Demographics

Forget the presidential election. The real contest about the future direction of the country has already taken place, and it’s the red states that are clearly winning.  read more »

The new data on net domestic migration between major metropolitan areas (more than 1,000,000 residents) over the last three years (July 2020 to July 2023) shows a strong movement of people away from higher urban densities to lower urban densities.  read more »

Elon Musk has just announced that he will move the headquarters of both SpaceX and X from California to Texas, citing Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of a new law banning parental notification by school districts of children’s gender identification changes.  read more »

For more than 75 years America has been dispersing away from dense urban cores, with nearly all population growth in neighborhoods with a suburban form  read more »

The latest American Community Survey data (2022) indicates that higher density condo living is strongly correlated with lower rates of home ownership than among detached or attached houses. The table below provides US data as well as data for the 56 major metropolitan areas by residential building density.

National Home Ownership by Type of Residential Building: Overall, 65.2% of US households owned their own homes  read more »

Where you grow up in America powerfully influences your prospects in life.  read more »

Fraternal life on college campuses occupies a particular mystique in American culture and is usually not particularly positive. Popular culture depicts frat life in distinct images; John Belushi’s Animal House and Old School, among many others, show young men who appear to do everything but take their studies seriously. There are far too many instances of hazing, cases of sexual assault and harassment, and overall elitism within fraternities which have soured public perception of fraternities.  read more »

It’s common knowledge that the relationship between young men and women has been heading the wrong direction. Marriage rates are falling, the sexes are becoming politically polarized, there are movements among both men and women to swear off relationships.  read more »

For much of modern American history, the support enjoyed by the two main political parties has hewed to a particular ethnic pattern.  read more »

For over two decades, urban planning’s preoccupation with urban form above all else, has diminished its ability to resolve the growing social and economic divide occurring across the nation.  read more »