There was a time when downtown Los Angeles was the commercial center of Southern California. According to Robert Fogelson, writing in his classic Downtown: Its Rise and Fall (1880-1950)”nearly half” of Los Angeles residents went downtown every day in the middle 1920s. A time traveler from 1925 might think that to still be the case, with the concentration of tall buildings, and the frequent press reports about downtown’s resurgence.
Economics · Featured · Government · Regulation
There is an increasing recognition – at least outside the academy, planning organization and urban core developer groups – that the spatial expansion of cities or suburbanization represents the evolving urban form of not only the United States and virtually all of the high income world but also across the developing world, whether middle income or third world.
In recent years, Mexico has made substantial economic progress. Per capita income (purchasing power parity) in Mexico exceeds that of all the “BRIC” nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) except resource-rich Russia.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · FIRE
The 2013 annual metropolitan area population estimates by the US Census Bureau indicate a continuing and persistent dominance of population growth and domestic migration by the South. Between 2010 and 2013, 51 percent of the population increase in the 52 major metropolitan areas (over 1 million population) was in the South. The West accounted for 30 percent of the increase, followed by the Northeast at 11 percent and eight percent in the North Central (Midwest).
Economics · Government · Politics
The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) is out with news of higher transit ridership. APTA President and CEO Michael Melaniphy characterizes the new figures as indicating “a fundamental shift going on in the way we move about our communities.” Others even characterized the results as indicating “shifting consumer preferences.” The data shows either view to be an exaggeration.
Budgets/Taxes · Featured · Politics
In a hard fought election campaign, voters in the city of Tigard appear to have narrowly enacted another barrier to light rail expansion in suburban Portland. The Washington County Elections Division reported that with 100 percent of precincts counted, Charter Amendment 34-210 had obtained 51 percent of the vote, compared to 49 percent opposed.
Despite planning efforts to restrict it, the Bay Area continues to disperse. For decades, nearly all population and employment growth in the San Jose-San Francisco Combined Statistical Area has been[...]
The term “Greater New York” was applied, unofficially, to the 1898 consolidation that produced the present city of New York, which brought together the present five boroughs (counties). When consolidated, much of the city of New York was agricultural. As time went on, the term “Greater” came to apply to virtually any large city and its environs, not just New York. By 2010, Greater New York had expanded to somewhere between 19 million and 23 million residents, depending on the definition.
Budgets/Taxes · Featured · Government · Legal Affairs
Judge Kenny’s decision means that the state of California cannot ignore its laws, even when its leadership finds them politically inexpedient.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured
The world’s largest economies seem engaged in something like the children’s game of “musical chairs.”
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured
Underemployment in the states is highest in some Western and Midwestern states.
New data from the American Community Survey makes it possible to review the trend in mode of access to employment in the United States over the past five years. This[...]
With the ongoing repetition of the “return to the city from the suburbs” myth, it is important to draw conclusions from the data, not from impressions.
Economics · Environment/Energy · Featured
Plan Bay Area was outdated when approved and reflects a world that no longer exists.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured
The idea that people left New York, Boston or Los Angeles for a less rewarding life in Atlanta, Charlotte, or Raleigh violates everything we know about human nature.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Taxes
The evidence is characterized as “job sprawl”
Contrary to media reports, the decline has been slightly greater in the suburbs than in the historical cores.
Featured · Internet/Telecom · Media
It has been a difficult time for newspapers. The industry has experienced serious challenges due to multiple factors going back at least to the early 1960s when the three major[...]
Yahoo Travel ranks the Las Vegas Strip as the nation’s second most popular tourist attraction, trailing only Times Square in New York City. Southern California residents can easily reach Las[...]
Environment/Energy · Regulation
Wendell Cox is a senior fellow of The Heartland Institute; a consultant to public and private public policy, planning and transportation organizations; and a visiting professor at a French national[...]
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