Urban Issues

Poverty and Growth: Retro-Urbanists Cling to the Myth of Suburban Decline

Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:11:19 -0400

In the wake of the post-2008 housing bust, suburbia has become associated with many of the same ills long associated with cities, as our urban-based press corps and cultural elite cheerfully sneer at each new sign of decline. This conceit was revealed most recently in a a studyreleased Monday by the Brookings Institution--which has become something of a Vatican for anti-suburban theology--trumpeting the news that there are now 1 million more poor people in America's suburbs than in its cities.

America’s suburbs, noted one British journalist, are becoming “ghost towns” as middle-class former suburbanites migrate to the central core. That’s simply untrue: both the 2010 Census and other more recent analyses demonstrate that America is becoming steadily more suburban: 44 million Americans live in America’s 51 major metropolitan areas, while nearly 122 million Americans live in their suburbs. In other words, nearly three quarters of metropolitan Americans live in suburbs, not core cities.

The main reason there are now more poor people in the suburbs is that there are now many more people in the suburbs, which have represented almost all of America’s net population growth in recent years. Despite trite talk about “suburban ghettos,” suburbs have a poverty rate roughly half that of urban centers (20.9 percent in core compared to 11.4 percent in the suburbs as of 2010).

To be sure, poverty in suburbs, or anywhere else, must be addressed. But not long ago, suburbs were widely criticized for being homogeneous; now they are mocked for having many of the problems associated with being “inclusive.”

Many poor suburbs are developing because minorities and working-class populations are moving to suburbs. Yet even accounting for these shifts, cities continue to contain pockets of wealth and gentrification that give way to swathes of poverty. In Brooklyn, it’s a short walk east from designer shoe stores and locavore eateries to vast stretches of slumscape. The sad fact is that in American cities, poor people—not hipsters or yuppies—constitute the fastest-growing population. In the core cities of the 51 metropolitan areas, 81 percent of the population increase over the past decade was under the poverty line, compared to 32 percent of the suburban population increase.

In Chicago, oft cited as an exemplar of “the great inversion” of affluence from suburbs to cities, the city poverty rate stands at 22.5 percent, compared to 10 percent in the suburbs. In New York, roughly 20 percent of the city population lives in poverty, compared to only 9 percent in the suburbs.

Looking at it from a national perspective, most of the major metropolitan counties with the highest rates of poverty are all urban core, starting with the Bronx, with 30 percent of people living under the poverty line, followed by Orleans Parish (New Orleans), Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Richmond, Va. In contrast all 10 large counties with the lowest poverty rates are all suburban.

This divergence has an impact on other measurements of social health. Despite substantial improvement in crime rates in “core cities” over the past two decades, suburban areas generally have substantially lower crime rates, according to Brookings Institution’s own research. Yet at the same time suburban burgs dominate the list of safest cities over 100,000 led by Irvine and Temecula, Calif., followed by Cary, N.C. Overall suburban crime remains far lower than that in core cities.

A review of 2011 crime data, as reported by the FBI, indicates that the violent-crime rate in the core cities of major metropolitan areas was approximately 3.4 times that of the suburbs. (The data covers 47 of the 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million population, with data not being available for Chicago, Las Vegas, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Providence.)

In the least suburbanized core cities, that is places that have annexed little or no territory since before World War II (New York, Philadelphia, Washington, etc.) the violent crime rate was 4.3 times the suburban rate. Among the 24 metropolitan areas that had strong central cities at the beginning of World War II but which have significant amounts of postwar suburban territory (Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, etc.), the violent crime rate is 3.1 times the suburban rate. Among the metropolitan areas that did not have strong pre–World War II core cities (San Jose, Austin, Phoenix, etc.), the violent crime rate was 2.2 times the suburban rate. Basically, the more suburban the metropolis, the lower the crime rate.

Rather than castigating suburbs for exaggerated dysfunction, retro-urbanists would be much better served focusing on how to correct and confront the issue of poverty, which continues to concentrate heavily in the urban core and elsewhere in America.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. His most recent study, The Rise of Postfamilialism, has been widely discussed and distributed internationally. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

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.

This piece originally appeared in the The Daily Beast.

Suburban neighborhood photo by Bigstock.

Religious Freedom Lures Many to U.S. from Asia

Joel Kotkin — Mon, 20 May 2013 01:38:08 -0400

It's been two decades since California Gov. Pete Wilson used grainy ads of undocumented immigrants – "They keep coming" – as an effective means of stoking fear of newcomers and assuring his re-election. Yet, increasingly America's immigration realities are moving far beyond the mojado paradigm of the 1990s in ways that challenges the stereotypes of both conservatives and progressives.

