for Americans has fallen to an average of 78.6 years. This is a drop from the most recent estimates—indicating a downward trend that is virtually unheard of in Western countries. A...
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Highest 2016 Home Ownership Rate in Grand Rapids, Los Angeles Last
Home ownership is finally increasing in the United States, following the housing bust. The Census Bureau reports that 63.9 percent of households owned their own homes in 2017. This represents the first...
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Miami’s New Temples
I scratched my head over this one for a while before I eventually came around. Give me a minute to come full circle here.This is the latest architectural statement in Miami’s trendy Wynwood...
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The First Shots in the Climate Wars
In launching their now successful protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s gas hike, the French gilets jaunes (yellow jackets) have revived their country’s reputation for rebelling against...
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2018 Standard of Living Index
The Center for Urban Opportunity (COU) has developed a measure (the “COU Standard of Living Index”) that estimates the purchasing power of real average pay in metropolitan areas compared to that of the...
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By Law, California High Speed Rail May Be Doomed To Fail
It has been 10 years since passage of California Proposition 1A the High-Speed Rail Act that approved the $9.95 billion bond, a down payment on a high-speed rail project that was optimistically...
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Reinventing the Rust Belt in Kokomo
I’ve written about Kokomo, Indiana before and also posted a podcast with its mayor. It’s a small manufacturing city in Indiana, far from glamorous and with its own set of challenges, that has been...
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Black Exodus From Chicago
I'm the oldest of three siblings. My siblings left the Rust Belt for the East Coast; my sister and her family are in suburban Washington, D.C., and my brother's family lives in Brooklyn. Both have been...
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Suburbs & Exurbs Continue to Dominate Metropolitan Growth at Mid-Decade
America’s suburbs and exurbs continue to receive the most population growth among the 53 major metropolitan areas. This is indicated by data in the just released 2013-2017 American Community Survey...
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Texas’ New Hipsters Threaten the Very Environment That Lured Them There
The prospect of a purple and eventually blue Texas thrills progressives who see the Lone Star State as the key to their drive for post-Trump domination. Before draining their champagne glasses and...
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The Next Housing Crisis
Little over a decade ago, the housing sector almost brought down not only the American but the world economy. Today the reprise of the housing decline will be playing a very different tune.In the past...
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The Mask Is Off: Minneapolis Declares War on Single Family Houses
In a recent article published in Housing Wire (and in many other places), it was told that Minneapolis will abolish single family housing as part of the Metropolitan Councils 2040 plan. Much of the...
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