Demographics

Sex, Singles And The Presidency

Joel Kotkin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:15:22 -0500

By all accounts both President Barack Obama and his likely challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, are ideal family men, devoted to their spouses and their children. But support for the two men could not be more different in terms of the electorate’s marriage and family status.

An analysis comparing the results of the 2008 election and the most recent Gallup surveys with data by demographer Wendell Cox shows a remarkable correlation between the states and regions with the highest proportion of childless women under 45 – the best indicator of offspring-free households — and the propensity to vote Democratic. Overall, the most child-free regions were nearly 85% more likely to vote for Obama in 2008. And according to the most recent Gallup survey, they are similarly inclined to vote Democratic today.

At the top of the list, with 80% of its women under 45 without children, stands the rock-solid blue District of Columbia. Just behind that taxpayer-financed paradise the six states with the highest percentages — Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Vermont and California — also skew Democratic. In each of these states the percentage of childless women exceeds 55%.

The highest percentage of offspring-free women under 45 can be seen as well in such Democratic metropolitan areas as Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and New York In each of these metropolitan areas the percentage of childless woman reached a minimum of 60% well above the national average of 53%. In the urban cores of these regions the percentage can approach Washington’s 80% figure. To a large extent, childlessness correlates with high density and a less affordable housing stock.

The top child-bearing regions are almost all deep-red Republican, both in 2008 as well as today. The top five child-bearing states — Mississippi, Idaho, Wyoming , Oklahoma and Arkansas — all generally tilt toward the GOP. So do the metropolitan areas that have the lowest percentages of childless women: the Texas metros of Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston, Mormon stronghold Salt Lake City and Memphis. The next five include right-leaning Indianapolis, Charlotte, Louisville, Riverside-San Bernardino and Oklahoma City.

These numbers would be more striking if not for the somewhat higher propensity for child-bearing among African-Americans and Latinos, two core Democratic constituencies. As other surveys have shown, Republicans gains in recent years have come largely from married white families. In contrast, Democrats have lost the support of married people overall since 2008, even while gaining among the unmarried. If Republicans can lose their obsession with opposing homosexual families, they might even garner additional support.

A growing part of the Democratic base — aside from ethnic minorities — consists of white, childless couples and, in particular, single women. There’s much good news for Democrats here. According to the pro-Democratic advocacy group Women’s Voices, Women Vote, almost two-thirds of this demographic group voted for John Kerrey in 2004; in 2008 they went for Obama by nearly 70%. In 2010, a generally unfavorable political climate for Democrats, unmarried women helped power Democratic victories, particularly in Colorado and California, in the latter case against female Republican candidates.

Demographically, at least in the short and even medium term, betting of singles and the childless couples seems like a no-brainer. In the past 30 years the percentage of women aged 40 to 44 who have never had children nearly doubled to 19%. At the same time singletons of both sexes are on the rise, numbering over 31 million strong today, up from 27 million in 2000,a growth rate nearly double that of the overall population.

The increasing role of the childless may already be shifting the Democratic Party toward the kind of post-familalistic secularism generally associated with Europe or parts of East Asia. This could partly explain why the Obama Administration has been so willing to challenge the Catholic Church — a traditional home to many working class Democrats — on the issue of offering contraception to its employees. Simply put, in Democratic calculations, secular singletons may now outweigh religious Catholic Democrats.

The importance of singlehood and childlessness is amplified by location. The greatest bastions of non-families are found in the centers of the country’s media, cultural and intellectual life. Single households already constitute a majority in Manhattan and Washington, and they are heading in that direction in Denver, Seattle and San Francisco.

The growing self-confidence of these post-familial constituencies is evident in recent articles and books hailing not only the legitimacy but even the preference of this lifestyle option. Kate Bollick’s much celebrated and well-argued portrayal in the Atlantic of attractive matchless, and childless, 40-something females celebrates the coming of age of this new perspective on family life.

Bollick , citing the degraded condition of today’s males, openly embraces “the end of traditional marriage as an ideal.” One of her heroines, California psychologist Bella DePaulo, dismisses the traditional family unit as a kind of mental malady she labels “matrimania.” Oh well, there goes the primary basis for four thousand years of civilization.

The Atlantic piece serves as a kind manifesto for this key emerging Democratic constituency. But it’s not just single women now swarming into the Democratic Party. NYU Professor Eric Klineberg’s recent ode to singleness in the New York Times follows a similar narrative, but has room for left-leaning male singletons as well. This trend is even more pronounced in demographically disintegrating Europe, a fact that only increases its appeal to the sophisticated denizens of the single zone.

Are there any risks to Democrats — and advantages to Republicans — in this new post-familial tilt? Author and New America fellow Phil Longman argues that in the long run the “greater fertility of conservative segments of society” could allow the palpably brain-dead GOP to inherit the country. Childless singletons may be riding high now, he writes, but as non-breeders their influence ends with their own lifespans.

To win the future, according Democratic activists and millennial chroniclers Morley Winograd and Mike Hais, Democrats must all appeal to the next generation of families. Many of today’s childless millennials are still under 30 and plan to have kids, according to Hais and Winograd’s survey research. Reflecting their own experience with divorce as children, 50% consider being a good parent their highest priority in life. A strong plurality also see themselves ending up in the suburbs.

That means Democrats could pay a big price for disdaining homemakers, the often unaesthetic chores of child-raising and particularly suburbia, because that’s precisely the place where many of today’s urban millennials will likely end up in the next decade.

To address the future millennials, Democrats don’t need to adopt the often Medievalist views of their Republican rivals. But they will have to craft a message that appeals to a demographic that looks, at least somewhat, like the current First Family.

This piece originally appeared in Forbes.com.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and contributing editor to the City Journal in New York. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.

Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson.

Debating Higher Ed: STEMs, Skills, Humanities, and Hiring

Joshua Wright — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:38:48 -0500

Forget about all the perceived problems with the American higher education system, and ponder these two numbers: 12.8 million and 3.4 million.
The first is the estimate of Americans actively looking for work and unemployed. The second is the number of job openings in the U.S. as of the end of December, according to the Labor Department.

There are jobs to be had, and plenty of people to fill them – if only they had the right skills. But this is not yet another article on the nation’s well-documented skills mismatch (at least not directly). Rather, it’s on the educational component of this debate, which was recently brought to the surface in a new Georgetown study on the unemployment rates analyzed by students’ major field of study in college, and by columnist Virginia Postrel’s response to it for Bloomberg.

Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce, analyzing 2009-10 data on graduates from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, showed that the worst job prospects are for students coming out of architecture programs (13.9% unemployment), followed by arts (11.1%), humanities and liberal arts (9.4%), social science (8.9%), and law and public policy (8.1).

Postrel acknowledges some of Georgetown’s findings but goes right at those who think the US needs students to be more career-minded. Looking at national education stats, she argues most Americans are already choosing a college major based on the prospects of landing a job upon graduation. And if the supply of "practical" workers increases, Postrel warns, the quality of the workforce will deteriorate and wages will be lower.

“Contrary to what critics imagine,” she writes, “most Americans in fact go to college for what they believe to be ‘skill-based education.’ A quarter of them study business, by far the most popular field, and 16 percent major in one of the so-called Stem (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. Throw in economics, and you have nearly half of all graduates studying the only subjects such contemptuous pundits recognize as respectable.” Further, Postrel says those who argue for initiatives to push students in STEM fields – or away from liberal arts – disregard “the diversity and dynamism of the economy, in good times as well as bad.”

So what’s better? Would the U.S. be better off if more students took a broad-based liberal arts approach to their education, or should more be concerned with learning a specific trade or set of skills?

Postrel cited the National Center for Education Statistics' report entitled "2008-09 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study" (PDF here), which looked at graduates from the 2007-08 academic year. Two points should be made on this study: 1) the economy and employment prospects related to certain programs have changed drastically since 2007-08, and 2) the report includes only bachelor's degree recipients.

With this in mind, EMSI tapped into the NCES database to get a more recent and thorough picture of the most popular programs areas for recent US grads. We looked at the total number of degrees given out in 2010 (the most recent year available from NCES) at the associate's, bachelor's, master's, and doctorate level among major program categories.

Our analysis includes degrees at the four main postsecondary levels mentioned above, not certificates or postsecondary awards. We did this to better reflect graduates who have made a more-than-one-year investment in education and have therefore given their decision serious thought.
A few noteworthy items (see the full data here):

Humanities majors account for 12% of graduates in the study Postrel used; according NCES' latest data, which uses slightly different program classifications, 9.6% of all degrees came in liberal arts and sciences, general studies and humanities. One reason for the lower percentage could be that we included associate's degrees (as well as bachelor's, master, and doctorate degrees) in our analysis and the NCES study looked only at bachelor's degree holders.
Business, management, marketing and related programs make up the largest percentage of 2003 and 2010 degree recipients, just under 20% in both years. Postrel said a quarter of all degrees came in business (per the NCES study, it's 23%).
Health professions and related programs made the biggest jump among major program categories -- from 9.2% of all degree recipients in 2003 to 12.7% in 2010--and now stands No. 2 overall. The biggest reason for this has been the dramatic increase in registered nursing/LPN and medical assistant degrees (see more on the supply of RNs).
As a proportion of all degrees, computer and information sciences took the biggest hit -- from 4.6% (127,088) in 2003 to 2.7% (94,730) in 2010.

These stats point to a few telling short-term shifts. Yes, a significant number of all degree recipients have moved toward skill-based education. But more striking is the decline in students choosing STEM majors as a share of all graduates. In 2003, 21% of degrees awarded in the U.S. were from STEM-related programs. In 2010, that percentage dipped to 19%.