This discussion of the undocumented, and about the relative benefits of accepting millions of poor, often modestly educated newcomers, has sharply divided the Left and Right. But this often-polarized debate largely has missed the changing nature of immigration and its potential long-term impact on our national future.

The biggest shift in immigration lies in primary motivation. Traditionally, most immigrants came primarily for economic reasons. Poor people in Mexican or Central American villages saw a better life in the United States and, unlikely to do so legally, chose to make the crossing, anyway. Legal immigrants from further away, including many with educations, such as from Asia, the Middle East and Africa, also came to reap financial opportunities that their still-developing economies could not provide.

Today these economic motivations are losing their primacy, both for documented and undocumented workers. Many of the economies from which immigrants once fled – including Mexico, Korea, India, Taiwan and China – are now arguably doing better than the U.S. economy. A machinist from Monterrey, a technician from Taipei, or a biologist from Bangalore can find ample, and even greater, opportunities at home than here.

Most important have been changes with Mexico, from where most undocumented immigrants have come. A survey from the Pew Hispanic Center notes that, during 2005-10, about 1.4 million Mexicans immigrated to the U.S. – exactly the same number of Mexican immigrants and their U.S.-born children who moved back, or were deported, home.

This trend is likely to continue. Brighter economic prospects south of the border, a rapidly declining birth rate and lack of good jobs for the modestly skilled do much to explain the plunge in Mexican immigration. The "back to Mexico" numbers could even grow since many Mexicans immigrants here – roughly two-thirds of legal residents – have chosen not to become American citizens.

'Lifestyle' migration

Now we see a shift both in the primary motivation and geography of immigration. Increasingly, immigrants are coming less out of economic distress and more as a result of what may be called "lifestyle" migration. This may be particularly applicable to the largest source of immigration, Asia. Opportunity, notes a recent Pew study, remains a key lure but freedom to express political views and a better environment to raise children was cited by more than three in five as reasons for coming here.

Asia has become much richer in the past few decades, but many people find conditions there less than satisfactory. In a place like Beijing, Shanghai and Singapore, even the highest levels of wealth and "success" cannot buy you the comfort and privacy of single-family home. In China, even a billionaire can't breathe clean air, drink the tap water or easily access quality public education.

Recent immigrants to places like such as Irvine or Eastvale, a newly minted suburb just outside Ontario, California, will tell you that the "quality of life" here is simply unavailable in their home country, at virtually any price. This quality-of-life migration is particularly evident in California, where twice as many new immigrants now come from Asia than from Latin America. Even the New York Times admits they are not coming here to duplicate the high-density environment of Mumbai or Shanghai, but to indulge "the new suburban dream."

Religious freedom

Of course, some immigrants still come for venerable reasons, such as the freedom to worship. Christians, who make up some 42 percent of Asian-Americans, face surveillance and repression, particularly, in China, where religion is tightly regulated, and dissent from the party line can land adherents in jail. Over half of Asian immigrants, Pew notes, cite freedom of religion as a key advantage of living in America. New faith-based migration could also be seen soon among Christians fleeing increasingly Islamic regimes in Egypt, Syria and other Middle Eastern countries.

And then there's the related issue of legality. In China, in particular, property ownership is never secure from state confiscation. This, in part, accounts for a rise in immigrant investors, not only to the United States but to such bastions of legality as Canada and Australia. Lack of faith in the long-term political stability is also driving a growing group of Chinese professionals to emigrate.

"Chinese come from a country where it isn't infrequent that government takes land for redevelopment with little concerns for the American notions of due process," Realtor Tommy Bozarjian of Aslan Properties told Chapman University researcher Grace Kim. "Vietnamese come from a country where they had to gather what little they had into pillow cases and makeshift bags" before boarding helicopters and boats in efforts to escape the communist regime.

Overall, this new immigration is far more promising than that portrayed in Pete Wilson's grainy videos. An influx of young families, seeking to establish a better way of life for the children, represent something of an elixir for a sagging economy. Asians, the fastest-growing group, outperform other racial groups across a broad array of measurements, notably education and income.

Higher entrepreneurship rates among immigrants are providing a bright spot in an otherwise-sagging start-up economy. The immigrant share of all new businesses, notes the Kauffman Foundation, more than doubled, from 13.4 percent in 1996 to 29.5 percent in 2010.

But not all the positives pertain at the higher end. Clearly, the country will also need some lower-skilled workers, particularly in agriculture, who work in circumstances few Americans would embrace. More important still, immigrants may be necessary for addressing a looming shortage of skilled technicians, such as process engineers, machinists, mold-makers, which are, in part, a result of our still-neglected high school vocational training programs, trade schools and junior colleges.

