The Census Bureau has just announced that median household income in the United States declined by 2.6% in 2020 compared to 2019. This is the first statistically significant reduction in income since 2011. In 2020, the median household income was $67,521, down from $69.560 in the last pre-pandemic year of 2019.
Alex Chisholm, chief operating officer of the United Kingdom civil service and permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office, said that the new-found ability of officials to vary working patterns was a “huge positive,” according to The Times of London. He told the House of Commons public accounts committee that “letting people work flexibly would also allow the civil service to shrink its footprint on Whitehall, the location of a number of national ministries and other offices of the national government in London. He cited the costly London real estate costs as a consideration favoring downsizing the government’s presence in Westminster (central London).
On this episode of Feudal Future hosts Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky are joined by JR Turner, managing director of the Americas, Michelle Comerford, project director and industrial supply chain practice leader, and Harry Moser, founder and president of The Reshoring Initiative. The panel takes a deep dive into reshoring. “Reshoring” is the practice of bringing manufacturing and services back to the United States from overseas. This process can help balance trade and budget deficits, reduce unemployment by creating well-paying manufacturing jobs, and develop a skilled workforce.
Michelle Comerford develops corporate location strategies and executes site selection projects for BLS & Co.’s manufacturing and distribution clients. Based in Cleveland, Michelle has worked across a range of industries during her 13-year career. She is an expert in transportation/logistics cost analysis, and has advised numerous clients on site selection decisions with an emphasis on supply chain network optimization, inbound and outbound transportation costs, and customer service requirements.
Harry Moser founded the Reshoring Initiative to help bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. Largely due to the success of the Reshoring Initiative, Harry was inducted into the Industry Week Manufacturing Hall of Fame 2010 and was named Quality Magazine’s Quality Professional of the year for 2012. Harry participated in President Obama’s 2012 Insourcing Forum at the White House, won the Jan. 2013 The Economist debate on outsourcing and offshoring, and received the Manufacturing Leadership Council’s Industry Advocacy Award in 2014.
JR Turners partnership with Chargeurs has a presence in 90 countries, which performs as a global leader in industrial niche markets of 4 core business: Temporary surface protection, Technical garment interlining, Technical textiles functionalization, and high-end Merinos fibers. The Group employs more than 2000 collaborators in 45 countries, over 5 continents. Its 4 business lines capture outstanding expertise, the power of innovation, high technical skills, performance and sustainable development.
This show is presented by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, which focuses on research and analysis of global, national and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results over time.
In Canada, where income adjusted house prices vary more than five times between metropolitan areas, the threat of a federal initiative to tax house equity could be looming. That’s the conclusion columnist Lorne Gunter, writing in The Edmonton Sun, The Winnipeg Sun and other Sun Media outlets. The headline read: “Liberals laying groundwork to tax homeowners’ equity: Officials are softening up the ground for such a tax by insisting it is unfair that today’s homeowners have so much value in their homes while so many others cannot afford homes.
According to Gunter the evidence is in a report by the federal government’s Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, parts of which have been obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter (described as an “Ottawa insider newsletter”, which is the equivalent of a “Washington insider newsletter” in the United States). The report, “Wealth and Generational Equity in Canadian Housing,” according to Gunter, will be released at some point after the September 20 national election.
According to Gunter: “The current draft of the report recommends the Liberals “examine tax and other public finance policy opportunities to level the intergenerational playing field.” The Liberals currently form the federal government, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but are in a tight election race with the opposition Conservatives and New Democrats.
House prices, adjusted for incomes, are far higher in the Vancouver and Toronto metropolitan areas than in much of the rest of the nation. According to the Demographia International Housing Affordability (2021), published by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, the median multiple (median house price divided by the median household income) is 13.0 in Vancouver, 9.9 in Toronto. By contrast, Demographia reports that median housing prices were 6.1 years less of median household income in Edmonton (median multiple of 3.8). Today, there remain a number of metropolitan areas with median multiples even lower than Edmonton’s.
Just 15 years ago, Toronto housing prices were only 1.6 years of income more costly, with Toronto’s median multiple being 4.4 and Edmonton’s 2.8. This was just after the Ontario government had implemented its greenbelt policy, which like elsewhere around the world, has been associated with huge increases in house prices relative to incomes. The problem with such policies (referred to as urban containment or compact city policies) is that they ban or severely limit development on the urban periphery, where land is affordable. This creates a scarcity of housing drives up house prices throughout the housing market (metropolitan area), while extinguishing opportunity for young households and others of more limited means (including many immigrants).
Vancouver’s similar policy was adopted decades ago, when there was only modest difference between its housing affordability and that of the rest of the nation (see Figure below).
Canada could face a very contentious debate on housing policy.