Postrel would prefer students not be pigeonholed into going the skill-based route, even when it’s STEM-related. Yet it’s hard to ignore the illuminating data from Georgetown’s report: Recent grads in humanities and liberal arts have a 9.4% unemployment rate – lower than architecture, which has taken a beating with the construction downturn, but considerably higher than engineering (7.5%), business (7.4%), and especially health (5.4%).

So, to go back to the question posed earlier, our economy would seem to be better off – or, to put it another way, unemployment would most improve -- if more students earned a skills-based education over a liberal arts degree. At least in the short term, that appears to be the best solution to get people back to work. But outside training for a few fields, there’s no automatic path to a job. Even some new registered nursing grads – with nursing once seen as a lock to find a job – are having a hard time finding employment. And EMSI and others have written about the souring job prospects for lawyers.

The Great Recession affected every industry in one way or another. Nonetheless, it’s worth repeating: There are 3.4 million jobs openings out there – 39% more than in June 2009. But in a sure sign that something is out of whack, hiring is only up 12% over that same time.

Flickr Photo by Jason Morrison: Ann Morrison gets her Masters of Science in Nursing, Pepper Pike, Ohio.

Joshua Wright is an editor at EMSI, an Idaho-based economics firm that provides data and analysis to workforce boards, economic development agencies, higher education institutions, and the private sector. He manages the EMSI blog and is a freelance journalist. Contact him here.

How Lower Income Citizens Commute

Wendell Cox — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:38:16 -0500

One of the most frequently recurring justifications for densification policies (smart growth, growth management, livability, etc.) lies with the assumption that the automobile-based mobility system (Note 1) disadvantages lower income citizens. Much of the solution, according to advocates of densification is to discourage driving and orient both urbanization and the urban transportation system toward transit as well as walking and cycling.

Of course, there is no question but that lower income citizens are disadvantaged with respect to just about everything economic. However, there are few ways in which lower income citizens are more disadvantaged than in their practical access to work and to amenities by means of transit, walking and cycling. Indeed, the impression that lower income citizens rely on transit to a significantly greater degree than everyone else is just that – an impression.

The Data: This is illustrated by a compilation of work trip data from the five-year American Community Survey for 2006 to 2010. In the nation's 51 major metropolitan areas (more than 1,000,000 population), 76.3% of lower income employees use cars to get to work, three times that of all other modes combined (Figure 1).

Admittedly, this is less than the 83.3% of all employees who use cars for the work trip, but a lot more than would be expected, especially among those who believe that transit is the principal means of mobility for low income citizens. Overall, 8 times as many lower income citizens commuted by car as by transit. In this analysis, lower income citizens are defined as employees who earn less than $15,000 per year, which is approximately one-half of the median earnings per employee of $29,701. .

Perhaps most surprising is the fact that only 9.6% of lower income citizens used transit to get to work. This is not very much higher than the 7.9% of all workers in the metropolitan areas who use transit. (Table 1).

Table 1
Work Trip Market Share: 2006-2010
Lower Income Employees and All Employees
Metropolitan Areas Over 1,000,000 Population
		Lower Income Employees
	All Employees	Market Share	Employees Earning Under $15,000 Annually	Market Share
Car, Truck & Van: Alone	56.72	73.4%	9.56	63.1%
Car, Truck & Van: Carpool	7.67	9.9%	2.00	13.2%
Car, Truck & Van: Total	64.38	83.3%	11.56	76.3%
Transit	6.14	7.9%	1.46	9.6%
Walk	2.19	2.8%	0.89	5.9%
Other (Taxi, Motorcyle, Bicycle & Other)	1.34	1.7%	0.39	2.6%
Work At Home	3.24	4.2%	0.85	5.6%
Total	77.29	100.0%	15.16	100.0%

In Millions
Note: Median Earnings: $29,701
Source: American Community Survey: 2006-2010

Transit's small market share has to do with its inherent impracticality as a means of getting to most employment. According to ground-breaking research by the Brookings Institution, low-income citizens could reach only 35 percent of jobs in the major metropolitan areas by transit in 90 minutes. In other words, you cannot get from here to there, at least for most trips. It is no more reasonable for lower income citizens to spend three hours per day commuting than it is for anyone else. A theoretical 90 minute one-way standard is no indicator of usable mobility. It is likely that only about 8 percent of jobs are accessible by lower income citizens in 45 minutes (Note 2) and 4 percent in 30 minutes.

Automobility: Among the major metropolitan areas, lower income citizens use automobiles to get to work most in Birmingham (90.6%). Fourteen other metropolitan areas have lower income automobile market shares of 85% or more, including Charlotte, Detroit, Dallas-Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Louisville, Memphis, Nashville, Oklahoma City, Raleigh, San Antonio, St. Louis and Tampa-St. Petersburg. As in all things having to do with urban transportation, there are two Americas: New York and outside New York. By far the lowest automobile market share for low income citizens is in New York, at 49.3%. The second lowest lower income automobile market share is in San Francisco-Oakland, at 63.1%. Washington and Boston are also below 70% (Table 2).

Table 2
Work Trip Market Share: Car, Truck or Van: 2006-2010
Lower Income Employees and All Employees
Metropolitan Areas Over 1,000,000 Population

		Lower Income Employees
Metropolitan Area	All Employees	Employees Earning Under $10,000	Employees Earning $10,000-$14,999	All Under $15,000 (Combined)
Atlanta, GA	88.3%	82.1%	83.8%	82.8%
Austin, TX	87.2%	77.8%	82.3%	79.5%
Baltimore, MD	85.9%	73.8%	77.7%	75.1%
Birmingham, AL	94.6%	89.3%	92.6%	90.6%
Boston, MA-NH	77.2%	66.4%	73.4%	68.5%
Buffalo, NY	89.7%	79.8%	84.3%	81.3%
Charlotte, NC-SC	90.9%	85.3%	88.5%	86.4%
Chicago, IL-IN-WI	80.0%	73.0%	77.0%	74.4%
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	91.2%	82.7%	87.9%	84.4%
Cleveland, OH	87.3%	78.1%	84.3%	80.3%
Columbus, OH	90.8%	80.3%	87.1%	82.6%
Denver, CO	85.3%	76.9%	82.1%	78.9%
Detroit. MI	93.1%	85.8%	89.9%	87.2%
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	91.5%	85.4%	88.7%	86.7%
Hartford, CT	89.7%	76.8%	83.1%	78.8%
Houston. TX	90.7%	83.6%	86.4%	84.7%
Indianapolis, IN	92.6%	85.1%	90.2%	86.9%
Jacksonville, FL	91.6%	85.4%	88.3%	86.5%
Kansas City, MO-KS	90.6%	85.2%	87.6%	86.2%
Los Angeles, CA	84.7%	70.8%	74.1%	72.2%
Las Vegas, NV	89.7%	80.0%	82.4%	81.0%
Louisville, KY-IN	92.4%	85.6%	87.6%	86.3%
Memphis, TN-MS-AR	93.3%	85.0%	89.6%	86.7%
Miami, FL	88.3%	79.0%	80.9%	79.9%
Milwaukee, WI	89.3%	78.0%	83.5%	79.8%
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	86.8%	76.9%	81.1%	78.2%
Nashville, TN	92.0%	86.8%	89.5%	87.8%
New Orleans, LA	90.0%	80.9%	83.8%	82.0%
New York, NY-NJ-PA	57.6%	50.0%	48.1%	49.3%
Oklahoma City, OK	93.1%	86.8%	90.8%	88.2%
Orlando, FL	89.6%	79.7%	86.1%	81.8%
Pittsburgh, PA	86.2%	77.9%	81.8%	79.2%
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	82.1%	70.6%	76.2%	72.4%
Phoenix, AZ	88.6%	80.5%	83.9%	81.8%
Portland, OR-WA	81.6%	69.3%	75.1%	71.3%
Providence, RI-MA	89.9%	79.9%	87.1%	82.3%
Raleigh, NC	90.8%	84.0%	88.0%	85.4%
Rochester, NY	89.9%	76.7%	87.0%	80.0%
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	90.6%	83.4%	87.1%	84.8%
Richmond, VA	91.3%	83.2%	86.2%	84.2%
Sacramento, CA	90.7%	80.8%	86.3%	82.9%
San Antonio, TX	92.1%	85.7%	88.2%	86.6%
San Diego, CA	85.9%	73.6%	79.9%	76.0%
Seattle, WA	81.3%	72.4%	76.1%	73.7%
San Francisco-Oakland, CA	72.4%	63.3%	63.4%	63.3%
San Jose, CA	87.1%	74.3%	80.2%	76.4%
Salt Lake City, UT	88.1%	79.6%	83.4%	81.0%
St. Louis, MO-IL	91.1%	83.8%	88.6%	85.4%
Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	90.1%	84.1%	87.6%	85.5%
Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	89.8%	81.9%	81.8%	81.9%
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	77.1%	67.8%	71.4%	69.0%

Total: 51 Metropolitan Areas	83.3%	75.1%	78.3%	76.3%
New York	57.6%	50.0%	48.1%	49.3%
Outside New York	86.5%	77.8%	81.8%	79.3%

Average of Metropolitan Areas	87.7%	78.9%	83.0%	80.4%

Median	89.7%	80.0%	84.3%	81.8%
Maximum	94.6%	89.3%	92.6%	90.6%
Minimum	57.6%	50.0%	48.1%	49.3%

Note: Median Earnings: $29,701
Source: American Community Survey: 2006-2010

Transit: It’s not surprising that New York has by far the highest transit market share among lower income commuters. However, New York's lower income transit market share is only marginally higher than its market share among all commuters, at 31.5%, compared to 30.0% for the entire workforce. San Francisco-Oakland had the second highest lower income transit market share at 16.8%. Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington were also above 10%. The lowest transit market share among lower income citizens was 1.1% in Oklahoma City. Six other metropolitan areas had lower income transit market shares under 2.5%, including Birmingham, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Nashville, Raleigh and San Antonio (Table 3).