Less-in-demand jobs

At the same time, there may be less need to encourage the migration of workers in hospitality, retail and other entry-level industries when many native-born and naturalized residents still struggle for employment. College graduates, in particular, are increasingly turning to these professions since the number of opportunities for all but the most credentialed, and gifted, seem rather limited. More than 43 percent of recent graduates now working, according to a recent report by the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, are at jobs that don't require a college education.

This dynamic may even be applied to some higher-skilled professions. Silicon Valley executives, such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, insist we need to import large quantities of tech workers. He's even backed a faux conservative group to push his agenda within the GOP. Yet, there is growing evidence, as recently revealed in a study by left-of-center Economic Policy Institute, that the country's much-ballyhooed shortage of STEM (science-technology-engineering-mathematics-related) workers may be vastly exaggerated.

If EPI's analysis is accurate, importing vast numbers of young code-writers – what in the Silicon Valley has been sometimes referred to as "techno-coolies" – may result in lowering the price of labor and allow the Silicon Valley elite to not address issues such as inflated housing costs that keep older, American-born workers out of the Valley's labor pool.

These are the kind of issues Washington should focus on as politicians look to reshape our immigration laws. So, too, are policies that encourage the immigration of families likely to stay and put down roots long-term here in the United States. As an immigrant country, we do not want to duplicate the dependence on transitory workers associated with places like Dubai, Singapore and large parts of Europe.

Overall, the newer wave of "lifestyle" immigrants seems a net plus, but legislators should take care to recognize that even the most obvious windfall could have negative unintended impacts on Americans and our economy. Rather than simply a politically motivated rush to judgment, or replaying the immigration wars of the past, we need to pay more attention to the emerging realities of this new wave and devise a policy that best serves the long-term interests of the nation in the decades ahead.

This piece originally appeared in the Orange County Register.

Photo "asian american" by flicker user centinel.

The Evolving Urban Form: Toronto

Wendell Cox — Sat, 18 May 2013 01:38:10 -0400

Toronto is the largest city (metropolitan area) in Canada and its principal commercial center. However, this is a relatively recent development. Toronto displaced Montréal is Canada's largest city during the 1960s. Since the 1971 census, when the two Metropolitan areas were nearly identical size, Toronto has added approximately 3 million people, while Montréal has added approximately 1,000,000 (Figure 1).

This shift is exceptional within the high-income world over the past half century. Toronto's ascendancy was in large part precipitated by the move by Québec, in which Montréal is the largest city, to assert the primacy of the French language even though much of the Montréal business community was Anglophone. Many of these businesses, and some of their employees, decamped to Toronto.

Metropolitan, Suburban and Core Population Growth: 1931-2011

Toronto has grown very rapidly. In 1931, the metropolitan area had little more than 800,000 residents. About 80% of these (630,000) lived in the former city of Toronto. Since that time, nearly all of the growth in the Toronto metropolitan area has been in the suburbs (Figure 2). The area of the former city of Toronto (abolished in 1998 as a part of a six jurisdiction amalgamation, see Note on the Toronto Amalgamation) has added little more than 100,000 residents while the suburban areas have added approximately 4.7 million. By 2011, the metropolitan area had grown to a population of 5.5 million (Figure 3).

In recent decades, Toronto has been among the fastest-growing larger metropolitan areas in the high income world.

The Larger Region: The Golden Horseshoe

The Toronto metropolitan area is at the core of a much larger region of urbanization that is referred to as the Golden Horseshoe. The Golden Horseshoe stretches in the shape of a horseshoe from the US border at Niagara Falls (St. Catharine’s metropolitan area) through the Hamilton metropolitan area to Toronto and on to the Oshawa and Peterborough metropolitan areas to the east. The Golden Horseshoe (which can be defined in various ways), also includes the Kitchener, Brantford, Guelph, and Barrie metropolitan areas.

Overall the Golden Horseshoe registered a population of approximately 8.1 million in the 2011 census. Approximately 9% of the population lives in the former city of Toronto, 3% in the inner core federal electoral districts of Toronto – Centre and Trinity – Spadina and another 6% in the balance of the former city. Approximately 91% of the population is in the rest of the Golden Horseshoe (Figure 5).

Like many other metropolitan areas, Toronto's core has experienced a resurgence. Between 2006 and 2011, the inner core two districts added 16.2% to their population (Figure 6). This was a much stronger increase than occurred in the federal electoral districts that roughly correspond to the balance of the former city of Toronto, which grew 1.8%. The inner suburbs grew somewhat more strongly, at 4.2%. This rate of growth, barely one-quarter that of the inner core districts, was a more than 1.5 times the actual population increase of the inner core districts.