On September 1, 2021, Chapman University’s Vice President for Research, Thomas Piechota hosted Ask the Experts Virtual Town Hall: The World After COVID. The event featured Richard Florida, the world’s premier urban expert, who will discuss the global future with leading experts from the US, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Florida, the author of The Creative Class and the New Urban Crisis, will be followed by Joel Kotkin, Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman; Behki Mahlobo, analyst and economic researcher at the Center of Risk Analysis in Johannesburg; Li Sun, expert of Chinese cities and professor at the University of Leeds; and Laure Mandeville-Tostain, senior reporter for Le Figaro in Paris.
As the coronavirus pandemic hit in early 2020, state and local executives issued emergency orders to respond to this unprecedented health situation. This included orders shutting down businesses deemed non-essential, prohibiting social gatherings, putting evictions in abeyance, and even ordering people to stay in their homes.
I think most people understood that governors and mayors were trying to grapple with a highly unusual and uncertain situation and gave them the benefit of the doubt early on.
But as the pandemic went on, these leaders continued to rely almost exclusively on emergency orders to govern. A year and a half into the pandemic, we have in essence entered a system of rule by decree in America.
This was not necessary. Governors strategically decided against calling special sessions of their legislatures to deal with the pandemic. It’s likely the case that the legislators themselves probably did not want to have to take responsibility for pandemic actions, but nevertheless, the ordinary democratic process was largely sidelined.
When normal legislative sessions resumed, states such as Indiana and Ohio passed measures curtailing gubernatorial emergency powers and giving themselves a greater role in decision making. Both of these cases resulted in vetoes that were overridden and the governors are now suing to overturn the legislation.
The media class has been largely supportive of lockdown type measures. Hence there’s been little reporting on how unpopular gubernatorial rule by decree has been. In Indiana, for example, the Libertarian candidate for governor got more than double the level of support of any previous Libertarian candidate for statewide office, hitting double digits.
But the clearest example is Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is a purple state that leans blue, so is hardly a bastion of conservative Republican control. The governor used vetoes to prevent limits from being put on his power. In response, the legislature bypassed him by putting a constitutional amendment to severely restrict the governor’s emergency powers on the ballot. It passed.
In Pennsylvania, the governor is now limited to a single, non-renewable 21-day emergency order period. Beyond that time, he must get legislative approval for emergency actions.
I think this shows the public is not on board with indefinite rule by decree, particularly with the very expansive powers claimed by executives to micromanage the behaviors of the public and businesses. Nor should they be. If the much maligned US Congress can manage to pass several coronavirus relief bills, there’s no reason state legislatures can’t pass laws as well.
Governors should have broad emergency authority to respond to unforeseen situations like the pandemic. But this should be strictly time limited. I personally think 21 days is too short. It would be better to have a limit of 30 days, renewable for an additional 15 day period. 45 days is plenty of time to convene the legislature to take action.
Even Hungary’s Viktor Orban had his pandemic related emergency powers ended earlier this years. There’s no reason for American governors and mayors should be able to use emergency powers to indefinitely rule by decree. It’s not democratic. And it’s also not popular.
Aaron M. Renn is an opinion-leading urban analyst, consultant, speaker and writer on a mission to help America’s cities and people thrive and find real success in the 21st century. He focuses on urban, economic development and infrastructure policy in the greater American Midwest. He also regularly contributes to and is cited by national and global media outlets, and his work has appeared in many publications, including the The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Echoing concerns being raised around many world metros with the most important downtowns (central business districts), Toronto Star real state reporter Tess Kalinowski asks how long Toronto’s downtown will be a ghost town victim of the pandemic. Toronto has the largest and most important central business district in Canada, with nearly 500,000 workers, nearly the size of Chicago’s Loop. In North America, only Manhattan, itself having spent months as a ghost town, is larger than these.
The September 3 article quotes a styling salon owner on the depth of the problem. His salon is operating on a three-day week in the absence of clients from the offices above who are still working from home. He says that “The towers are empty. Businesses like mine, we rely on the towers,” he said during lunchtime amid a late August heat wave. “Clients aren’t going to commute from home.”
An office worker characterized the situation as “The new normal.”
The latest weekly occupancy survey found that only 8% of downtown workers were in the office, though that is an improvement from the low of 3%.
The Go Transit (Metrolinx) suburban rail system, almost completely dependent on travel to and from downtown’s Union Station, is operating at “20 to 30%” of pre-Covid levels. This even trails New York City, where the latest data shows ridership reductions of 55% to 65% on the suburban rail Long Island and Metro North systems.
Of course, downtown Toronto, along with Manhattan, Chicago’s Loop, downtown San Francisco, the Sydney and Melbourne CBDs and the many others, will not be ghost towns forever. The “downtown” experience for the post-college as yet non-parent set continues to be attractive even in some moribund cores, including Toronto (as the article indicates).