Table 3
Work Trip Market Share: Transit: 2006-2010
Lower Income Employees and All Employees
Metropolitan Areas Over 1,000,000 Population

		Lower Income Employees
Metropolitan Area	All Employees	Employees Earning Under $10,000	Employees Earning $10,000-$14,999	All Under $15,000 (Combined)
Atlanta, GA	3.4%	5.6%	6.2%	5.8%
Austin, TX	2.6%	5.9%	5.3%	5.6%
Baltimore, MD	6.3%	9.8%	9.3%	9.6%
Birmingham, AL	0.7%	1.8%	1.8%	1.8%
Boston, MA-NH	11.9%	12.3%	13.3%	12.6%
Buffalo, NY	3.7%	6.9%	5.8%	6.6%
Charlotte, NC-SC	2.0%	3.5%	3.1%	3.3%
Chicago, IL-IN-WI	11.4%	11.9%	12.5%	12.1%
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	2.4%	4.3%	3.8%	4.1%
Cleveland, OH	2.7%	5.3%	3.1%	4.5%
Columbus, OH	1.7%	3.5%	3.8%	3.6%
Denver, CO	4.6%	7.2%	7.2%	7.2%
Detroit. MI	1.5%	3.5%	3.1%	3.3%
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	1.6%	2.6%	2.9%	2.7%
Hartford, CT	2.8%	5.4%	5.0%	5.3%
Houston. TX	2.6%	4.1%	4.3%	4.1%
Indianapolis, IN	1.0%	2.6%	1.6%	2.2%
Jacksonville, FL	1.1%	2.5%	2.4%	2.5%
Kansas City, MO-KS	1.7%	3.8%	3.4%	3.6%
Los Angeles, CA	6.1%	11.7%	13.9%	12.6%
Las Vegas, NV	3.6%	7.4%	7.6%	7.5%
Louisville, KY-IN	2.2%	4.7%	3.7%	4.3%
Memphis, TN-MS-AR	1.3%	3.3%	3.1%	3.3%
Miami, FL	3.7%	7.9%	8.3%	8.1%
Milwaukee, WI	3.7%	7.7%	7.4%	7.6%
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	4.6%	6.4%	6.4%	6.4%
Nashville, TN	1.0%	1.8%	2.0%	1.9%
New Orleans, LA	2.5%	5.0%	5.3%	5.1%
New York, NY-NJ-PA	30.5%	30.0%	34.0%	31.5%
Oklahoma City, OK	0.5%	1.3%	0.8%	1.1%
Orlando, FL	3.9%	7.4%	5.9%	6.9%
Pittsburgh, PA	5.8%	6.2%	6.4%	6.3%
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	9.3%	12.2%	11.8%	12.1%
Phoenix, AZ	2.2%	4.2%	4.9%	4.5%
Portland, OR-WA	6.2%	9.3%	8.3%	8.9%
Providence, RI-MA	2.6%	3.3%	3.2%	3.3%
Raleigh, NC	0.9%	1.9%	2.1%	2.0%
Rochester, NY	2.0%	4.8%	3.0%	4.2%
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	1.6%	2.7%	2.3%	2.6%
Richmond, VA	1.9%	3.8%	4.4%	4.0%
Sacramento, CA	2.2%	5.1%	4.6%	4.9%
San Antonio, TX	1.3%	2.3%	2.8%	2.5%
San Diego, CA	3.3%	6.9%	6.1%	6.6%
Seattle, WA	8.2%	9.9%	10.5%	10.1%
San Francisco-Oakland, CA	14.6%	15.8%	18.4%	16.8%
San Jose, CA	3.3%	6.1%	6.0%	6.1%
Salt Lake City, UT	3.2%	5.2%	4.5%	5.0%
St. Louis, MO-IL	2.6%	4.8%	3.4%	4.4%
Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	1.4%	2.9%	2.3%	2.7%
Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	1.7%	3.8%	4.7%	4.1%
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	13.9%	14.3%	15.8%	14.8%

Total: 51 Metropolitan Areas	7.9%	9.4%	10.1%	9.7%
New York	30.5%	30.0%	34.0%	31.5%
Outside New York	5.1%	7.1%	7.4%	7.2%

Average of Metropolitan Areas	4.3%	6.3%	6.3%	6.3%

Median	2.6%	5.1%	4.7%	4.9%
Maximum	30.5%	30.0%	34.0%	31.5%
Minimum	0.5%	1.3%	0.8%	1.1%

Note: Median Earnings: $29,701
Source: American Community Survey: 2006-2010

Automobile and Transit Metrics: The difference in automobile commuting between all employees and lower income employees turns out to be surprisingly small. The least variation is in Birmingham, where the automobile market share among lower income commuters is 4.3% below that of all commuters. Charlotte, Kansas City and Nashville also have lower income market share variations of less than 5%. The greatest variation is in Los Angeles, where the automobile market share among lower income commuters is 14.7% less than for all commuters. The lower income automobile market share is also at least 12.5% below that of all commuters in Baltimore, New York and Portland.

Oklahoma City has the most lower income automobile commuters in relation to transit commuters, with 81.3 times as many lower income commuters using automobiles as opposed to transit. In Birmingham, Nashville and Raleigh, there are more than 40 lower income automobile commuters per transit commuter. In contrast, the number of low-income automobile commuters in New York is 1.6 times that of lower income transit commuters. Again, New York is in a class by itself (Figure 2). Outside New York, there are 11.0 times as many lower income automobile commuters as transit commuters. San Francisco-Oakland (3.8) and Washington (4.7) are the only other metropolitan areas with fewer than five lower income automobile commuters per transit commuter (Table 4).

Table 4
Work Trip Market Share: 2006-2010
Lower Income Employees and All Employees
Metrics: Car, Truck or Van & Transit
Metropolitan Areas Over 1,000,000 Population

	Lower Income Car, Truck or Van Market Share Compared to All			Car Truck or Van Market Share Times Transit
Metropolitan Area	Employees Earning Under $10,000	Employees Earning $10,000-$14,999	All Under $15,000 (Combined)	Car Truck or Van Market Share Times Transit
Atlanta, GA	-7.0%	-5.0%	-6.3%	14.2
Austin, TX	-10.8%	-5.5%	-8.8%	14.1
Baltimore, MD	-14.1%	-9.6%	-12.6%	7.8
Birmingham, AL	-5.6%	-2.1%	-4.3%	50.7
Boston, MA-NH	-14.1%	-5.0%	-11.2%	5.4
Buffalo, NY	-11.1%	-6.0%	-9.4%	12.4
Charlotte, NC-SC	-6.1%	-2.6%	-4.9%	25.9
Chicago, IL-IN-WI	-8.8%	-3.8%	-7.0%	6.1
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	-9.3%	-3.6%	-7.4%	20.4
Cleveland, OH	-10.5%	-3.3%	-8.0%	17.7
Columbus, OH	-11.5%	-4.0%	-9.0%	23.1
Denver, CO	-9.8%	-3.8%	-7.5%	10.9
Detroit. MI	-7.8%	-3.5%	-6.4%	26.2
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	-6.7%	-3.0%	-5.2%	31.7
Hartford, CT	-14.4%	-7.4%	-12.2%	15.0
Houston. TX	-7.9%	-4.8%	-6.6%	20.5
Indianapolis, IN	-8.1%	-2.5%	-6.2%	39.1
Jacksonville, FL	-6.8%	-3.6%	-5.6%	35.1
Kansas City, MO-KS	-5.9%	-3.4%	-4.9%	23.7
Los Angeles, CA	-16.4%	-12.4%	-14.7%	5.7
Las Vegas, NV	-10.8%	-8.1%	-9.8%	10.8
Louisville, KY-IN	-7.4%	-5.3%	-6.6%	19.9
Memphis, TN-MS-AR	-9.0%	-4.0%	-7.1%	26.7
Miami, FL	-10.5%	-8.4%	-9.6%	9.9
Milwaukee, WI	-12.6%	-6.5%	-10.6%	10.5
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	-11.4%	-6.5%	-9.8%	12.2
Nashville, TN	-5.7%	-2.7%	-4.6%	46.1
New Orleans, LA	-10.2%	-6.9%	-8.9%	15.9
New York, NY-NJ-PA	-13.1%	-16.5%	-14.4%	1.6
Oklahoma City, OK	-6.8%	-2.5%	-5.3%	81.3
Orlando, FL	-11.1%	-3.9%	-8.7%	11.8
Pittsburgh, PA	-9.7%	-5.2%	-8.2%	12.7
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	-14.0%	-7.2%	-11.8%	6.0
Phoenix, AZ	-9.1%	-5.3%	-7.6%	18.1
Portland, OR-WA	-15.1%	-7.9%	-12.5%	8.0
Providence, RI-MA	-11.1%	-3.1%	-8.4%	25.3
Raleigh, NC	-7.4%	-3.1%	-5.9%	42.8
Rochester, NY	-14.7%	-3.3%	-11.0%	19.1
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	-8.0%	-3.9%	-6.5%	32.7
Richmond, VA	-8.9%	-5.6%	-7.7%	20.9
Sacramento, CA	-10.9%	-4.8%	-8.6%	17.0
San Antonio, TX	-7.0%	-4.2%	-6.1%	35.1
San Diego, CA	-14.3%	-7.0%	-11.5%	11.5
Seattle, WA	-10.9%	-6.4%	-9.3%	7.3
San Francisco-Oakland, CA	-12.5%	-12.4%	-12.5%	3.8
San Jose, CA	-14.7%	-8.0%	-12.3%	12.6
Salt Lake City, UT	-9.6%	-5.3%	-8.1%	16.3
St. Louis, MO-IL	-8.0%	-2.8%	-6.3%	19.6
Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	-6.6%	-2.7%	-5.1%	31.8
Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	-8.7%	-8.9%	-8.8%	19.8
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	-12.0%	-7.3%	-10.4%	4.7

Total: 51 Metropolitan Areas	-9.8%	-6.0%	-8.4%	7.9
New York	-13.1%	-16.5%	-14.4%	1.6
Outside New York	-10.1%	-5.5%	-8.4%	11.0

Average of Metropolitan Areas	-10.1%	-5.5%	-8.5%	12.7

Median	-9.8%	-5.0%	-8.2%	17.0
Maximum	-5.6%	-2.1%	-4.3%	81.3
Minimum	-16.4%	-16.5%	-14.7%	1.6

Note: Median Earnings: $29,701
Source: American Community Survey: 2006-2010

A Line Driven in a Car: Why is this the case? The "bottom line" has been perhaps best characterized by Marge Waller and Mark Allen Hughes in a research paper for the Progressive Policy Institute of the Democratic Leadership Council.