The outer suburbs within the metropolitan area grew 13.7%. While the outer suburban growth rate was less than that of the inner core districts, the actual population increase was more than nine times as great. The balance of the Golden Horseshoe grew 4.7%, slightly more than the inner suburbs.

Between 2006 and 2011 the overwhelming majority – 92 percent – of population growth was outside the core roughly corresponding to the former city of Toronto. This is less than the percentage of the total population represented by the inner core in the 2006 census. This is similar to the dynamics of metropolitan population growth in the United States, where inner core districts dominated central city growth, but produce little or none of the overall growth because of the stagnant or declining populations in the areas immediately outside the inner core.

The Urban Area

The Toronto urban area (called “population centre” by Statistics Canada) had a population of approximately 5.1 million according to the 2011 census. With a land area of 675 square miles (1,750 square kilometers), Toronto’s population density is 7,590 per square mile (2,930 per square kilometer). Toronto is the only major urban area in the New World (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States) that is more dense than Los Angeles, which had 7,000 residents per square mile (2,700 per square kilometer), according to the 2010 census (Note on extended urban areas).

Canada’s Largest Employment Center

It is not surprising that Canada's largest employment center should be in its largest metropolitan area. Surprisingly it is not downtown Toronto, but rather the Pearson International Airport area, which is shared between the municipalities of Mississauga, Brampton, and Toronto that is the top job center. This large area covers approximately 45 square miles (120 square kilometers), an area as large as either the municipalities of Vancouver or San Francisco. The center is largely made up of low rise transportation and distribution facilities that stretched far from the airport itself. Overall, the Pearson International Airport center has an employment level of more than 350,000.

In contrast downtown Toronto has approximately 325,000 jobs crammed into an area of 2.3 square miles (6 square kilometers). This highly concentrated area is, however, the focal point of transit’s largest commuting market in Canada.

The contrast between these two employment markets vividly illustrates the substantial strengths of transit in serving highly concentrated employment centers, like downtown Toronto, and its virtual inability to provide automobile competitive service in more highly dispersed employment centers (see Note on Transit and Employment Concentration)

Overall, only 13 percent of the employment in the metropolitan area (as opposed to the Golden Horseshoe) is in downtown Toronto.

As Goes Toronto, So Goes Canada

Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe are particularly important to Canada. The Golden Horseshoe has more than one quarter of Canada's population. This is an unusually high proportion of a nation's population for one highly urbanized region and boasts an even larger share of its economic output. By comparison, the largest metropolitan region in the United States, New York, represents barely 7% of the nation’s population. In many ways, Canada's prosperity, which has been impressive in recent years, depends on the success of Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe.

See Also: A Toronto Condo Bubble?

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Note on the Toronto Amalgamation: The former city of Toronto and five other municipal jurisdictions were amalgamated under an act of the Ontario government in 1998. The amalgamation was promoted by the government on efficiency grounds, claiming that hundreds of millions annually would be saved. I was hired by the former city to assist it in an effort to defeat the amalgamation proposal. Our side argued that the cost savings would not occur because of the necessity of harmonizing (the leveling up) labor costs and service levels. Despite advisory referendums that receive a minimum of a 70% no vote, the amalgamation went forward.

The amalgamation is still a controversial subject. The financial argument appears to have been resolved in the favor of the position of the former city. A major Toronto business organization, the Toronto City Summit Alliance reported “The amalgamation of the City of Toronto has not produced the overall cost savings that were projected. Although there have been savings from staff reductions, the harmonization of wages and service levels has resulted in higher costs for the new City. We will all continue to feel these higher costs in the future.” My commentary in the National Post on the tenth anniversary of the amalgamation summarized the experience.

In a spirited debate in 2001 at Ryerson University, in downtown Toronto with a former Toronto transit commission official, my opponent and I agreed on one issue, that the amalgamation of Toronto had been a mistake.

Note on Extended Urban Areas: In fact, the continuous urbanization of Toronto extends further, to the west into the Hamilton metropolitan area and to the east into the Oshawa metropolitan area. If these areas are combined into a single urban area, the population density falls to 7000 per square mile (2,700 per square kilometer). Even with this extension, Toronto would be more dense than an extended Los Angeles urban area (extending to include Mission Viejo and the western Inland Empire, at 6,200 per square mile or 2,400 per square kilometer (These larger urban area definitions are used in Demographia World Urban Areas)).

Note on Transit and Employment Concentration: It is virtually impossible for employees throughout the metropolitan area to reach the airport area on transit that is time-competitive with the automobile. This disadvantage is not easily solved. If grade-separated rapid transit lines (such as a subway or busway) were built to the area, only a small percentage of the jobs would be within walking distance (within one quarter mile or 400 metres). Walks of up to 5 miles (8 kilometers) could be necessary from stations to employment locations. This compares with the virtually 100 per cent of downtown jobs that are accessible by walking from subway and commuter rail (Go Transit) stations (See Improving the Competitiveness of Metropolitan Areas)

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.

