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From Disruption to Dystopia: Silicon Valley Envisions the City of the Future
The tech oligarchs who already dominate our culture and commerce, manipulate our moods, and shape the behaviors of our children while accumulating capital at a rate unprecedented in at least a century...
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Olympics Transportation: The L. A. Times Needn’t Worry
The Trump Infrastructure plan has finally been released. The critics are out in force, especially those with particular interest in rapid transit. The plan would reduce funding to the federal “new...
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New York’s Tech Sector Gobbling Up Real Estate
Google, which already owns a gigantic building in Manhattan, is buying Chelsea Market for $2.4 billion. The NYT article about this gives some insight into the very strong growth of the tech sector in...
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Autonomous Cars Are About To Transform The Suburbs
Suburbs have largely been dismissed by environmentalists and urban planners as bad for the planet, a form that needed to be eliminated to make way for a bright urban future. Yet, after a few years of...
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Localism in America: Why We Should Tackle Our Big Challenges At The Local Level
Localism in America, a compilation of essays from the American Enterprise Institute and the Center for Opportunity Urbanism, explores the merits of local governing and how reinvigorating local...
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Will Race Issues Destroy America?
Immigration and diversity represent both America’s greatest weapon and, increasingly, a lethal challenge to our democracy. The debate over the “dreamers” — the roughly 700,000 young people brought to...
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Housing Affordability Drives the Cost of Living
Housing affordability is what largely drives the standard of living the United States. The 14th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey showed that, in 2016, there was a 0.83...
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Chicago Is the American Metropolitan Platypus
"What the hell is going on in Chicago?"I must admit, when I first heard that statement from President Donald Trump, it angered me. The Donald has said a lot of cringe-worthy things over the years, but...
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Will Density Make Housing Affordable?
California left-wingers who want to densify cities to make them affordable are getting some push-back from other left-wingers who think density will push low-income people out of neighborhoods. A...
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The New Opportunity Boomtowns
A century ago Detroit was a boomtown and Los Angeles a sleepy refuge for sun-seeking Midwesterners. A half-century later, L.A. was the fastest-growing big city in the high-income world, while Detroit...
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California in Danger: Why the Dream is Dying and How We Can Save It
In the latest report from research and policy organization Environmental Progress, "California in Danger: Why the Dream is Dying and How We Can Save It," Michael Shellenberger highlights the most...
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How Silicon Valley Went From ‘Don’t Be Evil’ to Doing Evil
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.– The Who, “We won’t be fooled again”, 1971Once seen as the saviors of America’s economy, Silicon Valley is turning into something more of an emerging axis of...
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Working-Class People on the Snowfields: Class at the Winter Olympics
The combination of renewed interest in Tonya Harding (due to the film, I, Tonya) and the winter Olympics made me think of class and sport lately – especially sports that involve snow and ice. Although...
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Connecting the Dots by Transit in Los Angeles?
Over the past three years, the nation’s largest transit systems have endured a broad and unprecedented ridership decline. By far the largest drop has been in Los Angeles and this has resulted in...
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Why We Should Fix It First with Infrastructure
My latest column is now online in the March issue of Governing. It’s called “A Tip for Infrastructure Builders: Fix It First.” Here’s an excerpt:"Infrastructure investment is also not likely to spur...
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Left and Lefter in California
The California Democratic Party’s refusal to endorse the reelection of Senator Dianne Feinstein represents a breaking point both for the state’s progressives and, arguably, the future of the party...
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Where Small Town America Is Thriving
Big city America has long demonstrated a distaste for its smaller cousins. This sentiment has, if anything, intensified with the election of President Donald Trump, whose improbable victory was made...
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Cronyism and its Scapegoats
Cronyism destroys trust and assigns the blame to scapegoats of its own creation.Only a fiercely committed left or right-winger would fail to recognize that there is today a social and political divide...
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California’s Housing Crisis and the Density Delusion
Once seen as a human-scale alternative to the crowded cities of the past, California’s cities are targeted by policy makers and planners dreaming of bringing back the “good old days,” circa 1900, when...
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Is Mayor a Dead End Job?
We constantly hear that it’s the era of cities. Benjamin Barber wrote a book called If Mayors Ruled the World. Mayors are touted as pragmatic problem solvers who are taking on the challenges...
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