Demographics

Observing and writing 20-some years before the oil embargo (1974) and 30 years before the stern Brundtland report (1987), Jane Jacobs (1961) resolved that density comes in “good” and “bad” varieties.  read more »

When I tell other middle-class professionals who don’t know me well that I’m writing a book about working-class culture, it’s amazing how often they respond approvingly that “white racism” is an important subject.  My reaction, depending on the circumstance, ranges from embarrassment to rage.  read more »

Like so many before them, our recent disorders have been rooted in issues of race. But in the longer run, the underlying causes of our growing civic breakdown go beyond the brutal police killing of George Floyd. Particularly in our core cities, our dysfunction is a result of our increasingly large, and increasingly multi-racial, class of neo-serfs.  read more »

In this miserable COVID-19 spring, it’s tempting for remote workers to vent our frustrations with being hemmed in, forced to stare at screens while unable to do much else other than walk around the block or go to Costco. Yet the pain felt by the teleworking middle class is dwarfed by that of working-class Americans.  read more »

In Planet of the Humans Michael Moore turns his back on working class politics by embracing neo-Malthusian eco-catastrophism.

The worldwide shutdown has been greeted by many prominent environmentalists and policy makers as a unique opportunity to wean our economies off their fossil fuel-addiction and to accelerate the transition to greener alternatives.  read more »

As much of the world begins reopening from lockdown, it will be important for all of us to observe the extraordinary cautions to prevent exposure to the COVID-19 virus, both for ourselves and the people around us. There are already tracking applications that will help identify the source of infections, which is important for both reducing future exposures and the critical research to inform the most effective responses in future pandemics. But more important will be efforts to avoid infection in the first place.  read more »

As a college professor who meets with thousands of students nationwide, I regularly tell students that the bedrock of my own college experience almost 20 years ago was the meeting and mixing with students from around the world. My classes were generally unremarkable, but what made the collegiate bubble so exceptional were the early Saturday morning tailgates, midnight runs for donuts with close friends, or long hikes exploring areas around San Francisco.  read more »

When there is a general change in conditions, it is as if the entire creation had changed, and the whole world altered — Ibn Khaldun, 14^th Century Arab historian  read more »

In the nearly eight years since I first described millennials as “the screwed generation,” things have only worsened for those born between 1982 and 2000—and the coronavirus is now accelerating that slide.  read more »

In what could turn out to be a “dry run” for the post-COVID19 era, net domestic migration has strongly shifted away from the larger metropolitan areas, to smaller areas. This “sea-change” has occurred since 2015, according to the latest Census Bureau estimates. Domestic migration is reported by the Census Bureau when a resident or household moves from one US county to another (No migration below the county level is reported in Census Bureau population estimates).  read more »