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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...
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California's Dysfunctional Electricity Policies May Lead to More Blackouts
Since intermittent electricity from wind and solar cannot provide continuous uninterruptable electricity, the state continues to rely on the Southwest and Northwest states for its power, and continues...
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Blackouts and Fires: California's Summer Attractions
In the soft warmth of spring the swallows famously return to Capistrano, but in recent years they are followed by what seems inevitable summer power outages and fires. This is not as pleasant an...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Highway Subsidies in 2018
Highway subsidies in 2018 totaled to $47.1 billion, substantially less than the $54.3 billion in subsidies received by transit agencies. Considering that highways move about 100 times as many passenger...
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Is it About Black Lives or Is It About Power?
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...
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Lazaretto Dining
Last week a friend asked me for help in his back garden. This is the first time he’s owned a proper home rather than a condo and he’s not sure how to manage the yard. We’re in a part of the world where...
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Why the 2020 Election Will be Decided in Suburbia
American politics is increasingly about dueling geographies. Democrats have become the party of the nation’s cities, while the Republican Party finds its base in rural, small town and low-density...
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COVID-19 and Walking: The Great Equalizer
Walking has been having a moment for a while now. Books and research have been proliferating about the joys and benefits of walking, which include cultural exchange, spiritual enlightenment, and...
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Dwellings in Decline as Demographics Drive Demand
Rarely has the question of where, why and how people will live, work and play been so important, as the impact of COVID-19 begins to transform the demand and supply equation across the Australian...
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2020 Election, Market Flywheel, and more
2020 ElectionThe outcome of the election is likely to be closer than most observers expected only a few weeks ago. In their view at the time, President Trump’s unusual communication style, his...
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Something in New York is Dying
A recent blog post by investor and stand-up comedian James Altucher (mentioned here) arguing that New York is dead forever attracted the hostility of many New Yorkers. Fellow comedian Jerry Seinfeld...
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Let's Stop Shaming the Suburbs
I have been a New Yorker for over a decade now, but I have spent the past few months in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, since it’s a little easier on our family during the pandemic. Locals joke...
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Two Decades of Interstate Migration
America is still a mobile nation. Back in the 2000-2010 decade, 12.9 million people moved interstate, nearly five percent of the total population. In the 2010s the population has been a bit less...
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Dissecting Black Suburbia
By now, everyone who's paid attention to the Trump Administration lately knows that the suburbs, however defined, look to figure very prominently in the 2020 presidential election. Racially explicit...
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Save the Planet: Stop Riding Transit
SUVs “ruined the environment,” says to a rather shrill article in the Guardian that was also reprinted in Mother Jones and other publications. It reached this conclusion based on a study showing they...
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