In most cases, the shortest distance between a poor person and a job is along a line driven in a car. Prosperity in America has always been strongly related to mobility and poor people work hard for access to opportunities. For both the rural and inner-city poor, access means being able to reach the prosperous suburbs of our booming metropolitan economies, and mobility means having the private automobile necessary for the trip. The most important response to the policy challenge of job access for those leaving welfare is the continued and expanded use of cars by low-income workers

Concerns about the automobile based urban transportation system excluding lower income citizens are misplaced. Despite all the hand-wringing, America's lower income population has considerable access to cars and far greater mobility as a result. It is no more than a figment of planner's imaginations that lower income citizens would be best served by constraining car use and trying to force them into transit service that more often than not gives circuitous, slower and often impossible for access to work opportunities.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

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Note 1: As used in this article, automobile includes cars, trucks and vans.

Note 2: This estimate estimates lower income 45 minute access using the ration between 90 minute and 45 minute for all employees (as reported in the Brookings Institution report)

Photograph: Classic early 1950s Buick, Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum, Sinsheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (by author).

New Urbanism vs. Dispersionism

Richard Reep — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:38:14 -0500

The Florida real estate developer, unburdened of state regulatory agencies, may now focus his efforts on pleasing the investment community and the local market. I recently played the role of real estate developer interviewing two consultant teams vying to help me create a new fictional community. Fortified with readings in both the New Urbanist camp and the Dispersionist camp, each team of students pitched their method of community building to me.

The actual debate was very lively, with many rebuttals and some serious emotional engagement. The premise: I have a multi-acre greenfield property. I have shortlisted my planning candidates down to two: a New Urbanist team, and a Dispersionist team. Each team must pitch their philosophy, and I will select one team to design it.

Question 1: Since I am only able to afford Phase 1, future phases will be left to future developers. In your approach, can future generations be trusted to keep focus on high-quality development? How would you guarantee that the property rises in value? I asked the New Urbanists to go first.

The New Urbanist team was ready: As Master Planners, they will create the entire form-based vision for the property and design it around a smart code so that the future developers will obey a plan to keep property values rising. No future developer will get to ‘cheap out’. For this team, the Master Plan will guarantee a quality of life for all residents.

The Dispersionists will plan Phase 1, not as a rigid image of a town, but rather as a response to the natural landscape. This team said the community would grow organically, from its functional needs, guaranteeing the freedom of future generations to plan their own destiny. They scoffed at a Master Plan that determined the urban form. What good is a guarantee of a quality of life, they asked, if future generations want something different than the Master Planner intended?

This round, in my mind, went to the Dispersionists. Their argument that future generations should have the freedom to plan based on their functional needs outweighed the seductive beauty of a Master Plan. Too many Master Plans are implemented poorly, or abandoned due to their disutility based on changing needs and markets.

Question 2: How does your viewpoint deal with the car? How will residents and visitors get around your community? I asked the Dispersionists to go first this time.

“Well,” replied the Dispersionists, “Americans love their cars, and we love the car too. We’ll plan for sidewalks and bikes, but we know that the car is a necessity. We know that a 5-minute walk isn’t so realistic in Florida’s hot, humid climate.” The Dispersionists have a hearty regard for cars, and they spoke of long, sweeping curves and scenic drives. They pointed out that most residents will need to drive to other parts of the city as well.

The New Urbanists shuddered. “We will plan for car-free living,” they stated. With very clever planning, they intended to keep driving to a minimum, and will design walking trails. One New Urbanist ventured 4-story parking garages, crowing that their proposal would not be littered with gas stations. The New Urbanists pointed out the ugly commercial strips dominating our current city, and how little they want that to intrude into the new development.

I liked this, and challenged the Dispersionists. Isn’t it better health, and less use of oil, to reduce vehicle dependency? The Dispersionists asked me why, in this ten-acre community, I thought I could attract residents with 4-story parking garages? Good point, I thought.

Both sides had good answers, and the question did not fully go to one side or the other. Cars do tend to generate a lot of aesthetic horror. On the other hand, they are not going away anytime soon, so learning how to deal with them seems like an important task for a developer looking to the future.

Question 3: How would you distribute density in your development? One center, multiple centers, and centered around what? This time the New Urbanists went first.

The core, they stated, will be in the center of town, and could go to 8-10 stories, leaving the perimeter a green zone. In the center will be the government and institutional buildings, carefully matched with proper style. The point, they said, is predictability. They pledged to learn from the failures of the past, and their Master Plan will account for the full scope of development.

The Dispersionists suggested multiple centers. “Phase 1 will be our first density cluster,” they said, “and we’ll see how it goes.” Unlike the New Urbanists, they didn’t want to introduce all their product at once, in case the market changes. “We believe in New England-style green space,” they said, and wanted to evolve the community around these. They saw the vitality of the community coming from diversity.

I asked the New Urbanists what they would do if the market changes . When pressed, they insisted their Master Plan had plenty of contingency plans in case the original plan wasn’t workable, but it sounded like they were winging it.

This is what the Dispersionists saw as their own strong suit. “We don’t have all the answers,” they said. Their first phase would gently nudge the community in a certain direction, but it would leave future developers the choice whether to reinforce the first phase, or strike out and build another phase better suited to a unique need.

I felt that this round went to the Dispersionists.

Question 4: Do you think your development scheme can promote or discourage social values? Why or why not? This time the Dispersionists went first.

The Dispersionists believed that one cannot engineer social values through urban design. However, they can be influenced. Conservation, for example, is a value that they would promote in their plan to conserve open space and not overtake the land with development. A sense of community, they said, was another, giving people a loyalty to their community out of good design. These, they felt, led to a sustainable plan.

The New Urbanists guaranteed that conservation land would always be there, and pointed out the Dispersionists’ flexibility as a negative . The New Urbanists insisted that their sense of place would be stronger, because it would be designed. People want predictability. New Urbanists would engage people by walking and having front porches.

The Dispersionists speculated that neighbors will get to know one another in a cul-de-sac just as well as they would if they all had front porches. They also felt that the shared experiences of a community would transcend the particular style or form that community took.

Although I gave this one to the New Urbanists, I was skeptical about the New Urbanists’ implication that well-behaved buildings produce well-behaved people. The Dispersionists’ view that a cul-de-sac breeds any neighborly closeness also seemed a bit disingenuous. It was near the end of class.

Question 5: Give me your arguments why your strategy is sustainable. I let the New Urbanists go first.

For one thing, they said, they will have more efficient transportation. Vertical buildings save land, they argued, and people who choose this community will value open space more highly and be willing to live densely. They believed that they will have less gridlock by de-emphasizing the car and will be more stable and socially cohesive. All this will come from a well-designed Master Plan.

The Dispersionists said their community would start small and then grow. Failures won’t cause dead zones, they claimed, because they are not sentimental about form and want a community that works. So if a building in their development begets a failed business, the building will need to be reinvented to make it successful.

“Yes, but,” countered the New Urbanists, “for every successful community like yours, there are 10 that have failed and ultimately decline in value. What guarantee do you give that you will be the one out of ten?” They went on to cite their successes – Seaside, Celebration, and so on.

The Dispersionists noted that Seaside was a resort town and Celebration was heavily subsidized by a local employer, so those weren’t exactly good models. In any case, they said, their community will appeal to a much broader segment of the population than the New Urbanists, and therefore more likely to sustain growth in the future.

With that, the debate was concluded. What lingers, however, are some truths that show both sides need to do some more work.

The New Urbanists, fresh on the scene, seem overly evangelical in their approach, and demand a great deal of faith in the Master (Planner). The slow, organically grown towns of which they are so fond were largely planned before the car. While many of these towns, like Charleston, South Carolina, are sentimental favorites, their practical replication in today’s transportation-intensive, constantly changing real estate market is questionable.

The Dispersionists, on the other hand, have been around for quite a long time, and are the modus operandi for much of the earth’s population. They seem uninvolved in the aesthetics of the built environment, preferring to leave this up to individual taste, and the result is a rather shabby, cluttered contemporary American scene. Some cleaning up is certainly in order.