Photograph: Google Earth Image of the Pearson Airport employment area (Canada’s largest employment area)

America’s Off-The-Radar Tech Hubs

Christian Leithart — Fri, 17 May 2013 01:38:56 -0400

At the moment, the technology sector is the focus of a lot of attention — and with good reason. Tech industries have helped turn San Jose and Austin into major economies and brought other large metros, like Detroit, through tough spells. But which small, off-the-radar towns out there also deserve recognition as technology hubs?

To explore this question, we analyzed 70 high-tech occupations identified by BLS economist Daniel E. Hecker. The list includes everything from computer systems analysts to forest and conservation technicians. Many of the highlighted economies contain a strong contingent of one or two of these occupations, while other occupations may not be especially concentrated in the region.

In order to locate these economies, we had to explore some obscure parts of EMSI’s extensive database. For one thing, we removed cities with very large populations since many of them would come as no surprise. (We already know that Seattle, San Jose, and Austin are capitals of the tech sector.) Cities with very small numbers of tech workers were also cut from the list; if an influx of 10 tech workers could radically shift the economy, it can be hard to gauge whether or not the industry is really growing.

We chose to highlight MSAs that have 1,000-50,000 jobs in the industry, have grown by more than 10% since 2001 and more than 0% since 2010, and also have promising concentration (measured by location quotient, LQ). Another factor that we took into account is whether or not the industry grew during the recession (2007-09). After applying all these filters to our data, we chose 11 MSAs which have exhibited impressive growth but which have also, for the most part, sneaked under the radar.

The list starts with Los Alamos, N.M., and Williston, N.D., which have already gained attention for their growing economies. Then we’ll move from smallest to largest MSA, examining a key tech occupation in each.

Los Alamos, New Mexico

Population: 18,294

Tech workers: 4,559 jobs

Highlighted tech occupation: Biochemists and Biophysicists (410)

Why you should be watching: Tech occupations in Los Alamos have skyrocketed in the last 11 years, with a gobsmacking 325% growth since 2001. Currently, the city has a concentration of tech workers almost six times that of the nation. The median wage of these workers is $51.47/hr, which is much higher than the average for the occupation.

Between 2005 and 2007, Los Alamos gained 3,750 jobs in the tech sector. The occupations barely dipped during the recession and have remained steady since, with only a slight decline in the last year.

What’s causing all these insane numbers? Obviously, the Los Alamos National Laboratory. As an example of just how unique this city is, consider this fact: there are 252 nuclear technicians in Los Alamos. The LQ for that occupation in the region is 254.42. Basically, this means that if nuclear technicians were as concentrated nationwide as they are in Los Alamos, they would make up the 10th largest occupation in the United States, with 2,184,588 jobs.

Williston, North Dakota

Population: 25,107

Tech workers: 926 jobs

Highlighted tech occupation: Petroleum Engineers (211)

Why you should be watching: The number of tech workers in Williston has grown 324% since 2001, and 93% in the last three years. Although there are only 928 workers, they are getting paid a median hourly wage of $46.29 and those paychecks have already had significant economic impact on the state. That’s what an oil boom will do for you.

As you can see, there are twice as many petroleum engineers as the next largest tech occupation. And the second largest occupation is geological and petroleum technicians, which are also involved in the oil industry.

Los Alamos and Williston are not really surprises when it comes to tech centers. Both have appeared in the news for several years now as emerging economies. As we look at these other regional economies and evaluate them as potential tech hubs, we can compare them to the exploding economies of Los Alamos and Williston.

Susanville, California

Population: 34,019

Tech workers: 1,258 jobs

Highlighted tech occupation: Forest and Conservation Technicians (761)

Why you should be watching: Susanville is another one of those cities with growth in a lot of different areas. The fact that it is a logging town keeps the economy tied to local industries and helps it stay well-rounded. The most impressive thing about Susanville is that during the recession, the number of tech workers grew by 18%.

Whenever we find an industry or occupation that grew during the recession, we usually discover that it was strongly supported by the government. Susanville is no different. According to EMSI’s inverse staffing pattern, the government sector accounts for 95% of all tech-related occupations. Below are the three government industries and their portions of tech occupations:

Federal government, civilian, excluding postal service (65.7%)

State government, excluding education and hospitals (25.6%)

Local government, excluding education and hospitals (3.2%)

It’s not too surprising that the regional economy has been doing so well.

