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China and the Future of Hong Kong
Last week Hong Kong’s new leader Leung Chun-ying was sworn into office by Chinese President Hu Jintao. The ceremony coincided with the 15th anniversary of the British handover of Hong Kong to China so...
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Core City Growth Mainly Below Poverty Line
Over the toughest economic decade since Great Depression, the nation's core cities continued to gain more than their share the below poverty line population in the 51 metropolitan areas with more than...
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High Speed Rail Advocates Discredit Their Cause - Again
Is there any high speed rail boondoggle big enough to make rail transport advocates reject it? Sadly, for all too many of them, the answer is No, as two recent developments make clear. The first is in...
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How Fossil-Fuel Democrats Became An Endangered Species
In an election pivoting on jobs, energy could be the issue that comes back to haunt Barack Obama and the Democratic Party as the cultural and ideological schism between energy-producing Republican...
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China's French Connection
No two countries would appear more divergent than France and China, especially in the age of Eurozone collapse. One country represents the Asian future, while the other is the capital of the failed, if...
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Are Millennials the Screwed Generation?
Today’s youth, both here and abroad, have been screwed by their parents’ fiscal profligacy and economic mismanagement. Neil Howe, a leading generational theorist, cites the “greed, shortsightedness,...
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State of Chicago: The Decline and Rise
I’ve had it in my head for over a year now to do an in-depth exploration of Chicago, a project I’ve called “State of Chicago.” This is the first a series of pieces that expand on the themes in my...
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Housing Affordability Protests Occurring in "Livable" Hong Kong, Not...
The Economist has published another in its city rating series, under the headline "The Best city in the World." This one was the result of a contest examining ways to elaborate on its rating system....
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The New Geography Of Success In The U.S. And The Trap Of The 'New Normal'
This year’s presidential election is fast becoming an ode to diminished expectations. Neither candidate is advancing a reasonable refutation of the conventional wisdom that America is in the grips of a...
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State of Chicago: The New Century Struggle
This is the second installment in my “State of Chicago” series. Read part one here. Last time I looked at Chicago’s 70s and early 80s horrible struggles followed by rebirth and robust out-performance...
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London Olympics 2012: Let the Games End
Why does anyone persist with the Greek mythology that the Olympics are an engine of economic development, sportsmanship, or peace on earth? London is spending $15 billion on the hope that it can sell...
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The Evolving Urban Form: London
The 2011 census results show that London (the Greater London Authority, which is Inner and Outer London) experienced its greatest percentage population growth in more than 100 years (1891 to 1901)....
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London's Olympic Whingers
Busted. "Even in the best of times, whinging, as Britons call the persistent low-grade grousing that is their default response to life’s challenges, is part of the national condition", Sarah Lyall...
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The Tribal Election: Barack Obama Turns to the Karl Rove Playbook
Move over, Iraq. Tribal politics have arrived at home. It’s not like our tribes will arm themselves, but American politics is developing a disturbing resemblance to Mesopotamia’s ever-feuding Sunnis,...
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The Rise of The 1099 Economy: More Americans Are Becoming Their Own Bosses
While the economy has been miserable for small business, and many larger ones as well, the ranks of the self-employed have been growing. According to research by Economic Modeling Specialists...
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Public School Parent Trigger Laws: Something’s Gotta Give
In the mid-1950s, the McGuire Sisters’ version of Johnny Mercer’s song about what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object made it to number five on the record charts. Their...
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Predictable Punditry Down Under
The New South Wales Government has been following an extreme version of currently fashionable planning doctrines based on higher population densities. These policies have resulted in exorbitant housing...
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Density is Not the Issue: The Urban Scaling Research
The "urban scaling" research of Geoffrey West, Luis Bettencourt, Jose Lobo, Deborah Strumsky, Dirk Helbing and Christian Kuhnert on cities has attracted considerable attention (references below). They...
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Libor: Is The City of London Fixed?
Having worked inside banking, do I think that banks colluded to post an artificial London interbank offered rate, otherwise known as Libor? For those not in the brotherhood, that acronym is a...
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America's Future Is Taking Shape In The Suburbs
For nearly a generation, pundits, academics and journalists have written off suburbia. They predict that the future lies in the cities, with more Americans living in smaller spaces such as the...
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