While the New Urbanists have a hopeful approach in this regard, they are overreacting to the vast consumer-oriented real estate development world that operated up until 2007, and are missing the fundamentals of how a real community works. None are built around employers or economic producers in any significant way. None admit the lowest socioeconomic groups. Content, perhaps, to dabble with shopping districts and farmer’s markets, New Urbanists have yet to offer what contemporary employers need – space, flexibility, and room to grow. They therefore seem doomed to create peripheral urban designs rather than communities integrated with 21st century employers.

Dispersionists would do well to pay a bit more attention to the natural environment, for the general public is quite aware of the toll that this strategy has taken. Developers, having overbuilt in so many markets recently, will face tough opposition to bulldozing another woodland, given the empty real estate that exists in our cities today.

It seems inevitable that dispersionist strategies will continue; they largely dominate our real estate development world and will continue to do so. They make the most economic sense, they leave the future choices to the future generations, and they respond to people’s natural density tendencies. One hopes that the New Urbanists will nudge the market a bit more towards aesthetic continuity and environmental stewardship as the next wave of growth inevitably begins again, and that the debate remains healthy, productive, and positive as citizens get re-engaged about the future of their cities.

Richard Reep is an Architect and artist living in Winter Park, Florida. His practice has centered around hospitality-driven mixed use, and has contributed in various capacities to urban mixed-use projects, both nationally and internationally, for the last 25 years.

Photo courtesy of BigStockPhoto.com.

Families: The New Demographic Mash-Up

Edward Morgan — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:32:38 -0500

Look back a few weeks to the surprise success in Iowa for Republican presidential primary contender Rick Santorum. Today, there is increased scrutiny of the conservative values the hard-line social conservative so enthusiastically endorsed. Political discourse on both sides of the Atlantic has become more vocal about whether or not there is a need for a restoration of the ‘nuclear family’ as a platform for a successful society. And the questioning of the nuclear family is not just a debate about whether hardline conservatism is good for society. It has expanded to include another question: is it even possible for a society with relatively static demographics to be based around households of a mother, a father and children? Do long-term demographic forces allow for a nuclear family, or will the future hold a new set of family geographies?

The Pre-Transitional Family

Rewind demographic models back a few stages to the pre-transitional era, and it’s apparent that the lifespan, the important decisions, and the experience of the family resembles little of what we see or even imagine today. The overwhelming demographic force of the era was mortality. Death was never far away. It was the social norm for children to be lost in childbirth or infancy. Disease was prevalent, and life expectancy was short. The speed of the human life cycle ensured that it was rare for inter-generational relationships to exist. Child /grandparent relationships were rare, and even child/parent relationships were short, whereas horizontal relationships (between cousins, for example) were far more common. It has been argued that these high mortality rates caused emotional detachment from the immediate social networks, allowing phenomena such as the social acceptance of infanticide to prevail, sowing the seeds for the emerging gender crises in Asia.

The Transitional Family

The 20th century marked rapid changes in family structure. In demographic terms, each generation was less like the last. The subsequent fertility decline resulting from the gradual liberation of woman in society meant that there were a decreasing number of children in the household. In the United States, average household size fell from 5.6 in 1850 to 2.6 in 2000. Neil Howe’s interview with Social Intelligence outlined the consequences of this in countries with below replacement fertility:

“…in two generations you end up with a society in which the typical young adult not only has no siblings, but also has no cousins, no aunts, no uncles. Most young people will have two living parents, and four grandparents, but no other blood relations. In China, they call it the 4-2-1 problem, where one child is meant to support all of them.”

Of course, 4-2-1 is only a problem because of the unevenness of too many elderly and too few young. For many 21st century children with little extended family, the absence of siblings is a blessing in many ways. Greater emotional attachment from parents has given children access to a greater share of their parent’s resources, allowing them to enjoy healthier food and education compared with a family where parental resources were divided among several siblings. The net result of a society with a larger proportion of both adults and of children that have received relatively high levels of social capital investment is staggering in economic terms. South Korea is a testament to that, with fertility falling from 6.1 in 1960 to 1.2 in 2005. In those 45 years the South Koreans have managed to benefit from a greater per capita educational investment by building one of the most successful economies in the world.

The Post-Transitional Family

What defines a 21st century family? The Italian demographer Massimo Livi-Bacci describes the child as “the centre of family life”, referring to low fertility levels prevailing in the developed world, as well as the child being a bank of investment. However, in these austere times, a well-groomed child is becoming a less preferred option. Many couples have decided that no child is better than a poorly groomed child, and thus rates of childlessness have steadily been rising in the developed nations.

Where does this society with fewer children leave marriage? The institution of marriage has been undergoing erosion from many angles. Urbanisation has widened social networks to a point where the family makes up only a small fraction of that network. Relationships of every kind are becoming shorter lived, with increased mobility and opportunities to contact more people. The rise in life expectancy has meant that married years extend for far longer, leading many people to become bored of the relationship or to simply end up regretting choosing the wrong partner.

This has substantially boosted divorce rates. Indeed, the lure of a highflying career has either postponed or cancelled the ever-brittle marriage relationship, and informal relationships are becoming the preferred option. Men are recognising that the roles of father and household head are diminishing, with ever smaller and more informal households that network with friends, not family. Even in the Islamic theocracies there is evidence that pre-marital sex and informal unions are on the rise, giving increased weight to the question: Does marriage decline with development?

The Politics of the New Family

In Eastern Europe, declining marriage rates have been blamed on the collapse of Communism. The American Christian Right to this day blames marriage decline on ‘a lack of faith in God’. Needless to say, if the Christian Right were not opposed to homosexual marriage, the rate of marriage would increase significantly. In fairness however, increasingly secular attitudes are a strong argument for understanding marriage decline.

Social attitude polls indicate a greater acceptance of gay marriage, abortion and equal rights towards women throughout the world, not to mention the explosion of secular attitudes among younger people. The gradual conservative to liberal attitude shift (that seems to be inline with demographic, social and economic forces) and its effect on marriage and demographics poses intriguing questions that have yet to be answered.

My personal conviction is that it is the powerful underlying demographic forces that are breaking apart the cherished union, rather than any conscious tidal shift towards liberal attitudes. These are forces that cannot be pushed back in a free country. The more we urbanise and network, and the longer we live, the more marriage and the traditional notions of the nuclear family will erode. What will be left is a greater mix of smaller ‘traditional’ families, informal one child or childless unions where friends are more important than a formal family, and increasingly common polyamorous relationships. This leaves the family-centred ideal in disarray. It is something that will become less feasible with time, despite Rick Santorum’s best efforts to retain it.

Photo from Bigstock

Edward Morgan is a 3rd Year Human Geography student at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

The Evolving Urban Form: Guangzhou-Foshan

Wendell Cox — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:38:16 -0500

The Pearl River Delta of China is home to the largest extent of continuous urbanization in the world. The Pearl River Delta has 55 million people in the jurisdictions of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Zhuhai and Macau. Moreover, the urban population is confined to barely 10 percent of the land area. These urban areas are the largest export engine of China and reflect the successful legacy of Deng Xiaoping's reforms which had their start with the special economic zone in Shenzhen and spread to the rest of the Delta and then much of the nation.

Adjacent Metropolitan Areas: However, the Pearl River Delta today is not a metropolitan area, as is often asserted. Instead it is rather a collection of adjacent metropolitan areas or labor markets (Figure 1). Metropolitan areas are not created by a large number of people living close to one another. Metropolitan areas are labor markets, crudely delineating the geography of the jobs-housing balance. There is little commuting between the Pearl River jurisdictions. Moreover, as labor markets, metropolitan areas cannot be international unless there is virtual free movement of labor (Note). In the case of Hong Kong and Macau, commuting between the neighboring jurisdictions of Shenzhen and Zhuhai requires crossing the equivalent of an international border.

Integrating Guangzhou and Foshan: Transportation integration has already come to two of the jurisdictions, Guangzhou and Foshan. The adjacent prefectures (confusingly interpreted into English as "cities") are now linked by a subway and unlike the other Pearl River Delta jurisdictions, the continuous urbanization does not narrow at the border (Figure 1). There are even proposals to merge the adjacent prefectures.

Guangzhou and Foshan are separated by a tributary of the Pearl River, with a number of bridges that provide similar crossing capacity as exists in cross-river metropolitan areas like Portland (Willamette River), Cincinnati (Ohio River) and St. Louis (Mississippi River).

Guangzhou itself is the capital of Guangdong, the largest province of China, with approximately 105 million people. Guangdong is the third largest state or province (sub-national jurisdiction) in the world, trailing the states of Uttar Pradesh (contains the eastern suburbs of Delhi) and Maharashtra (capital Mumbai) in India.

Guangzhou is larger than Foshan. It is better known to many Westerners as Canton, and for many years served as China’s “window” on the west. Even in China, the alternative name is still used, for example in the annual Canton Fair, one of the largest trade fairs in the world.

Canton was also a principal flashpoint of 19th century hostilities between the British and Chinese. The First Opium War (1839-42) began at Canton and led to the cession of Hong Kong to Great Britain and the establishment of British treaty ports at Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo, Shanghai and Canton (Guangzhou). After the Second Opium War (1856-60), other treat ports were established and France, the United States, Russia, Germany, Japan and others gained similar rights to the British from a weakened Chinese government.

In 2010, the metropolitan area county and district level jurisdictions of Guangzhou-Foshan had 18.3 million people. This is an increase of 4.4 million from 2000 and 11.6 million from 1982. This is surely a rapid rate of growth, but Shanghai and Beijing grew even faster over the last decade, each adding more than 6 million people.

