Urban Issues

More Evidence That Young Americans Are Not Attracted to Dense Cities

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As COVID-19 restrictions lift and cities attempt to stem the population and commercial losses they have sustained over the past two years, many urbanists are still banking that the historic, well-documented trend of young adults flocking to big cities  read more »

Learning From Las Vegas: Academic Taxonomy

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I just returned from a trip to Las Vegas. I was ready for a little post pandemic adventure and Vegas is just so easy. It was good to get out into the world again and explore the ever evolving Vegas metroplex.  read more »

Hudson County: New York's Sixth Borough

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In some ways, Hudson County, New Jersey shares characteristics of a New York City borough. This is evident in various urban and transportation indicators and their similarities in urban form.  read more »

There’s One Simple Trick for Making America’s Post-Pandemic Cities Great Again

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America’s great cities are coming back, albeit slowly, from the shock of the pandemic, and its divisive aftermath. But don’t expect them to fully recover their former status any time soon.  read more »

Subjects:

Car Access in US Major Metropolitan Areas

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Motor vehicles (cars, SUVs, and personal trucks) are important to national and metropolitan economies, but also the economy of households.  read more »

Subjects:

America's Two Housing Markets

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Imagine that, on top of all our other problems, the United States had a shortage of pickup trucks. While many pickups are purchased for recreational purposes, they also play vital roles in construction, farming, forestry, and other industries.  read more »

Why We Want Our Own Home

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The nation is witnessing a surge in interest and demand for individual homes around the country. Home inventory is now quite low and even with higher interest rates looming, demand remains high and bidding wars are still common.  read more »

America is Quietly Reinventing Itself

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The future shape of post-Covid America is beginning to emerge. As demographic trends and surveys indicate, the pandemic has helped accelerate large, epochal changes in the nation’s geography.  read more »

When "Restoring the Rust Belt" Becomes "Restoring the Urban Middle Class"

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Here’s a followup to the post from earlier this week about my experience at a “Restoring the Urban Middle Class” conference in Houston a couple weeks ago.  read more »

All Major Metropolitan Area Growth Outside Urban Core: Latest Year

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The latest City Sector Model analysis of major metropolitan areas shows that dispersion accelerated in 2020 during the period covered by the American community survey 2020 five- year survey (2016 to 2020). The American Community Survey collects a five year sample that covers virtually all geographies in the United States. The new 2016-2020 sample has an “middle year” of 2018.

The City Sector Model  read more »