Blogs

As the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) prepared for its most recent round of major bus operations reductions, Metro CEO Art Leahy has been quoted:

"(T)oo many bus lines with excessive service has led to regular budget deficits¹."  read more »

The Pew Center on the States has released a new report examining the impact a potential federal default would have on state and municipal governments. The picture isn't pretty.  read more »

The Martin Prosperity Institute recently released the map below, which compares the GDP of several US metropolitan areas to the size of national economies. For instance, the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy metropolitan statistical area (MSA) has a GDP of $311.3 billion dollars. If it were a country, it would be the 40th biggest national economy on earth, ahead of countries such as Denmark ($310.1) and Greece ($303.4).  read more »

PWC ranked Houston #11 *in the world* for business, life, and innovation - a really amazingly high ranking when you think about it.  Here's what they said:  read more »

There is nothing better than a good old count to check out what’s really happening.  And a lot has happened across Australia over the last five years.  But what actually has happen to the country’s demographic fabric might surprise many. 
There are ten trends which I think will emerge out of our next national count on Tuesday 9th August.  read more »

The Wall Street Journal  reports that growing concern about Hong Kong's high house prices has led the special administrative region's Chief Executive Donald Tsang to promise an overhaul of housing and land use policies in the fall.       read more »

Carmageddon has come and gone, and the world didn’t end. The catalyst for the predicted disaster was the closure of Interstate 405 in Los Angeles for construction for the weekend of the 16th and 17th of July. Freeway closures aren’t all that unusual, but the 405 is not a regular freeway. It is both the busiest, and most congested road in America. The 405 carries an estimated half million vehicles per weekday. Had traffic been even close to normal volumes—even weekend volumes—the event would have earned the nickname. However, less people drove. Way less people.  read more »

The median price of serviced (improved) lots for new houses in Adelaide is reported to have risen above that of far larger Sydney by the Housing Industry Association of South Australia. Housing Industry Association of South Australian Executive Director Robert Harding attributed the high price of land to government policies that have limited the supply of land available for building.  read more »

July 15: Today there was another indication that the newly constituted House of Representatives understands the “litmus test” imperative of zeroing out high speed rail appropriations, in light of potentially required cuts in essential programs like Medicare, Social Security and others. $1 billion was switched to Midwest flood relief in an approval today of the Energy and Water Appropriations bill for the 2012 budget.  read more »

Credit Sesame has created an interactive map showing property tax rates for all 50 states. Based on data from the Tax Foundation, the graphic also shows property tax rates as a share of home value and as a share of median income of homeowners. It's important to note that property taxes can vary regionally within states, and property taxes are only one part of overall state and local tax burden.  read more »