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On The Pitfalls of Urban Food Production
In her August 21 pieces “Can Urban Agriculture Work on a Commercial Scale?” and “Five Urban Farms that are Growing Big” published in Citiscope, journalist Flavie Halais enthuses over the potential for...
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Class Issues, Not Race, Will Likely Seal the Next Election
Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and along the U.S.-Mexico border may seem to suggest that race has returned as the signature issue in American politics. We can see this already in the pages of...
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Wrong Way Cities
In a New York Times column entitled "Wrong Way America," Nobel laureate Paul Krugman again reminds us of the high cost of overzealous land-use regulations. Krugman cites the work of Harvard economist...
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Are Cool Downtowns the Solution to Suburban Ennui?
Recently, former Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi took a turn answering The Foggiest Five, a new segment that asks influential Long Islanders five questions regarding the future of the Nassau-Suffolk...
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Baby Boomtowns: The U.S. Cities Attracting The Most Families
With the U.S. economy reviving, birth rates may be as well: the number of children born rose in 2013 by 4,700, the first annual increase since 2007. At the same time new household formation, after...
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The Rise of Urban Riverfronts
I recently moved from Cincinnati to Providence, Rhode Island, though I still think of the Detroit area as my hometown. All of these cities are based on their access to water. Providence, though at the...
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Southern California Becoming Less Family-Friendly
The British Talmudic scholar Abraham Cohen noted that, throughout history, children were thought of as “a precious loan from God to be guarded with loving and fateful care.” Yet, increasingly and,...
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Brooklyn is Getting Poorer
I’m trying to make more of an effort, whenever I write or talk about gentrification, to point out that the real issue is larger: that gentrification is only one aspect of income segregation –...
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Paving Over Hunan? The Portland Model for China
For two centuries, people have crowded into urban areas, seeking higher standards of living than prevail in the rural areas they abandoned. Nowhere is this truer than in China. In just four decades, it...
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Apocalypse Soon? Uneasiness with The Economy
Seven in 10 Americans say the country is on the wrong track. Americans are unhappy, worried and pessimistic, and their spending is down according to a University of Michigan report. But the same report...
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Why Suburbia Irks Some Conservatives
For generations, politicians of both parties – dating back at least to Republican Herbert Hoover and Democrat Franklin Roosevelt – generally supported the notion of suburban growth and the expansion of...
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Metro Area Gross Domestic Product
The Bureau of Economic Analysis is out with the preliminary numbers for 2013 metro area GDP (see the press release). Here is a spreadsheet with per capita GDP data for all large metros.We’ve now got...
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Millennials: A Powerful, Suburban Living Generation
The latest survey data on the living preferences of the Millennial generation (born 1982-2003) once again validates the picture of a cohort that, contrary to urban legend, actually prefers the...
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Will Lindsay Lohan Save Greece?
It's September, but island beaches from the Aegeans to Zante are still buzzing in Greece. Mykonos has been the summer's Go-To spot for superstars and supermodels; the mainland and cities are also...
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The Sick Man Of Europe Is Europe
The recent near breakup of the United Kingdom — something inconceivable just a decade ago — reflects a deep, pervasive problem of identity throughout the EU. The once vaunted European sense of common...
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New Commuting Data Shows Bain by Individual Modes
The newly released American Community Survey data for 2013 indicates little change in commuting patterns since 2010, a result that is to be expected in a period as short as three years. Among the 52...
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When Patrimony Trumps Political Preference
Jews, despite their above-average affluence and their entrepreneurial bent, have long been among the most loyal constituencies of the Democratic Party. Half of American Jews earn more than $100,000...
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Diverging Fortunes in Portland
A recent New York Times Magazine had a story on Portland that featured Yours Truly. I recapitulated a few observations I’ve had over the years, including that it’s truly remarkable how a small city...
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The Death of Nassau Coliseum: A Harbinger of Suburban Decline?
Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum is one of the last remaining old time hockey rinks. But this will be the last year that the New York Islanders play there. The old barn has long been slated for...
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Seniors Dispersing Away from Urban Cores
Senior citizens (age 65 and over) are dispersing throughout major metropolitan areas, and specifically away from the urban cores. This is the opposite of the trend suggested by some planners and media...
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