Distribution of Population Growth: In contrast to Shanghai and Beijing, where virtually all of the growth has been outside the core, the Guangzhou-Foshan core is growing robustly. From 2000 to 2010, the core districts increased from a population of 4,040,000 to 5,050,000. With a land area of 107 square miles (279 square kilometers), the core is similar in size to the city (municipality) of Sacramento, which has less than one-tenth the population. The core density is 46,800 per square mile (18,100 per square kilometer), up from 37,500 per square mile (14,500 per square kilometer) in 2000. This is about one-third less dense than Manhattan or the ville de Paris (the central city).

However, as is typical for metropolitan areas around the world, Guangzhou-Foshan's growth has been most concentrated in suburban areas. The core accounted for 23% of the population growth over the past decade, while the suburbs accounted for 77%.

The inner suburbs grew from a population of 6,670,000 to 8,400,000. The density rose from 5,000 to 6,300 per square mile (1,900 to 2,500 per square kilometer), similar to that of the San Francisco urban area. The inner suburbs accounted for 39% of the growth and grew 26%.

The outer suburbs grew from a population of 3,150,000 to 8,200,000 over the past decade. The population density rose from 2,000 to 3,100 per square mile (800 to 1,200 per square kilometer), slightly more dense than the Philadelphia urban area and slightly less dense than the Portland urban area. The outer suburbs accounted for 38% of the growth and grew at the greatest rate, 53% (Figures 2 & 3, Table).

Guangzhou-Foshan Metropolitan Area & Urban Area
2000 & 2010 Census

Metropolitan Area	Core	Inner Suburbs	Outer Suburbs	Total
2000	4,040,000	6,670,000	3,150,000	13,860,000
2010	5,050,000	8,400,000	4,820,000	18,270,000
Change	1,010,000	1,730,000	1,670,000	4,410,000
%	25%	26%	53%	32%
Share of Growth	23%	39%	38%	100%
Area (KM2)	279	3,429	4,003	7,711
Area (Square Miles)	108	1,324	1,546	2,977
Density (KM2)	18,100	2,400	1,200	2,400
Density (Square Miles)	46,800	6,300	3,100	6,100

Urban Area	Core		Suburbs	Total
2010	5,050,000		11,225,000	16,275,000
Area (KM2)	279		2,894	3,173
Area (Square Miles)	108		1,117	1,225
Density (KM2)	18,100		3,900	5,100
Density (Square Miles)	46,800		10,000	13,300

Notes
Boundary changes render district area data incomplete.
Core: Yuexiu, Liwan, Haizhu, Tianhe
Inner Suburbs: Baiyun, Huangpu, Panyu, Nansha, Nanhai, Changcheng
Outer Suburbs: Huadu, Luogang, Gaoming, Shunde, Shanshi
Nansha is in the inner suburbs because 2000 data is combined with Panyu (should be in the outer suburbs)

Earlier data shows this suburban pattern has been a long term trend. Between 1982 and 2010, the suburbs accounted for 57% of the growth outside the city of Guangzhou as then defined (Figure 4). District boundary changes limit a more precise analysis based upon a core that did not include large areas without development.

The Guangzhou-Foshan Urban Area: The soon to be released 8th Annual Demographia World Urban Areas will show the Guangzhou urban area (area of continuous development within the metropolitan area) to have a population of approximately 16.275 million, with a land area of approximately 1,225 square miles (3,173 square kilometers). Barring later data from the multiple national censuses that will soon be reporting data, Guangzhou-Foshan is likely to be ranked the 14th largest urban area in the world. The population density is approximately 13,300 per square mile (5,100 per square kilometer), roughly comparable to the London or Barcelona urban areas. The suburbs of the urban area have a density of approximately 10,000 per square mile (3,900 per square kilometer). Most of the new residential development is multi-unit, such as high rise condominium buildings and work related housing, including dormitories. However, there is some detached housing, which is very expensive.

A Larger Metropolitan Area: In the longer run a much larger metropolitan (and urban) area could result, if Chinese residents begin traveling to work over much longer distances between these jurisdictions and should the border restrictions at Hong Kong and Macau be eliminated. To achieve this end, there will need to be important local transportation improvements between the jurisdictions, such as more urban railways (which are planned) and wider automobile ownership, to use the already comprehensive (toll) freeway system.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

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Note: International metropolitan areas can now exist in the European Union, where there is free movement of labor across national borders. For example, the Lille metropolitan area is located in both France and Belgium. France and Switzerland (not a member of the European Union) provide another example, where treaty provisions permit international movement of labor with little difficulty in the resulting international metropolitan areas of Geneva (Switzerland-France) and Basel (Switzerland-France).

Photo (top): Pagoda: Temple of the Six Banyan Trees, Guangzhou (all photos by author)

Preserving the "Ideal of a Property Owning Democracy:" Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey

Wendell Cox — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:25:13 -0500

Demographia and Performanceurbanplanning.org have just released the 8th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, with an introduction by Professor Robert Bruegmann of the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of Sprawl: A Compact History. The Survey is unique in providing cross-national housing affordability comparisons using the median house price data from leading indexes in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey employs the “Median Multiple” (median house price divided by gross annual median household income, before taxes) to rate housing affordability (Table 1). The Median Multiple is widely used for evaluating urban markets, and has been recommended by the World Bank and the United Nations and is used by the Harvard University Joint Center on Housing.

Table 1 Demographia Housing Affordability Rating Categories
Rating	Median Multiple
Affordable	3.0 & Under
Moderately Unaffordable	3.1 to 4.0
Seriously Unaffordable	4.1 to 5.0
Severely Unaffordable	5.1 & Over

Historically, the Median Multiple has been remarkably similar in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, with median house prices having generally been from 2.0 to 3.0 times median household incomes (historical data has not been identified for Hong Kong). This affordability relationship continues in many housing markets of the United States and Canada. However, the Median Multiple has escalated sharply in the past decade in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom and in some markets of Canada and the United States. There has also been a substantial loss in affordability in recent years in Hong Kong.

Housing Affordability in 2011

Housing affordability was little changed in 2011, with the most affordable markets being in the United States, Canada and Ireland. The United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong continue to experience pervasive unaffordability (Figure 1).

The Survey covers325 metropolitan markets, including the 81 major markets with more than 1,000,000 population (Table and Chart Attached). There were 24 affordable major markets, 20 moderately unaffordable major markets, 13 seriously unaffordable major markets and 24 severely unaffordable major markets (Table 2). The severely unaffordable major markets were principally in the United Kingdom (8), the United States (6), and Australia (5). Hong Kong was severely unaffordable and there were three severely unaffordable major markets in Canada and one in New Zealand (Table 2). Australia had the highest major market Median Multiple outside Hong Kong (Figure 2).

Table 2 Housing Affordability Ratings by Nation: Major Markets (Over 1,000,000 Population)
Nation	Affordable (3.0 & Under)	Moderately Unaffordable (3.1-4.0)	Seriously Unaffordable (4.1-5.0)	Severely Unaffordable (5.1 & Over)	Total	National Median
Australia	0	0	0	5	5	6.7
Canada	0	3	0	3	6	4.5
China (Hong Kong)	0	0	0	1	1	12.6
Ireland	0	1	0	0	1	3.4
New Zealand	0	0	0	1	1	6.4
United Kingdom	0	0	8	8	16	5.0
United States	24	16	5	6	51	3.1
TOTAL	24	20	13	24	81

The most affordable major market was Detroit, with a Median Multiple of 1.4. This Median Multiple is artificially low, arising from the collapse of housing demand in the most severely depressed major market in the United States. There were another 22 affordable major markets, the most affordable of which were Atlanta, Phoenix, Rochester, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Las Vegas. The strong growth markets of Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Orlando, Jacksonville, Nashville, Oklahoma City, Sacramento and Indianapolis also achieved affordable ratings.

All major markets in Australia and New Zealand, as well as Hong Kong were severely unaffordable.
Hong Kong was the least affordable major market (ranked 81st), with a median multiple of 12.6. Vancouver was second most unaffordable, at 10.6 (ranked 80th). Sydney was the third most unaffordable, at 9.2 (ranked 79th). Melbourne and Plymouth & Devon all had Median Multiples above 7.0.

Among all 325 markets surveyed, there were 128 affordable markets, 117 in the United States, 9 in Canada and 2 in Ireland. There were 71 severely unaffordable markets, principally concentrated in Australia and the United Kingdom (Table 3). Honolulu and Bournemouth & Dorsett (8.7) were the least affordable outside the major markets.

Table 3 Housing Affordability Ratings by Nation: All Markets
Nation	Affordable (3.0 & Under)	Moderately Unaffordable (3.1-4.0)	Seriously Unaffordable (4.1-5.0)	Severely Unaffordable (5.1 & Over)	Total	National Median
Australia	0	0	7	25	32	5.6
Canada	9	19	1	6	35	3.5
China (Hong Kong)	0	0	0	1	1	12.6
Ireland	2	3	0	0	5	3.3
New Zealand	0	0	3	5	8	5.2
United Kingdom	0	1	12	20	33	5.1
United States	117	64	16	14	211	3.0
TOTAL	128	87	39	71	325

Preserving the "Ideal of a Property Owning Democracy"

One of the principal accomplishments of high-income world societies has been the expansion of property ownership and home ownership to the majority of the population. At the same time, there are dark economic clouds on the horizon. Governments in high income nations are faced with some of the most challenging times in their history. In this environment, the property owning middle class is likely to face significant challenges in the longer run. Since housing is largest element in household budgets, unaffordable housing is a serious threat to the standard of living.

At the same time, the economic evidence shows that more restrictive land use regulations, such as urban growth boundaries, have been an important factor in the deterioration of housing affordability. On this point, economist Anthony Downs of The Brookings Institution stressed the importance of maintaining the "principle of competitive land supply." The escalation of house prices relative to incomes, from Sydney and Vancouver to London and across California testify to the failure of planning to maintain that principle. The record shows that smart growth (urban consolidation and compact cities policies) is incompatible with housing affordability.

