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The Rival Future Visions of Peter Thiel and Scott Adams
Our mental model of the world shapes our behavior at fundamental levels in ways we often can’t even recognize. I was struck by this when reading two books almost back to back, Scott Adams’ How to Fail...
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The New War Between the States
In this disgusting election, dominated by the personal and the petty, the importance of the nation’s economic geography has been widely ignored. Yet if you look at the Electoral College map, the...
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America's Next Great Metropolis Is Taking Shape In Texas
If you drive south from Dallas, or west from Houston, a subtle shift takes place. The monotonous, flat prairie that dominates much of Texas gives way to a landscape that rises and ebbs.The region...
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Diedre McCloskey’s Trickle-Out Economics
Economics, history, English and communications Professor Diedre N. McCloskey, of the University of Illinois, Chicago offers a unique interpretation of economic history that is well summarized in the...
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Two Cheers for NIMBYism
Politicians, housing advocates, planners and developers often blame the NIMBY — “not in my backyard” — lobby for the state’s housing crisis. And it’s true that some locals overreact with unrealistic...
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Today’s Orange County: Not Right Wing—and Kinda Hip
What comes to mind when you think about Orange County? Probably, images of lascivious housewives and blonde surfers. And certainly, at least if you know your political history, crazed right-wing...
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A Capital Improvement and Revitalization Idea for Detroit
You may have heard that Detroit is in the midst of a modest but enduring revival in and around its downtown. Residents and businesses are returning to the city, filling long-vacant skyscrapers,...
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The US Census Digs Deeper: Where Were Your Ancestors From?
Over 45 million Americans identify their dominant ancestry as German and 22,000 identify theirs as Marshallese, from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. But in the US Census proposed new form for...
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The House Prices are Too Damned High
In recent years, the plight of renters in a stagnant economy has been covered extensively. A book title incorporated the phrase “the rent is too damn high” (by Matthew Iglesias). The “Rent is Too Damn...
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Unsustainable solutions in the name of sustainability
The other day when I was riding my bike in Minneapolis crossing I-94 near Riverside I encountered a small townhome project built during the first (failed) green era under the Carter administration. It...
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Trump Will Go Away, but the Anger He’s Stirred Up Is Just Getting Started
For progressives, the gloating is about to begin. The Washington Monthlyproclaims that we are on the cusp of a “second progressive era,” where the technocratic “new class” overcomes a Republican Party...
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Can California Transition to Next Tech Wave?
The consumer technology boom, largely responsible for a resurgence in California’s economy after the tech wreck of 2001, seems to be coming to an end. The signs are widespread: slowing employment,...
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Corporate Mustard Showroom Helps Explain New York’s Retail Rent Crisis
The story of skyrocketing rents has two components: residential and commercial.My New York neighborhood, the Upper West Side, features fairly stable residential rents, but commercial rents seem to have...
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Suburban. Comma. Transit.
I explored the Orange Line Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system that runs for eighteen miles across the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. The Valley is a profoundly suburban city-within-a-city and home to...
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Erasing Anglo cultural heritage risks what makes our republic diverse
It’s increasingly unfashionable to celebrate those who made this republic and established its core values. On college campuses, the media and, increasingly, in corporate circles, the embrace of...
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A Tour of The Bund in Shanghai
One of the great pleasures of China is a walk along the Bund promenade.Shanghai’s Bund is one of China’s great tourist and historic sites. Its history lessons are from two distinctively different...
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Real Estate Doesn’t Make an Economy
From Southern California to Shanghai and London, inflated real estate prices have evolved into a simulacrum for broader prosperity. In an era of limited income gains, growing inequality, political...
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Job Creation Under the Next President
Retraining the employed and the unemployed for higher value-added skills is now more important than simply adding to the number of jobs.Coal and steel magnate Wilbur Ross, a senior policy advisor to...
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The Cities Where Your Salary Will Stretch The Furthest 2016
When Americans consider a move to another part of the country, they sometimes are forced to make a tough choice: should they go to a city with the best job opportunities, or a less economically vital...
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Canada’s Middle-Income Housing Affordability Crisis
The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has issued a “red warning” for the entire housing market in Canada.” According to CMHC the red warnings are due to “strong evidence of problematic...
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