Newgeography.com - Economic, demographic, and political commentary about places

The 20-year effort by environmentalists to establish climate science as the primary basis for far-reaching action to decarbonize the global energy economy today lies in ruins. Backlash in reaction to “Climategate” and recent controversies involving the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 2007 assessment report are but the latest evidence that such efforts have evidently failed.

While the urge to blame fossil-fuel-funded skeptics for this recent bad turn of events has proven irresistible for most environmental leaders and pundits, forward-looking greens wishing to ascertain what might be salvaged from the wreckage would be well advised to look closer to home. Climate science, even at its most uncontroversial, could never motivate the remaking of the entire global energy economy.  read more »

One of the most ironic aspects of our putative "Age of Obama" is how little impact it has had on the nation's urban geography. Although the administration remains dominated by boosters from traditional blue state cities--particularly the president's political base of Chicago--the nation's metropolitan growth continues to shift mostly toward a handful of Sunbelt red state metropolitan areas.  read more »

On schedule, the annual ritual occurred last week in which the Census Bureau releases population and migration estimates and the press announces that people are no longer moving to the Sun Belt. The coverage by The Wall Street Journal was typical of the media bias, with a headline “Sun Belt Loses its Shine.” In fact, the story is more complicated – and more revealing about future trends.

Domestic Migration Tracks Housing Affordability: There have been changes in domestic migration (people moving from one part of the country to another) trends in the last few years, but the principal association is with housing affordability.  read more »

In December of 2010 Mayor Daley will become Chicago’s longest serving Mayor. In office since 1989, he will surpass the record held by his father. In the March issue of The New Yorker magazine, journalist Evan Osnos has a long article on Mayor Daley. The front cover of the magazine calls Daley, “America’s most successful mayor”.  read more »

Given the news spin cycle, is it any wonder that the presidency has been reduced to a talk show, or that March Madness has better ratings than the wars in the Middle East? But American presidents might think about adopting a SportsCenter model — snappy replays, contrite Tigers — and drop Rush Limbaugh and James Carville as their founding fathers. The continental divide in American history isn’t that between Democrats and Republicans, or conservatives and liberals, but whether or not the president should be a good sport.  read more »

Urbanization doubtlessly has been the most significant demographic trend in the world for at least a century and promises to become even more significant in the future. The trend began in the United States and Western Europe as people moved by the millions from the countryside to the urban areas, where employment and a better life were possible.  read more »

In Washington on Sunday, the tens of thousands of demonstrators demanding immigration reform looked like the opening round of the last thing the country needs now: another big debate on a divisive issue.

Yet Congress seems ready to take on immigration, which has been dividing Americans since the republic was founded.

But identifying immigrants as a “them,” as both their advocates and nativists do, misses the point. Immigrants — and their children — are the people who will help define the future “us.” They are also critical to the revival of the U.S. economy.  read more »

After the release of the 2009 fourth-quarter GDP estimate, some forecasters are now predicting a rapid recovery in 2010. Certainly, the fourth-quarter growth rate was impressive, particularly following the modest pickup reflected in the third-quarter results and the terrible results of the previous several quarters. Implicitly, these optimistic forecasts are based on the assumption that the United States economy has been fundamentally unchanged by the recession.  read more »

President Obama's last-minute decision to postpone his homecoming to Indonesia and a trip to Australia expands the list of friendly countries--which include France, the U.K. and most of Eastern Europe--that have received a presidential snub. Yet in putting off his Australia trip, Obama will also miss an opportunity to commune with the politician whom he most closely resembles.  read more »

Remember when President Obama declared that insulation was sexy? In the wake of the global economic downturn, a “green jobs” formulation has been launched, not just here, but in every major world capital. While the White House’s financial and rhetorical commitments to the creation of green jobs are significant, no administration has made these policies as central to their government as that of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Australia. The results there should provide a cautionary tale for President Obama, whose trip “Down Under” is currently scheduled for June.  read more »