But there are signs of hope. Florida repealed its growth management law ("smart growth") in 2011. Further, a recent New Zealand government report outlined the importance of a competitive land supply in restoring housing affordability to that nation.

Four decades ago, urbanologist Peter Hall expressed concern about the threat of such policies to the "ideal of a property owning democracy." The Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey is dedicated to younger generations who have right to expect they will live as well or better than their parents. In large measure due to land use planning that has made housing unaffordable, they may not.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

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Note: The 8th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey is sponsored in Canada by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Photo: Suburban Montréal (by author)

This Is America's Moment, If Washington Doesn't Blow It

Joel Kotkin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:13:18 -0500

The vast majority of Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, and, according to a 2011 Pew Survey, close to a majority feel that China has already surpassed the U.S. as an economic power.

These views echo those of the punditry, right and left, who see the U.S. on the road to inevitable decline. Yet the reality is quite different. A confluence of largely unnoticed economic, demographic and political trends has put the U.S. in a far more favorable position than its rivals. Rather than the end of preeminence, America may well be entering a renaissance.

Just survey the globe. The European Union’s prolonged crisis will likely end in further decline. Aging Japan has long passed its prime, its market share receding in everything from autos to high tech. China’s impressive economic juggernaut has slowed down, and the Middle Kingdom faces increased social instability, environmental degradation and a creaky one-party dictatorship.

While the U.S. has its challenges, it is positioned to achieve a more solid long-term trajectory than its European and Asian rivals. What it lacks, however, is a strong political leadership capable of seizing this opportunity.

Resources

Energy constitutes the biggest ace in the hole for the U.S. For almost half a century, an enormous fossil fuel bill that still accounts for 40% of the nation’s trade deficit has hampered economic growth. Now that situation is changing rapidly.

Due to vast new finds and improved technology to exploit them, the U.S. is now the world’s largest producer of natural gas and could emerge as the leading oil producer by 2017. Reserves of natural gas — a clean-burning fuel — are estimated at 100 years supply and could generate more than 1.5 million new jobs over the next two decades.

The U.S. agricultural sector is also booming, with exports reaching a record $135.5 billion in 2011. With global demand increasing, sustained growth will continue across America’s fertile agricultural regions.

Manufacturing

The other big game changer is manufacturing. As President Barack Obama recently acknowledged, this is America’s “moment” to seize the industrial initiative. U.S. manufacturers have expanded their payrolls for two straight years, and they have increased production while Japan, Germany, China and Brazil have scaled back.

A recent survey of manufacturing CEOs revealed that 85% believed production could shift soon from overseas. Both foreign and domestic manufacturers are alarmed about rising wages and labor unrest in China. Some important Japanese, German and Korean companies also have concerns about China’s policies that favor local firms and abscond with investor’s technology.

Foreign Investment

Rising foreign investment reflects the new American competitiveness. Since 2008 foreign direct investment to Germany, France, Japan and Korea has stagnated; in 2009 overall investment in the E.U. dropped 36%.

In contrast, in 2010 foreign investment in the U.S. rose 49%, mostly coming from Canada, Europe, and Japan. Industrial investment rose $30 billion just between 2009 and 2010, while investment in the energy sector more than tripled to $20 billion.

The Information Sector

In the information sector, American domination continues to mount, contrary to predictions of decline over the past two decades. Although high-tech manufacturing has shifted largely to Asia, Americans rule the increasingly strategic software sector. American-based companies, who constitute more than two-thirds of the world’s 500 largest software companies, including nine of the top ten.

Outside the U.S., there are no significant equivalents of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. Hollywood, for its part, rules the entertainment world, producing 40% of world’s audiovisual exports, a dominion that troubles China’s President Hu Jintao, who recently complained that the “cultural fields” represent “the focal area” for Western “infiltration”.

Demographics

The Great Recessionhas slowed population growth everywhere, but the U.S. maintains the youngest and most vibrant demographic profile of any advanced country. Between 1980 and 2010, the U.S population expanded by 75 million to over 300 million. In contrast many European countries, including Germany, have suffered stagnant growth, while in Russia and Japan populations have already started declining.

The disastrous fiscal implications of slow or negative population growth are evident in Greece, Spain and Italy, all of which suffer among the world’s lowest fertility rates. Rapid aging also will soon catch up with Germany. By 2030, Germany will have 48 retirees for every 100 workers — that’s barely two workers per retiree. The numbers are even worse in Japan: 53 retirees for every 100 workers by 2030.

Political Factors

Given the ineptitude of the last two administrations, enthusiasm about America’s political system is hard to justify. But our constitutional systems of laws and checks on central power remain a critical advantage. Immigration has declined with the recession, but the U.S. can expect to welcome religious and political exiles — such as Middle Eastern Christians displaced by the “Arab Spring” — as well as Greeks and Irish fleeing Europe’s economic decline.

Many from Russia and China are seeking to immigrate to the United States, Canada or Australia in order to protect property or just live a freer life. Indeed, among the 20,000 Chinese with incomes over 100 million Yuan ($15 million), 27% have already emigrated and another 47% have said they were considering it, according to a report by China Merchants Bank and U.S. consultants Bain & Co. published in April.

Needed from Washington: A New American Strategy

Sadly no leading politician or political party seems ready to embrace the country’s new strategic advantages. Many on the left may find the very notion distasteful, having swallowed declinism with their academic mother’s milk. The president himself dislikes the notion of American “exceptionalism.” Many key Obama backers like SEIU boss Andy Stern and former auto czar Steven Rattner, embrace the superiority of China’s authoritarian system. Others embrace Europe and even Japan as models for an aging superpower.

Worse still: Some Obama policies work against the well springs of national resurgence. Threats to raise income taxes on families making over $250,000 directly threatens the aspiring entrepreneurial class more than the real “rich” whose fortunes are protected by low capital gains taxes and family trusts. Most critical: The administration’s hostility to fossil fuel represents a direct threat to the country’s greatest new source of advantage and threatens to strangle America’s recovery in its infancy.

Not that the Republicans are any less clueless. Many reject the infrastructure needed by an expanding economy — ports, roads, bridges as well as worker training and support for basic research — as mere “pork.” Budget restraint and fiscal discipline are important, but preparing the country for more rapid economic growth requires an active, supportive government.

Republicans also tend to view immigration as something akin to a hostile invasion. Yet many key industries — notably manufacturing and high tech — rely heavily on immigrant entrepreneurship, intelligence and work values. Running against immigration constitutes an assault on the nation’s increasingly diverse demographics.

So this is where we now sit. With all the essential elements for a strong, sustained recovery place, the big question is whether we will find political leaders capable of tapping this country’s phenomenal potential.

This piece originally appeared at Forbes.com.

Photo from BigStockPhoto.com.

Mistaking an Aberration for the End of Home Ownership

Wendell Cox — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:38:31 -0500

It is well known that home ownership has declined in the United States from the peak of the housing bubble. According to Current Population Survey data, the national home ownership rate fell 2.9 percentage points from the peak of the bubble (4th quarter 2004) to the third quarter of 2011.

It is less well understood, however, that the spurt in home ownership was, like the housing bubble, an aberration. Looking over the data from the 2010 census, it seems clear that since 2000 the actual decline was a much smaller: 0.8 percentage points from the 2000 census. In fact the current home ownership rate tracks fairly well with that of the post 1960 and the entire pre-bubble period.

The End of Home Ownership? Analysts such as Richard Florida suggest an end to the preference for home ownership, citing the losses from the bubble, which were, in fact, an aberration. Most recently, Xavier University's Michael F. Ford wrote in the Washington Postabout home ownership having been driven to 69% by "guarantees" and "tax breaks," such as the mortgage interest deduction. He notes that this "spending spree" led to a loss of $6 trillion in US real estate value.

Ford does not mention the fact that home ownership had hovered between 60% and 65% for more than three decades before the bubble, without suffering any such losses. Nor does he mention the roles played by Fannie, Freddie and Frank (D-Massachusetts), along with others in Washington, or the related "drunken sailor" mortgage policies concocted by lenders and Wall Street that anyone familiar with credit should have known could only lead to disaster. This was obvious to many observers, although shockingly not to the Federal Reserve Board, as recent reports indicate .

There is no doubt that the "spending spree" led to the housing bust and triggered the Great Financial Crisis. However it was not the long-standing ownership support programs of the federal government that were primarily to blame. As late as the beginning of the decade, there was no bubble and the median multiple in major metropolitan areas averaged 2.9, within the maximum affordability rating of 3.0. The "spending spree" itself was a rational response to policies that turned housing into the equivalent of a speculative commodities market, with destructive results, in certain large markets. Critically the bubble did not appear in many others.

Speculation and the "Bubble States:" The extent to which speculation fueled house price increases is the subject of a recent Federal Reserve Bank of New York paper by Andrew Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Joseph Tracy and Wilbert van der Klaauw. The researchers examine investment, or speculation in real estate markets, during the housing bubble. Investors buy houses that they do not intend to live in for the purpose of making money. In normal times, this investment is principally for rental income or long term capital gains. However, in the highly charged housing markets that developed in some metropolitan areas, prices rose so rapidly, that "flipping" (short term ownership) became very profitable, at least for some.

Pointing out that "The recent financial crisis—the worst in eighty years—had its origins in the enormous increase and subsequent collapse in housing prices during the 2000s," the New York Fed researchers show that speculative activity was much greater in California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada (which they label the "bubble states") than elsewhere. My analysis indicates that two-thirds of the house value drop in the nation before the Lehman Brothers collapse (September 15, 2008) occurred in the four "bubble states." According to the researchers, this greater speculative activity in these markets made the market more instable because unlike owner-occupiers, investors are far more likely to default on mortgage loans.

