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Would the Twin Cities Survive New Urbanism?
In December, the Metropolitan Council of Minneapolis and St. Paul is scheduled to vote on a vision for the region's housing and transportation future. "Thrive MSP 2040” is the council’s comprehensive...
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The Other Side of the Tracks
I tend to fixate on certain places – sometimes because I love them, other times because I can’t help but stare at twisted wreckage. Lancaster, California has always been 30/70 leaning toward wreckage,...
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Legal but Still Poor: The Economic Consequences of Amnesty
With his questionably Constitutional move to protect America’s vast undocumented population, President Obama has provided at least five million immigrants, and likely many more, with new hope for the...
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Urbanists Need to Face the Full Implications of Peak Car
As traffic levels decline nationally in defiance of the usual state DOT forecasts projecting major increases, a number of commentators have claimed that we’ve reached “peak car” – the point at which...
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New Class Order
In this predictably difficult year for the Democrats, the party of the people is turning, of all people, to its plutocrats. However much the party stigmatizes right-wing billionaires like the Koch...
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Planning a Trip to China
Recently concluded agreements between the United States and China have led to easing of visa restrictions, which is expected to lead to tourist volume increases in both directions. As a frequent...
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The Three Generations of Black Mayors in America
A select group of cities elected black mayors during the brief and tumultuous Black Power Era, seeking to implement an activist social justice platform. These cities – notably Cleveland, Gary, Newark...
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Southern California Stuck in Drive
Southern California has long been a nurturer of dreams that, while widely anticipated, often are never quite achieved. One particularly strong fantasy involves Los Angeles abandoning what one...
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The Curious Comeback Of U.S. Downtowns
Perhaps nothing better illustrates the notion of urban revival in America than the comeback of many downtown districts. Yet if these areas have recovered some of their vigor, they are doing so in a...
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Las Vegas: The Once and Future Downtown Project
There’s been a lot in the news lately about the troubles plaguing Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project in Las Vegas. The latest is a longish report in the Guardian, which notes:Yet by late September of this...
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Voting With Your Feet: Aaron Renn’s New Donut
Growing up I remember the adults talking about the old neighborhood in Brooklyn where my grandparents lived during the Great Depression and World War II. In spite of the hardships of the era it was...
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Evaluating Urban Rail
For more than 40 years, US cities have rushed to build new rail systems (indeed I was part of such an effort, see Los Angeles: Rail for Others). This article examines the trend in transit and driving...
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The Three Ages of Boss Rule
Between roughly the Civil War and World War II, most American cities were at some point dominated by a boss and his machine. The term “boss” referred not only a powerful politician, but one who...
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The Rustbelt Roars Back From the Dead
Urban America is often portrayed as a tale of two kinds of places, those that “have it” and those who do not. For the most part, the cities of the Midwest—with the exception of Chicago and...
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Gray Shadow Looms Over Home of Youth Culture
Southern California, like the rest of America and, indeed, the higher-income world, is getting older, rapidly. Even as the region’s population is growing slowly, its ranks of seniors – people age 65...
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Cities: Better for the Great Suburbanization
Where Cities Grow: The SuburbsThe massive exodus of people from rural areas to urban areas over the past 200 years has been called the "great urbanization." For more than two centuries, people have...
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Two Chicagos, Defined
Years ago, when I first started working as a planner for the City of Chicago, my primary responsibility was working with community organizations that received Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)...
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Good Enough Urbanism: Faster, Cheaper, Smarter
There’s plenty of blight out there. Inner city blight, failing suburban blight, long lost rural small town blight… empty storefronts, boarded up buildings, dead streets. There’s simply no government...
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California Business Needs to Go Small or Go Home
Here’s the bitter reality for business in much of California: there’s no cavalry riding to rescue you from the state’s regulatory and tax vise. The voters in California have spoken, and with a...
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Can Abe Tackle The Real Reason For Japan's Decline? (Procreation)
Much has been made of Japan’s latest relapse into recession. For the most part, economists have focused on the efficacy of the once much-ballyhooed “Abenomics,” the stimulus and structural reform...
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