Pullman, Washington

Population: 45.4K

Tech workers: 1,299 jobs

Highlighted tech occupation: Electrical Engineers (163)

Why you should be watching: Small economies sometimes have a better chance of withstanding economic recession because they can be self-contained. This is especially true of Pullman, where the economy is almost entirely driven by two forces: Washington State University and Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories. Even with a mere 1,283 tech jobs in the area, the sector grew 38% since 2001 and, more impressively, 9% during the recession.

The line graph displays the increase of electrical engineers since 2001. While 163 jobs might not seem like very much, the growth is dramatic enough to warrant comment.

St. Marys, Georgia

Population: 50,957

Tech workers: 992 jobs

Highlighted tech occupation: Civil Engineers (136)

Why you should be watching: Out of the MSAs we examined for this report, St. Marys has the most consistent growth across the board. The tech sector has grown 88% since 2001 and 50% since 2010, increasing the LQ by 0.53 in the last eleven years. Most of this growth is probably caused by the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, but the occupations that have grown are quite varied.

The table below shows the top five industries for tech occupations in St. Marys. As you can see, engineering services is at the top of the list, followed by federal government, civilian.

NAICS	Industry	Occupation Group Jobs in Industry (2012)	% of Occupation Group in Industry (2012)	% of Total Jobs in Industry (2012)
541330	Engineering Services	468	47.2%	52.3%
901199	Federal Government, Civilian, Excluding Postal Service	194	19.6%	8.5%
336414	Guided Missile and Space Vehicle Manufacturing	100	10.1%	18.9%
541519	Other Computer Related Services	37	3.8%	42.7%
524114	Direct Health and Medical Insurance Carriers	29	2.9%	8.1%

Engineering services accounts for the most tech jobs in the region (468 jobs), and government jobs come next with 194 tech jobs. Guided missile and space vehicle manufacturing are tied to the government as well, as most of that research is probably happening at the Naval Submarine Base.

Helena, Montana

Population: 76,801

Tech workers: 3,109 jobs

Highlighted tech occupation: Forest and Conservation Technicians (371)

Why you should be watching: Helena is another one of those plucky economies that refused to buckle during the recession. Helena has a quite a few tech workers (3,144 in 2012), but they are spread out evenly over many occupations. Since Helena is the state capital, the largest employer of tech workers is the state government (comprising 1,321 jobs), but the tech sector as a whole grew almost 12% in the last three years.

Forest and conservation technicians account for 371 jobs in the tech sector, followed by civil engineers at 336 jobs. Forest and conservation technicians grew 48% growth since 2001 (most of that taking place 2005-2009. It’s easier to understand this growth knowing that 96% of the forest and conservation technician jobs in Helena are in state or federal government.

Dubuque, Iowa

Population: 95.5K

Tech workers: 3,041 jobs

Highlighted tech occupation: Software Developers, Systems Software (430)

Why you should be watching: Dubuque has seen strong growth among tech workers in the last ten years, especially in software developers. Since 2010, the tech economy has increased by 3,126 jobs. Many of these jobs are due to the presence of IBM’s Global Delivery Center and other developing tech companies. Dubuque is currently #8 on Forbes’ list of best small places for businesses and careers.

Lexington Park, Maryland

Population: 109,409

Tech Workers: 7,789 jobs

Highlighted tech occupation: Electronics Engineers, Except Computer (1,438)

Why you should be watching: During the recession, Lexington Park’s proximity to D.C. propped up its economy. The city grew 9% from 2007 to 2009, but its tech industry has grown 5.2% since then. Tech workers are 3.48 times more concentrated in Lexington Park than in the rest of the nation, for which the city can thank the Patuxent Naval Air Station.

This graph represents the top industries for electronics engineers, except computer engineers, in Lexington Park. All together, the industries staffed by electronics engineers have increased 56%, compared to 16% in the 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas and 19% in the nation as a whole. Most of this growth has occurred in research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences (NAICS 541712), which has seen 93% since 2001, and in engineering services, which has seen 84% growth since 2001.

Midland, Texas

Population: 143.4K

Tech workers: 4,484 jobs

Highlighted tech occupation: Petroleum Engineers (927)

Why you should be watching: The 4,484 tech jobs in Midland aren’t the most impressive thing about the city. What is impressive is the 23.4% growth in the last three years and the $42.76 hourly wage. A increase of 83% since 2001 is nothing to snort at either. That’s what the oil industry will do for you.

The line graph below represents the growth of petroleum engineers since 2001. The blue line stands for the Midland MSA. Green stands for all 11 tech centers highlighted in this post. Brown and red stand for the 50 largest MSAs in the nation and the nation as a whole, respectively.

