Urban Issues

Normandy—cold, green, and charming—should be the scene of celebration for liberal democracy. The northern region of France produced seminal writings from its aristocratic native son, Alexis de Tocqueville, and was the setting for the landings on D-Day, which reestablished liberalism on a continent locked in the grip of fascism.  read more »

I've written quite a bit about Detroit's recent history, particularly the Motor City of the last ten years -- Kwame Kilpatrick and the aftermath of his corrupt administration, the subsequent bankruptcy and emergence from it, the binding of local government, business and nonprofit forces in creating a new template for leadership, and the very real rebound that Detroit is currently experiencing. Detroit is indeed booming, but it's not growth generated by external forces.  read more »

For some time now urban core proponents have boasted about a "return to the cities" from the suburbs. And while the urban core cities (historical core municipalities) have done better in recent years than before, the claim has been significantly overblown. Suburbs have continued to capture the "lion's share" of metropolitan growth in the United States.  read more »

I spent the afternoon yesterday helping my neighbors pack, clean, and complete a series of fix-it projects around their apartment. They’re moving from San Francisco to a semi-rural town of 28,000 in western Massachusetts.

My neighbor bought her one bedroom apartment a decade ago for what seemed like the outrageously high price of $400,000. Today the place is worth $900,000.  read more »

By all measures economists use to assess the quality of life a place offers—job availability, cost of living, commute times, recreation, etc.—Wisconsin stacks up pretty well. Very well, in fact. Problem is, people don’t consult economists when choosing the best place to pursue their passions. As CEO of NEWaukee, I devote my professional life and much of my personal life to promoting Milwaukee and Wisconsin as a career and lifestyle destination.  read more »

The front page of The Wall Street Journal cited the difficulty of cities (Note 1) trying to stop the escalation of house prices “Western Cities Try, and Fail, To Slow Chinese Home Buying.” The more descriptive online headline said: Western Cities Want to Slow Flood of Chinese Home Buying. Nothing Works: Governments from Vancouver to Sydney to Toronto are using taxes and other restrictions to tackle real-estate bubbles.  read more »

You may remember Geoffrey West from his TED Talk about the scaling laws of cities that got a lot of press a while back. He has now turned his research findings into a book. Famed physicist Freeman Dyson just reviewed it for the New York Review of Books. His review includes this curious section about genetic drift I found interesting.  read more »

The current conundrum for many people is simple. You might want to live in one of the expensive bubbles of economic and cultural vibrancy in order to access good paying jobs and upward mobility. But the cost of property and rent are insane. You could live in a radically less expensive part of the country where homes and rent are mercifully low, but not everyone longs for a tract home on the edge of Houston. I’ve argued for years that there are all sorts of cost effective towns and cities in the Midwest that are far better than many people assume.  read more »

Urban planning exists to serve people and communities, not the other way around. Unfortunately, urban planners these days, perhaps under the influence of academic arrogance as well as the lure of developer dollars, seem to forget this simple truism.  read more »

In the 50 plus years since Jane Jacobs coined the phrase “eyes on the street”, most planners have taken it as an article of faith. After all, some argue, it is common sense. But as we found out when looking at complex, self-organising systems such as cities, common sense is woefully inadequate to explain, let alone predict, outcomes.  read more »