A Neo-feudal War on the People
An author should be pleased to see his thesis bolstered by events. Yet since writing The Coming of Neo-Feudalism in 2020, I have not found any joy in the continued growth of the West’s class divides,...
View ArticleOntario Land Use Policies Make Housing Unaffordable
A poll by highly respected IPSOS, released by BILD-GTA, shows a strong awareness of the Greater Toronto Area’s severely unaffordable housing.In the 15 years from 2004 to the last pre-pandemic year of...
View ArticleEnergy Colonialism Will Worsen the Urban-Rural Divide
In his drive to conquer China, Mao Zedong and his most famous general, Lin Biao, stoked “a peasant revolution” that eventually overwhelmed the cities. In those days, most Chinese toiled on the land, a...
View ArticleWashington Governor Jay Inslee Mandates An All-Electric State
Washington State Governor Jay Inslee, like California’s Governor Newsom, is mandating his state toward an all-electric state. In doing so, Inslee is demonstrating his visionary limitations, as he...
View ArticleThe Ghost of Ancient Rome Haunts America
The death of Ancient Rome wasn’t so much a collapse as a slow, interminable decay: between the second and sixth centuries AD, its population declined from a million people to just 30,000. Since then,...
View ArticleThe Future of Cities: The Texas Triangle
The metropolitan areas that form the “Texas Triangle” —Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio— are emerging as distinctive models of 21st century urbanism. The four Texas metros are all...
View ArticleEnvironmentalists Are China's Useful Idiots
In his drive to achieve absolute power, Vladimir Lenin could count on Western progressives and opportunist executives to serve as "useful idiots." Today's most prominent Communist, China's Xi Jinping,...
View ArticleCalifornia Has a Population Problem – At a Minimum
There’s not much reason to expect more than a churn of mediocrity from the Los Angeles Times these days.Too harsh?Then consider this claim under an op-ed column with the headline "No, California...
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2022 Residential Building Permits by Housing Market
The US Census Bureau has released preliminary data for residential building permits by metropolitan area (housing market). This article provides data for all of the 384 metropolitan areas, with...
View ArticleCanada and the U.S. are Not Systemically Racist — and the Numbers Prove It
As we talk about the future, we also need to confront the past. History, with all its complexities, defines our civilization, creating both cautionary tales and forging a common identity, which is...
View ArticleThe 15 Minute City: An Idiotic Dream
One of the arguments against single-family zoning is that separating housing from other uses forces people to drive to shops, work, and other destinations. Urban planners want to redesign cities so...
View ArticleThe Future of Cities: The Evolution of New York City Politics
It's always been a mug's fame to best against New York City, which was counted out only to quickly bounce back after 9/11 and again in 2008 after the financial system nearly collapsed and took the...
View ArticleThe New Great Game
The Western response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is widely seen as a sign of a reinvigorated alliance of democracies against authoritarianism. Even historically anti-war publications like the...
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Demographia International Housing Affordability – 2023 Edition Released
Demographia International Housing Affordability rates middle-income housing affordability in 94 major housing markets in eight nations: Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the...
View ArticleThe Rich Are Eating Themselves
Beware of plutocrats bearing gifts. The annual clown show at Davos epitomises how today, the global elites have embraced an unholy trinity of ‘progressive’ doctrines: climate-change apocalypticism, a...
View ArticleAmerican Suppression of Fossil Fuels Courts a National Security Disaster
The capacity of a modern economy to produce food and products for its citizens, and weapons and fuels for its military to project power, are the undeniable twin pillars of global power. Both depend on...
View ArticleEx-Urbia
"Town and country must be married and out of this joyous union will spring a new hope, a new life, a new civilization.”— Ebenezer Howard, 1898"All cities must evolve over time. Those that fail to do so...
View ArticleThe Future of Cities: California's Inland Empire
Ryan Atwood was the juvenile delinquent from the slums of Chino, just east of the county line, as depicted in the popular show The O.C. However, Chino was not a crime-ridden pocket in the Golden State,...
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Above It All
Back in 1989, during her trial for tax evasion, one of Leona Helmsley’s former employees quoted her as saying “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.”Helmsley was a super-rich New Yorker...
View ArticleIs Dowtown LA High on Own Parking Supply?
The immutable law of supply and demand is nevertheless pulling off a mutation in Downtown Los Angeles when it comes to one of the least glamorous and most interesting asset classes of commercial real...
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