NewGeography.com blogs

Do you know who is funding your local candidate? Most of them are probably not from your district, as Lee Drutman at Miller-McCune points out after looking at the results of new report by two University of Maryland professors. Lee writes:

Increasingly, they’re not bothering to ask the folks whom they are actually paid to represent for campaign cash. Instead, they are flocking to a handful of super-wealthy ZIP codes in places like Hollywood; the Upper East Side of Manhattan; Greenwich, Conn.; and suburban Washington, D.C. - the "political ATM's" of the campaign trial.

Moreover, as of 2004, only 1 in 5 congressional districts provided the majority of contributions for the candidates seeking to represent that district. And in 18 percent of congressional districts, more than 90 percent of money now comes from out of district.

The professors write in their analysis that the new donor class is “disproportionately wealthy, urban, highly educated, and employed in elite occupations.”

If you're interested in where the small donors are coming from in the presidential race, check out the interactive map at Huffington Post's Fundrace. It's a great tool to use as a proxy to visualize which way your state or metro area might lean, or maybe you just want to spy on your neighbors.

For instance, it's pretty easy to see instantly which parts of the Los Angeles may be pockets of Republican influence, or to see Obama's fund raising success in the Chicago region.

Perhaps the Republicans should move this week's convention out to the western Minneapolis suburbs for a warmer reception?

Miller-McCune link via NewsAlert.

It may be home to Google, Cisco, Oracle and the other gleaming companies of the New Economy, but times are tough for the Silicon Valley's working class.

"Working people in Silicon Valley are walking an economic tightrope, and any unexpected medical bill or even a car breakdown can push them over the edge."

What happens to a community like this when the working class can no longer afford to live there?

Baseball and football, America's great everyman sport, won't be that way much longer for fans in the Big Apple. Glittering new stadiums for the Yankees, Mets and one which the Jets and Giants will share aren't exactly meant for the "dollar dogs" crowd.

The Giants have said they will charge from $1,000 to $20,000 a seat for their personal seat licenses; once fans buy the seat licenses, they will still have to pay from $85 to $700 a ticket... Tickets for the best seats at the 85-year-old Yankee Stadium, which sold for $1,000 a seat this season, will jump at the new ballpark to $2,500; in other areas of the stadium, they will range from $135 to $500 for season tickets.

Never mind the fact that the $3.7 billion being spent on the three new stadiums means that New York's pressing infrastructure needs - particularly in wastewater -will be parried away for a while (Center for an Urban Future has a piece on all of New York's infrastructure needs).

There's also a wonderful segment about increasing ticket sales on "HBO Real Sports" this week. Bryant Gumbel interviews long-time New York sports fans refusing to go along with the ticket increases out of "self-respect."

In this famously expensive city, one developer has a plan: Build 250 square-feet condos for singles who can then move on up. The 98 units will sell from $279,000 to $330,000.

Yes, it sounds like a glorified closet, but you have to admire Hauser Architects' sense of practicality for these Hong Kong-style apartments. The huge towers going up on Rincon Hill and South of Market are only meant for those earning well into six figures. It's refreshing that someone is actually building housing not meant for the super-wealthy. It could also serve as a harbinger of housing to come for single middle-class urban dwellers.

One interesting thing about the luxury economy today in the U.S. is how much of it is being driven by tourists and non-residents. Another salient point: how the very wealthy have been largely immune to the current downturn.

An article in the LA Times about the shopping habits on Rodeo Drive brings both these points home. "Business has been crazy-great," said a manager of the Christofle shop just off of Rodeo Drive in LA - a purveyor of silver flatware and other furnishings. "It's like Christmas in here."

Apparently, the famed street of tony boutiques and celebrities has been annexed for the time being by flush foreigners. "Saudi princesses," confided a saleswoman at one Rodeo Drive clothing store. "That's who's doing all the buying." Where's US Weekly's article about how those poor starlets are feeling marginalized by all this?

And today, an article in the New York Sun reveals that a full third of New York condo sales are being grabbed up by Europeans who now constitute 15 percent of the entire market.

- Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who's new column in the SF Chronicle I am thoroughly enjoying, had this vignette about walking around the shops at Union Square:

"At Bloomingdale's - packed and nobody speaking English. Neiman Marcus - no English. And nobody, but nobody, was speaking English in Prada.
It's all Italian, Dutch, French, German and heavy, heavy Russian.

The Europeans are absolutely the biggest retail customers these days downtown, and they are spending like crazy."

But this could change, the dollar rose eight percent against the euro in the last month. Better grab those $10,000 silverware sets while you can.

But nativist shoppers, fear not - I heard nary a foreign tongue as I flipped through the sales rack at Gap.

One of these cities is the perennial Cinderella to urban planners; the other the ugly sister who always crashes the party. One is the well-planned "City of Roses" (no, not Pasadena), a bastion of mass-transit and controlled development along the Columbia River while its gargantuan sister to the south eschews all such enlightened principles.

That's the gist at least from this paean to Portland in the LA Times today about what the city could learn from its lithe Northern cousin.

A few key differences between these two:

• The vast majority (90%) of job growth in Portland has been in the suburbs

• Portland is actually far less dense than LA

• It has a tiny population of immigrants and poor vis-a-vis LA

• The city is losing families and children and rivals San Francisco for having the lowest percentage of its population under the age of 18 of any major U.S. city.

And he doesn't mention Portland's greatest comparative advantage to LA: amazing beer!

One thing both cities have in common right now: two of the most dynamic music scenes in the country.

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Here's Joel Kotkin's piece about Portland a few years ago.

New home sales went down by a whopping 73 percent in the Windy City during the first six months of this year. But developers, anticipating high demand - especially for the condo market - have committed to keep building them. From the article in Crain's Chicago:

"Developers are building at a record pace, with 9,528 units scheduled to be finished by the end of next year, Appraisal Research says. Nearly 33% of those remain unsold, a high percentage but slightly better than the first quarter's 35%."

Mirroring a national trend, the income gap is increasing in the Bay State. From the Boston Globe article:

"The gap between rich and poor has widened substantially in Massachusetts over the past two decades, according to a new study by the University of Massachusetts. Only those earning the highest incomes benefited from gains in technology, productivity, and globalization, while middle-class earnings stagnated and incomes for poor families plunged 15 percent."

According to this report by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner research, the American public is restive for "bold change." One of the key findings of the report is that: "Voters are looking for dramatic action. Just 35 percent of voters say we can solve America’s problems with minor changes, while nearly two-thirds believe it will take 'major changes' to bring about solutions." And these respondents look more favorably upon the political legacy of FDR, rather than Reagan, to affect that change.

This climate of political disenchantment is similar to the one that greeted FDR when he entered office. Americans had gone through 12 years of Republican administrations; they viewed Hoover as grim and ineffectual as a leader. His predecessor, President Coolidge, had a famous line that "the business of government is business" which did not exactly resonate with the masses in the fall of 1932. People were ready for boldness and a different approach to economics and government and they got it.

Memo to the candidates to "make no small plans."

The Chicago Tribune reported recently on the state of the finance industry in the Chicago area. Reports indicate smaller, more nimble finance companies in Chicago are tapping an exodus of traders, bankers and investment managers:

Employment in the securities and commodity industries has held steady in the Windy City, showing an unusual resilience while marquee names such as Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers hemorrhage billions of dollars in connection with subprime mortgages. Members of the Chicago trading community say the transparency and technology provided by the futures and options exchanges has insulated them from losses the International Monetary Fund estimates will total $1 trillion.

Looking at the historical numbers, Chicago passed NYC in banking employment in 2001, but that industry is in slow decline in Chicago after peaking in late 2006. Securities jobs in Chicago have remained steady, while this sector in New York City began its sharp decline in September 2007. I'd say any evidence of Chicago growth based on New York's finance job loss is still anecdotal. (Click the chart for a bigger image.)

Chicago Trib link via Steve Bartin.