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The New World Order: A Report on the World's Emerging Spheres of Influence
This is the introduction to a new report, "The New World Order" authored by Joel Kotkin in partnership with the Legatum Institute. Read the full report and view the maps at the project website. The...
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Toyota: How Mississippi Engineered the Blue Springs Deal
A big crowd gathered earlier today to welcome the first Corolla that rolled off the assembly line at Toyota’s tenth U.S. plant in the tiny hamlet of Blue Springs, Mississippi. Situated in Union County,...
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The Best Cities For Technology Jobs
During tough economic times, technology is often seen as the one bright spot. In the U.S. this past year technology jobs outpaced the overall rate of new employment nearly four times. But if you’re...
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Urbanizing India: The 2011 Census Shows Slowing Growth
Provisional results from the 2011 census of India show a diminishing population, the lowest since independence in 1947. From 2001 to 2007, India's population grew 17.6%, compared to a 20% to 25% growth...
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Is Industrial Strife a Sign of Housing Stress?
Industrial disputes – including a spate of on and off again strikes at national carrier Qantas – are becoming once again a frequent feature of the Australian media. Unions are pushing for wage rises in...
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Social Market Housing for the USA: Dream or Nightmare?
Imagine a future America where the home ownership rate climbs from the current 65%1 to 87%2. Libertarians as well as many social democrats would be cheering. Imagine that this rate was achieved by...
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Mass Transit: Could Raising Fares Increase Ridership?
Conventional wisdom dictates that keeping transit fares as low as possible will promote high ridership levels. That isn't entirely incorrect. Holding all else constant, raising fares would have a...
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Good Morning, Vietnam
While many experts are pronouncing the demise of the American era and the rise of China, other East Asian nations complicate the picture. As America continues to participate and extend its influence in...
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The Evolving Urban Form: Delhi
It has been a time of ups and downs for Delhi, which has emerged as the largest urban area (area of continuous urban development) in India. By a quirk in the Census of India definitions, an urban area...
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Will You Still House Me When I'm 64?
In the song by the Beatles, the worry was about being fed and needed at 64. Things have changed. If the Beatles wrote those lyrics today, the worry instead might be about housing. Australia’s aging...
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Is Suburbia Doomed? Not So Fast.
This past weekend the New York Times devoted two big op-eds to the decline of the suburb. In one, new urban theorist Chris Leinberger said that Americans were increasingly abandoning “fringe suburbs”...
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The Evolving Urban Form: Quanzhou
Quanzhou? Quanzhou (pronounced "CHWEN-JOE"), despite its urban population that is approaching 5 million this urban area is so unfamiliar to Westerners and the rest of the world as to require an...
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It's Not the 1980s in Britain Anymore
Britain’s public sector workers came out on a one day strike last week over government plans to raid their pension funds. Government ministers did the rounds of television studios denouncing the...
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Wall Street Plays Occupy White House
Wall Street is disdained in the court of public opinion — detested by the tea party on the right and the Occupy movement on the left. The public blames financial plutocrats for America’s economic...
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Illinois: State Of Embarrassment
Most critics of Barack Obama’s desultory performance the past three years trace it to his supposedly leftist ideology, lack of experience and even his personality quirks. But it would perhaps be more...
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Which States Are Growing More Competitive?
By Hank Robison and Rob Sentz. Illustration by Mark Beauchamp. In many ways, individual U.S. states are like 50 laboratories where differing public policy, industry focus, and economic development...
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Tilting at (Transit) Windmills in Nashville
As in other major metropolitan areas in the United States, Nashville public officials are concerned about traffic congestion and the time it takes to get around. There is good reason for this, given...
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Wanted: Blue-Collar Workers
To many, America’s industrial heartland may look like a place mired in the economic past—a place that, outcompeted by manufacturing countries around the world, has too little work to offer its...
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Durban, Reducing Emissions and the Dimensions of Sustainability
The Durban climate change conference has come to an end, with the nations of the world approving the "Durban Platform," (Note 1) an agreement to agree later on binding greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction...
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Los Angeles Gets Old
During the last decade, Los Angeles County grew by about 300,000, an insignificant figure for a region of 9.8 million people. As in the previous decade, the slight increase in population was made...
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