Toronto Mayor John Tory noted the challenge in a September 5 Toronto Star interview, “one of the areas that was hardest-hit and most hollowed out by the pandemic was the downtown core.” With respect to downtown workers, the Mayor added: “…25 to 30 per cent won’t necessarily be at the office every single day because they will follow a hybrid model.” With the already likely widespread adoption of the hybrid model, the “old normal” seems unlikely to return to the downtown ghost towns.
On this episode of Feudal Future hosts Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky are joined by Ross Terrill, China specialist and Associate in Research at Harvard's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. The panel takes a deep dive into the history of China and the future of the republic.
This show is presented by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, which focuses on research and analysis of global, national and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results over time.
You’d think housing prices are rising everywhere in America, the way the current boom is discussed. And that’s nearly true, for lots of reasons: the low interest rates on mortgages; the bidding up of asset prices at a time of loose money; the desire for bigger and more distanced properties in the pandemic, and the swallowing up of thousands of tract homes by investment outfits looking to rent them.
But even with those influences, not everywhere is rising by double-digit percentages annually. People can only live—or own—in so many places at once. And so it is that in a good 10 metropolitan areas, according to realty data site CoreLogic, you’ve barely seen any price appreciation in the five years to June 2021. So, nearly no gain for existing homeowners, and no frightening increases for affordability migrants.
The recently released 2020 Census count indicates that the nation now has 56 major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 residents), with the addition of Fresno, Tulsa and Honolulu toward the end of the decade. The Table below provides detailed information.
New York, the largest metropolitan area, climbed to 20.1 million from 18.9 million in 2010. New York had the second largest population increase, at 1,243,000. This was a 6.6% population increase, slightly below the 7.4% national growth rate. For the first time in decades, New York led Los Angeles in population growth, and it wasn’t even close. New York’s population increase was 3.3 times that of second ranked Los Angeles, which gained 372,000. The Los Angeles percentage growth rate (2.9%) was stunningly low for a metro that had been among the faster growing in the world for decades. Out of the 20 largest metropolitan areas, Los Angeles grew slower than all but two. Los Angeles edged up to 13.2 million according to the census count.
Chicago ranked third, at 9.6 million, having added only 157,000 (1.7%) over the last 10 years.
Fourth ranked Dallas-Fort Worth reached 7.6 million, an increase of 1,271,000, the largest increase of any metropolitan area (20.0%). However, in-state rival Houston had greater percentage growth, at 20.3%, adding 1,202,000 to reach 7.1 million and now ranks 5th largest.
Washington continued its strong growth, adding 736,000 new residents, the fifth strongest gain (13.0%). Washington now ranks sixth largest in the nation, at 6.4 million. During the decade, Washington passed Philadelphia, now ranked 7th , having also been passed by Houston and by Dallas-Fort Worth in the 2000s. In the 2020 census and since the 1960 census, Philadelphia had been the nation’s fourth largest metropolitan area. Philadelphia added 278,000 residents, with a population of 6.2 million in 2020.
Boston added 389,000 residents (8.5%) since 2010 and ranked 10th. Boston had a population of 4.9 million. Phoenix ranked 11th and had a 653,000 population increase (15.6%). San Francisco reached 4.8 million, with Riverside-San Bernardino following closely at 4.7 million. Both of these California metros had larger census count increases than Los Angeles.
Fourteenth ranked Detroit grew by nearly 100,000, for a 2.2% increase, which is rivals that of Los Angeles. Detroit’s count was 4.4 million. Detroit was passed by Phoenix and Riverside-San Bernardino over the decade.
Seattle ranked 14th and had a population of 4.0 million. Seattle gained 579,000 residents for a growth rate of 16.8%.
The fastest growing major metropolitan area was Austin, at 33.0% (567,000). Austin reached 2.3 million and ranks 28th largest. One other major metropolitan area had growth over half-a-million, Orlando, at 539,000, a growth rate of 25.3%. Orlando had a count of 2.7 million, ranking 22nd.
Overall, the major metropolitan areas grew above the national rate, at 9.4%. The 2020 total count for the 56 metros was 189.1 million, representing 57.1% of the national population. This is up from 55.9% in 2010. None of the major metros lost population, though there were some very thin gains. The slowest growing was Hartford, at 0.1%, followed by Cleveland (0.5%) and Pittsburgh (0.6%). Finally, areas outside the historical core municipalities had 78.2 % of the population growth, somewhat more than their 73.4% 2010 share of major metro population (see Note below).
Click the image above to download a PDF of the census information (opens in new tab or window)
Infinite Suburbia is the culmination of the MIT Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism's yearlong study of the future of suburban development. Find out more.
Authored by Aaron Renn, The Urban State of Mind: Meditations on the City is the first Urbanophile e-book, featuring provocative essays on the key issues facing our cities, including innovation, talent attraction and brain drain, global soft power, sustainability, economic development, and localism.
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