Missing the Geography of Speculation (the Geography of "Smart Growth"): The New York Fed research, however, ignores the geography of speculation. Why was speculation was so much more rampant in the bubble states? There is no reason to believe that residents of California, Florida, Arizona or Nevada are any less interested in making money or, in general, any more greedy. Yet speculators largely stayed out of markets in high demand areas, such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Indianapolis. In fact, in large parts of the nation, there was little speculative activity. In these markets prices were not rising inordinately so speculators did not bother with them. Instead they focused on more volatile markets where prices were already rising strongly, further swelling local price increases.

The geography of speculation corresponds largely to the geography of excessive land use restrictions, which created the shortage of land for housing that drove the prices up in the four bubble states (Note). It is a fundamental principle of economics that prices tend to rise where desired goods are in short supply.

In California and Florida, restrictive land use policies (smart growth or growth management) created a shortage of land for new housing relative to demand. The largest metropolitan areas of Nevada (Las Vegas) and Arizona (Phoenix) are surrounded by government owned land that was auctioned for development at such a slow rate that prices rose by more than five times during the bubble.

Astonishingly, having missed the geography of speculation, the New York Fed researchers suggest that a solution is to regulate speculation. There is a much simpler answer, which Florida has already implemented which is to repeal the restrictive land use regulations, without which inordinately speculative profits cannot occur.

Meanwhile, as the speculators have been driven out of the market, and despite federal government efforts to prop-up the artificially high house prices, values have fallen to below 2000 levels for the first time (Figure 1). Based upon Federal Reserve Board and Census Bureau data, it is estimated that the average owner-occupied house value in 2011 (three quarters) has fallen to $211,000, which is down from a peak of approximately $345,000 in 2006 and $222,000 in 2000 (adjusted for inflation).

So is Ownership now doomed? Yet the home ownership naysayers have little to cheer. Yes, home ownership dropped in the last decade. However, all of the loss was in mobile homes and boats. Even so, the number of mobile home owners remained greater than home owners living in apartments, including condominiums (Figure 2). In fact there was a slight increase in the share of households owning their own homes, if mobile homes and boats are excluded (Figure 3), with a rise from 60.6% in 2000 to 60.9% in 2010.

There were 5,057,000 more home owners in 2010 than in 2000, and perhaps more surprisingly, 5,119,000 more home owners occupying detached housing. Detached, attached (town house) and apartment ownership each increased over the past decade (Figure 4). Contrary to new urbanist theoreticians, detached housing – not urban condos – overall accounted for the most housing growth, both owner-occupied and rentals.

Xavier's Ford calls the American Dream of home ownership a myth and even goes so far as to suggest that home ownership is "more important to special interests than it is to most Americans." In fact, Ford's interpretation is delusional. That home ownership continued its advance, however modestly, in the face of the worst economic downturn in 80 years, reveals the durability and, indeed the reality of home ownership as an American Dream.

Photo: Preventing speculation (New Development, Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs)

Note: Overall, the bubble states and other restrictively regulated metropolitan areas accounted for more than 90% of the pre-Lehman Brothers loss.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

Florida’s Quick Rebound

Richard Reep — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:38:28 -0500

Adding nearly 119,000 people in 2011, Florida has capped a decade of steady population increase to see the state grow 19% since 2000. Despite 2009, an historic year where more people left than arrived, the overall net growth of Florida has yielded two additional congressional seats, moving the state well on its way towards the becoming third most populous state in the nation. This ascendancy brings new responsibility to the shoulders of the state’s leaders, and the direction this state takes in the coming years will depend upon how Florida reacts to this influx of new population. It is time for true leadership to find appropriate voice for our state on the national scene.

Contrary to the predictions of many within the urbanist intelligentsia, Florida’s farm counties grew the fastest. Osceola County, just south of bustling Orlando, grew by 55%; sleepy Sumter County, northwest of Orlando, grew by 75%; and Flagler County, home to historic St. Augustine, nearly doubled in population. Tampa, Orlando, and Miami have each seen their healthy share of immigration, but Florida’s rural areas have dramatically increased their appeal over a decade ago.

At first this trend might be puzzling. Lacking urban amenities such as museums, transit, and Starbucks, parts of rural Florida seem almost timeless. Wildwood and Leesburg, nestled in the center of Florida, lack both beaches and theme parks. They have one thing, however, that the urban areas do not have: affordable housing. And this is the elusive reality that must be turned around by Florida’s leadership if the state is to grow in a responsible manner.

The Miami-Dade market has plenty of supply, but the average home lists for $509,000 . Up in Wildwood, the home lists for $175,000, and you get a lot more house for your money. People are voting with their feet for affordability.

It’s not the price alone that seems to be putting people off, however. Naples, which lists homes even higher than Miami, saw growth over the past ten years at a pace two and a half times that of Miami, and is expected to continue to grow at the same pace through 2015. Anecdotally, it seems that newcomers have relocated to their vacation homes after selling off their other high-priced property, usually in the north. They sometimes reduced their expectations of what they can receive for their old houses and then permanently located where they prefer to live. If the buyers are older, they still likely made a nice profit over the past few decades.

In Orange County, meanwhile, relieved realtors are finally starting to say goodbye to distressed properties. Appraiser Lee Barnes commented that “foreclosures and short sales are 40% fewer, compared to this time last year,” and in an economy fueled by growth, the welcome sight of occupied rooftops means that commercial real estate is beginning to come back. In fact, Orlando is near the top of the list in expected home price gains for 2012, a dramatic turnaround for the region.

Florida’s comeback is timed with some key changes in regulating real estate development. With state oversight all but vanquished by the governor, starving local counties welcome the property tax dollars associated with new growth. No other revenue, apart from a sales tax, provides much cash to operate government in the Sunshine State. This makes growth a priority.

But economic activity occurs in two forms: growth (making more stuff) and development (making stuff better). Quietly, in the past decade, Florida has added biomedical research clusters to its twin engines of growth and tourism, and this promises to increase greater resilience to the state economy.

Some signs, however, point to Florida abandoning this strategy and continuing its boom-bust mentality. The Governor, already warning the legislature of budget cuts in 2012, has expressed disappointment that the job creation return is poor on the State’s venture capital invested in bringing Scripps, Nemours, and other cutting-edge research organizations. He claims that are simply not adding jobs fast enough for his taste. Abandoning these investments could mean that the organizations reduce their presence or even abandon the state.

At the same time, Florida’s cities seem to be uncertain about how to tackle the problem of adding density without reducing affordability. Land prices haven’t wavered much in the recession, with stubborn property owners holding on to assets that won’t sell, and they may benefit from this land-banking strategy in the long run. Many who escape the Rust Belt and come to Florida express shock at the cost of living in the Sunshine State and are further dismayed over the quality of schools and surprising amount of congestion. This mismatch between cost of living and quality of life may be part of the reason why Florida’s five largest cities were listed among the nation’s “saddest” in a recent Time poll .

Casino gambling, a typical 1990s way to boost revenue, is being entertained by the Legislature, but other ideas should be considered as well. For one thing, investment in the future means a better education system, perhaps a higher priority than ostrich food subsidies (currently exempt from state sales tax ). Closing tax loopholes and fixing some long-broken parts of Florida’s tax code will help gain some badly-needed revenue.

Very large infrastructure projects are also important to make Florida competitive. On the east coast, NASA’s 60-year-old facilities need a major overhaul to continue providing America a spaceport for the 21st century and to pave the way for private space exploration. This will maintain the deep investment in human capital of which Floridians were once justly proud. The spaceport has a great deal of synergy with the National Simulation Center, located in Orlando, which is currently the country’s premier provider of military simulation and training.

In more than one region, the Florida Venture Capital Act has brought world-class biomedical research laboratories, making dramatic advancements in cancer, diabetes, children’s health, and other key areas. Already surging ahead and competing with area like Boston’s Research Center and the Silicon Valley, Florida must keep its edge in this field by continuing investment in the Venture Capital Fund.

On the west coast, the Tampa Port Authority is already preparing for the widening of the Panama Canal, working in collaboration with ports of Mobile and Houston to partner with ocean carriers. Continuing this investment and modernizing the logistics of truck and railroad traffic into the port is critical to make this economic engine prevail in the 21st century.

Such infrastructure investment will improve Florida’s already existing assets, allowing for prosperity and upward mobility to occur within the state. Competing with Texas will be difficult, given Florida’s lack of petrochemical resources, but the state’s native industry, tourism, has already made it a world-class destination. Florida’s leadership has already entered the national stage by saying “no” to high speed rail, but it has yet to define what it will say “yes” to. Without intelligent citizen input, the state will likely fall back on its traditional pattern of being a passive receiver of investment and people, but not a creator of great new enterprises.

In contrast to states like California and Texas, Florida has been willing to be eternally passive; Disney World is a classic example. Florida, a grateful recipient of this California enterprise, has benefitted secondarily, but the real power of this company still resides in Burbank. This story is played out over and over again, with real estate developers from Dallas and Atlanta continuing to define the face of the state, aided and abetted by Wall Street investors who see Florida primarily as a waterfront real estate asset with some moderate margins available in between coasts.

It is time for Florida to start doing, instead of being done to. With investment in real infrastructure, good education and intelligent leadership, Florida can assume its responsibility as one of America’s new high-profile states, capable of exporting science, technology, and culture. Our population growth contains within it the seeds of a bright future once we fix what is broken about our beautiful state.

Photo courtesy of BigStockPhoto.com.