The retiring of the vast sect of the population collectively known as Baby Boomers has several economic alarms going off. Due largely to this phenomena, by the year 2030, the number of people in the U.S. age 65 and above will double in size.  read more »

Opposition to new development is fraught with so many acronyms that you need a lexicon to decode them. The catch-all term is NIMBYism, sufficiently well known to merit an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, which identifies its first use in a 1980 Christian Science Monitor story. The term arose to describe opposition to large infrastructure projects undertaken by public agencies or utility companies, such as highways, nuclear power plants, waste disposal facilities, and prisons.  read more »

By Joel Kotkin and Mark Schill

They may be losing out politically to oldsters and youngins, as Morley Winograd and Michael Hais suggest, but Boomers will have a profound impact on our country’s demography and economics for decades to come.

In some ways this is as much a matter of numbers as anything. There are lots of Boomers and until the Millennials start entering their 30s in the middle of the next decade, they will retain a massive say in what kind of places and regions will thrive.  read more »

By Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais

The formal ratification of the outcome of the primary elections at the party’s national conventions marks more than just the beginning of a new era in American politics. It signals the demise of Boomer generation attitudes and beliefs as the dominant motif in American life.  read more »

Recently, Chicago-based lobbyist and election attorney Dan Johnson-Weinberger wrote a rather positive blog entry for The Huffington Post. The subject matter was how great a place Chicago is. Here’s a quote:

Proudly multi-racial, ruthlessly pragmatic, open to hustling newcomers and somewhat audacious, Chicago's unique culture is ascendant.  read more »

Last week’s updated Census projections showing whites becoming a minority by 2042 – far more rapidly than previous estimates – is sure to turn up the heat in some quarters of American society. While it no doubt re-ignites predictable dooms-day scenarios among anti-immigration activists who warn about the “death of the West” and the gradual erosion of American values, it may also give some average Americans pause as well.  read more »

For those interested in demographics or economic trends, domestic migration --- people moving from one county to another in the United States --- offers a critical window to the future. Domestic migration, which excludes international migration and the natural increase of births in excess of deaths, tells us much about how people are voting --- with their feet. Domestic migrants are also important because they generally arrive at their new residences with more resources than the average immigrant or newborn.  read more »

Recent news from the Census Bureau that a “minority” majority might be a reality somewhat sooner than expected --- 2042 instead of 2050 --- may lead to many misapprehensions, if not in the media, certainly in the private spaces of Americans.  read more »

James Carville, the gifted political strategist and pundit, once reportedly referred to Pennsylvania as, “Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in between.” And to be sure, many urban sophisticates share this belief.

But this perception comes from a different time when Pennsylvania’s cities boasted huge, overwhelmingly Democratic populations while the suburban and rural areas, albeit sparsely populated, were culturally aligned bastions of red state Republicanism.  read more »

Our teens and twenties are, for many, a prolonged period of waffling. We drift from one identity to the next, fixate on one career path and then promptly toss it aside. When we finally do commit to something—a marriage, a job—it’s typically a sign that we’re shrugging off the wishy-washy ways of youth and embracing adulthood. In the grownup world of the workplace, the “give it your all” mindset serves us quite well—unless, that is, we use it to decide the home vs. office question.  read more »