Despite the fact that petroleum engineers drive the Midland economy, the 11 tech centers have increased in petroleum engineers slightly faster. Both are significantly ahead of the nation as a whole, however. What’s not reflected on this chart is the fact that the petroleum engineers occupation in Midland has a regional LQ of 45.16. With such a high concentration of a single occupation, Midland’s economy is primed for expansion as other industries and occupations rush in to support the oil industry.

Trenton, New Jersey

Population: 368.9K

Tech workers: 17,573 jobs

Highlighted tech occupation: Software Developers, Applications (2,899)

Why you should be watching: The Trenton-Ewing area used to be a big hub for manufacturing jobs, but has since shifted its focus. Government, health care, and technology are currently the largest industries in the area. Tech workers have increased 11% since 2001 and grew 3% during the recession, and workers earn a median wage of $41.23/hr.

Trenton’s highlighted tech occupation is software developers, which is spread out over several different industries. Here are the five industries that employ the most software developers in Trenton-Ewing.

Custom computer programming services has gained quite a few software developers and investment banking and securities dealing has more than doubled its numbers. Software publishers take the cake with an increase of zero to 160 since 2001.

Madison, Wisconsin

Population: 583.8K

Tech workers: 25,597 jobs

Highlighted tech occupation: Computer Support Specialists (3,827)

Why you should be watching: Madison has 26,722 tech workers and grew 28% over the last 10 years. It could be hard to maintain such a high concentration of tech workers, but the LQ of tech workers in Madison has grown from 1.31 in 2001 to 1.61 in 2012. Madison is currently #89 on Forbes’ list of the Best Places for Business and Careers and #38 in job growth.

The complete data is reproduced below.

Metropolitan Statistical Area	2012 Jobs	2001-12 % Change	2007-09 % Change	2010-12 % Change	Median Hourly Earnings	2001 Location Quotient	2012 Location Quotient	LQ Change
Source: QCEW Employees, Non-QCEW Employees & Self-Employed - EMSI 2013.1 Class of Worker
Los Alamos, NM (31060)	4,585	325%	-2%	-3.8%	$51.47	2.42	5.91	3.49
Williston, ND (48780)	928	324%	24%	93.7%	$46.29	0.47	0.65	0.18
St. Marys, GA (41220)	974	88%	-3%	49.8%	$34.02	0.55	1.08	0.53
Midland, TX (33260)	4,488	83%	4%	23.4%	$42.76	0.88	1.17	0.29
Susanville, CA (45000)	1,246	74%	18%	0.7%	$22.42	1.42	2.41	0.99
Dubuque, IA (20220)	3,126	63%	1%	12.8%	$30.96	0.75	1.10	0.35
Lexington Park, MD (30500)	7,659	55%	9%	5.2%	$45.26	2.62	3.48	0.86
Helena, MT (25740)	3,144	39%	7%	11.9%	$25.99	1.36	1.53	0.17
Pullman, WA (39420)	1,283	38%	9%	9.3%	$33.67	1.10	1.37	0.27
Madison, WI (31540)	26,722	28%	2%	5.7%	$32.57	1.31	1.61	0.30
Trenton-Ewing, NJ (45940)	17,887	11%	3%	0.2%	$41.23	1.48	1.59	0.11

Christian Leithart is a tech writer with EMSI. Follow them on Twitter @DesktopEcon.

America's New Manufacturing Boomtowns

Joel Kotkin and Michael Shires — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:17:15 -0400

Conventional wisdom for a generation has been that manufacturing in America is dying. Yet over the past five years, the country has experienced something of an industrial renaissance. We may be far from replacing the 3 million industrial jobs lost in the recession, but the economy has added over 330,000 industrial jobs since 2010, with output growing at the fastest pace since the 1990s.

Looking across the country, it is clear that industrial expansion has been a key element in boosting some of our most successful local economies. The large metro areas with the most momentum in expanding their manufacturing sectors also rank highly on our list of the cities that are generating the most jobs overall, including Houston-Sugarland-Baytown, Texas, which places first on our list of the big metro areas that are creating the most manufacturing jobs; Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Wash. (third); Oklahoma City, Okla. (fourth), Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tenn. (No. 6); Ft. Worth, Texas (No. 9); and Salt Lake City, Utah (No. 10).

Our rankings factor in manufacturing employment growth over the long-term (2001-12), mid-term (2007-12) and the last two years, as well as momentum. They identify those places where the market tells us the best storylines for manufacturing are being written.

Best Cities for Manufacturing Jobs

The Energy Boom and Industrial Growth

What is striking about this revival is both its sectoral and geographic diversity. For Houston, the booming energy industry is driving job growth in metal fabrication, machinery and chemicals. Since 2009, Houston industrial employment has grown 15%, almost three times as fast as the overall economy. Of course, industrial growth also tends to create jobs in other sectors, notably construction and professional and business services.

