NewGeography.com blogs

Colin McEnroe's piece in the Hartford Courant is a frightening tale about the indifference of the police to crime when it becomes so commonplace. A two hour wait for a call about a burglary. "I live in Gotham City, but there's no Batman."

In Boston, 65 parishes have been shuttered since 2004 and 30 have been sold - some to developers. And now, these former neighborhood institutions are becoming something truly unholy - high-priced condominiums. This article in the Boston Globe chronicles the trend. But hey, at least the priests are offering their blessings to these buildings' new uses at the developer's behest.

The American Wind Energy Association just announced that the US has overtaken Germany as the worlds top wind power generator, you're certainly familiar with T. Boone Pickens's wind obsession, and DOE is claiming we could be generating 20% of our power with wind by 2030.

Check out DOE's wind energy potential maps and AWEA's run down of installed and pending wind power projects in the U.S.

The question is can the country's transmission infrastructure withstand a redistribution of power generation? Who will build the needed infrastructure? In my home state of North Dakota, often called the "Saudi Arabia of Wind," the transmission capacity problem was cited so frequently for slow wind build out that the state government has gotten involved.

William Frey of the Milken Institute and Brookings Institution breaks down the race demographics of the presidential battleground states in this month's Milken Institute Review. Frey groups the states into what he calls the Fast Growing Battlegrounds, Slow Growing Battlegrounds, and Fast-Growing South Longshots.

His conclusion? The rapid growth in racial minorities in the fast growing battleground states make them prime targets for Obama. A similar trend in the longshot states, along with recent migration from blue states, give him a chance there as well. On the other hand, white dominated slow growth battleground states where Obama fared poorly in the primaries leave plenty of room for McCain to move in.

Check out Frey's analysis.

The Information sector of the economy is has followed an interesting trajectory over the past 15 years. The info sector built up to a huge peak in the early part of this decade, and has seen general decline since that time.

Growth in Information Subsectors:

The big boom and bust was caused by employment inflation of the telecommunications sector. Publishing followed a similar, but less extreme path. Both industries have reverted to employment levels in the early 1990s.

Motion picture and recording, data processing, broadcasting, and Internet publishing have all seen modest gains since the early 1990s.



Information growth by percent:

Here's the fastest growing metro areas in the information sector through the recent period of decline. We're seeing a decentralization effect here: smaller metros with historically manufacturing-centric otherwise specialized economies are building information industries.






Information growth by number of jobs:

Seattle is leading the charge and Madison is rapidly becoming and information center in the central states. I wouldn't have guessed Springfield, MO or Orlando would show up here.