Throughout history, excess wealth has been used to salve society’s problems, funding hospitals, food banks, and building libraries to develop minds and cathedrals to lift the spirits.  read more »

It’s important not to let last month’s tragic shootings completely overshadow the significance of Lunar New Year. For us, this holiday normally means a late morning trip to the hillside orchard in my wife’s hometown to visit her parents’ graves.  read more »

As COVID-19 begins to wane and become endemic, the question for policymakers, theorists, and Americans at large is: What is in store for our nation's big cities?  read more »

California Governor Newsom is emphatically finger pointing, scapegoating, and complaining that oil companies are making outlandish profits, but he may be out of touch  read more »

I’m old enough now to have grandnieces and nephews, and almost all of them have lower living standards and worse working conditions than their parents.  read more »

We will soon be leaving the first quarter of the 21st century behind us. But in the minds of our transportation planners, the punditry, and some real estate interests, the way forward is actually to step back  read more »

California continues to lose population, according to the latest State Department of Finance estimates for the year ended July 2022.  read more »

We have a relationship with AM radio that folks in other parts of the country maybe can’t understand. So our antennae go up when the electric-vehicle revolution begins to eliminate the “amplitude modulation” band from new vehicles  read more »

This chapter describes general urbanization trends in the United States and around the world, from 1950 to the present. Cities can be glamorous or exciting, but what matters most is how they facilitate higher incomes and standards of living.  read more »

It seems as if anything can be done – truly anything – if it is in the name of safety.  read more »