Back in the 1960s, and for well into the 1980s, California stood at the cutting edge of youth culture, the place where trends started and young people clustered. “The California teen, a white, middle-class version of the American dream” raised in a world of “suburbs, cars, and beaches,” notes historian Kirse Granat May, literally shaped the national image of youth, from the Beach Boys and Barbie to Gidget. read more »
Demographics
America's Future Cities: Where The Youth Population Is Booming
To identify economic hot spots in the making, we often look for where immigrants, young people or entrepreneurs are clustering. But perhaps nothing is a better indicator than those who truly make up generation next — America’s children. read more »
The Evolving Urban Form: The San Francisco Bay Area
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 in the suburbs, rather than in the core cities of San Francisco and Oakland. The CSA (Note) is composed of seven adjacent metropolitan areas (San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, Vallejo, Napa, and Stockton). A similar expansion also occurred in the New York CSA. read more »
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City-Specific Immigration Visas Would Be a Modern Day Indentured Servitude
An idea that’s been kicked around by many is to help turn around struggling cities like Detroit by offering geographically limited immigrations visas. That is, to allow foreigners get their green card if they agree to live in a particular city for a certain number of years.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has now officially endorsed the concept, calling for Detroit to be awarded 50,000 city-specific immigration visas for skilled workers over five years. As the NYT put it: read more »
America's Glass Half-empty, or Half-full?
The stock market is high, real estate prices have resurged, even the unemployment rate is dropping, yet Americans still feel pretty down about the future. A survey released in January by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research had 54 percent of respondents expecting American life to go downhill over the coming decades. In a December survey, 23 percent of respondents said things will improve over time. read more »
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Rich, Poor, and Unequal Zip Codes
Income inequality is an increasingly dominant theme in American culture and politics. Data from the IRS covering mean and median income of filing households for 2012 by zipcode allow us to map and interpret the fascinating geography of income differences. Where are the richest areas, the poorest and the most unequal? read more »
Moving South and West? Metropolitan America in 2042
The United States could have three more megacities (metropolitan areas over 10 million) by 2042, according to population projections released by the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM). Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston are projected to join megacities New York and Los Angeles as their metropolitan area populations rise above 10 million. At the projected growth rates, Atlanta, Miami, Phoenix, and Riverside-San Bernardino could pass the threshold by 2060. read more »
Why State Economic Development Strategies Should Be Metro-Centric
Globalization, technology, productivity improvements, and the resulting restructuring of the world economy have led to fundamental changes that have destroyed the old paradigms of doing business. Whether these changes are on the whole good or bad, or who or what is responsible for bringing them into being, they simply are. Most cities, regions, and US states have extremely limited leverage in this marketplace and thus to a great extent are market takers more than market makers. They have to adapt to new realities, but a lack of willingness to face up to the truth, combined with geo-political conditions, mean this has seldom been done. read more »
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Correcting Priorities: The 10th Annual Demographia Housing Affordability Survey
Alain Bertaud of the Stern School of Business at New York University and former principal planner of the World Bank introduces the 10th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey by urging planners to abandon:
"...abstract objectives and to focus their efforts on two measurable outcomes that have always mattered since the growth of large cities during the 19th century’s industrial revolution: workers’ spatial mobility and housing affordability". read more »
The Divisions In The One Percent And The Class Warfare That Will Shape Election 2014
There’s general agreement that inequality will be the big issue of this election year. But to understand how this will play out you have to go well beyond the simplistic “one percent” against everyone else mantra that has to date defined discussion of inequality. read more »
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