Newgeography.com - Economic, demographic, and political commentary about places

For decades, China and Middle Eastern autocracies have been pouring billions of dollars into American and other foreign universities.  read more »

I have been serving the land development industry with software technology since the late 1970’s. Back then, off-the-shelf software was rare, and every computer came with instructions on how to create programs.  read more »

It is a warm Monday morning in Rome, and the city’s ancient ghetto resembles an armed camp. As carabinieri line the streets, a cloud of melancholy hangs in the air: not only had more than 1,400 Jews recently been slaughtered in Israel, but the date — October 16 — marks the anniversary of its residents forced evacuation to the concentration camps. History, it seems, is repeating itself.  read more »

I’m pleased to announce that yesterday, the Alliance For Responsible Citizenship published my new paper on how to bring more electricity to developing countries. It’s called “Powering The Unplugged: Overcoming the Barriers to Electrification in the Developing World.”  read more »

Back in the early days of California’s ascendancy, the state was described as “the Jews’ early paradise”, a place where the lack of social norms, and enormous opportunities, were ideal for enterprising people  read more »

The Mineta Institute — named after a San Jose congressman who was Secretary of Transportation in 2001 through 2006 — has a new report claiming that high-speed rail will produce huge economic and environmental benefits.  read more »

History is rearing its ugly head, and it would best not to look away. Time to put away our foolish utopian dreams and face the harsher, more divided world, predicted in Samuel Huntington’s 2011 book  read more »

Rentcafe.com has just published a list of the 51 ZIP Codes in the United States that have had the most apartment construction over the last five years (2018-2022).  read more »

Fifty years ago, in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, the Arab members of OPEC initiated an oil embargo against the United States. The boycott was retribution for America’s support of Israel during its brief war against Egypt and Syria.  read more »

For a long time, Sweden has been a leading innovation economy, known around the world for its technological competences. My first personal association of Sweden, as a child before I came to Europe, was as a country with talented engineers. But Sweden's position as a leading European engineering country is being undermined.  read more »