Much the same pattern of energy-driven growth can be seen in Oklahoma City, where the number of industrial jobs is also up 15% since 2009. This dynamic is also occurring in smaller metro areas. Energy cities did particularly well on our ranking of mid-sized metro areas (those with between 150,000 and 450,000 jobs overall), including third-place Lafayette, La.; Tulsa, Okla (fifth); Anchorage (sixth); Baton Rouge, La. (eighth); Bakersfield-Delano, Calif. (No. 13); and Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas (No. 14).

On our small cities list (under 150,000 jobs), two energy cities stand out, No. 4 Odessa and No. 7 Midland.

The Great Lakes Revival

The other big story in manufacturing has been the recovery of the auto industry. Essentially we see two parallel expansions, one based around the revival of U.S. automakers and their suppliers, particularly around the Great Lakes, and another that’s keyed by foreign-based firms, particularly in the Mid-South and Southeast.

Among the larger metro areas, the star of the U.S.-led recovery is No. 5 Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, Mich., an area that is widely known as “automation alley.” This region epitomizes the transition of manufacturing to more automated, high-tech production methods. After decades of losses, the area’s industrial employment increased 26% from 2009 through 2012.

More hopeful still has been the industrial recovery of the quintessential factory region, Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, No. 8 on our large metro area list. The Detroit resurgence is for real, with manufacturing employment up 18% since 2009. The industrial expansion has also sparked high-tech employment growth across Michigan that in 2010-2011 stood at almost 7% compared to 2.6% nationwide.

Another big winner from the auto rebound has been Louisville-Jefferson County, Ky., No. 2 on our large cities list. Industrial employment in the area has expanded nearly 15% since 2009. Smaller cities in the region have also staged an impressive recovery. Columbus, Ind., No. 1 on our small city list, is benefiting from the growth of auto suppliers such as PMG Group as well as the expansion of a nearby Honda facility.

The South Rises Again

Many “progressive” intellectuals love to hate the South. The region, industrializing rapidly for decades, took a big hit when the recession devastated the manufacturing sector everywhere.

But more recently many Southern areas have enjoyed considerable growth in a host of industries, from petrochemicals and autos to aerospace. This can be seen in two of the South’s largest metropolitan regions, Nashville, Tenn. (No. 6 on our list), and Virginia Beach, Va. (No. 7 ). In Nashville, much of the manufacturing job growth is auto-related, sparked in large part by the expansion of smaller plants and the nearby Nissan facilities.

In contrast, Virginia Beach’s manufacturing job growth has been very diverse, reaching into fields as broad as fabricated metals and autos. Expanding investment from abroad, notably in aerospace and autos, has paced growth in other southern cities, notably Mobile, Ala., No. 1 in the mid-sized category, which has become a major production hub for Europe-based Airbus. Similarly, in Florence-Muscle Shoals, Ala., No. 3 on our small city list, industrial employment growth has been paced by the expansion of Navistar, as well as a host of smaller specialized manufacturers.

Western Movement

The West is often identified as a key high-tech and lifestyle mecca, but it also includes some of the nation’s top industrial growth centers. At the top of the pile sits No. 3 Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, home to Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks SBUX, but also the birthplace of Boeing and its primary manufacturing location. Although the aerospace giant has moved some production elsewhere, Seattle has enjoyed nearly 13% growth in manufacturing employment since 2009.

But the Emerald City is not the only western hotspot for manufacturing growth. Aided by low hydro-electric energy prices — as much as a third less than historic rival California –Washington State boasts several thriving industrial areas. Kennewick-Pasco-Richland earned the No. 2 spot in our small city rankings while Wenatchee comes in at No. 11. Low energy prices helps attract firms in diverse industries ranging from metals to food processing.

The other western manufacturing hotspot is Utah, which also has low energy prices and a favorable business climate. Salt Lake City, which is becoming a perennial on many of our lists, has enjoyed a rapid expansion of technology-driven manufacturing, most notably a huge Intel-Micron flash memory plant, aerospace and recreation sports equipment industries. Also in the Beehive State, Ogden-Clearfield ranks No. 8 on our mid-sized list.

Who’s Losing Ground?

The bottom of our list generally divides into two categories: long-declining industrial hubs and places that are starting to de-industrialize rapidly. In many ways California represents the antithesis of the other western manufacturing economies, with its lethal combination of high energy prices and strict regulation. According to the California Manufacturing and Technology Association, the Golden State lost a full third of its industrial base from 2001 to 2010, and has yet to participate in the nation’s industrial recovery. Since 2010, manufacturing employment nationwide has grown more than 4% while in California industrial jobs have barely grown.

With the exception of oil-rich Bakersfield, no California metro area approaches the top rungs of our manufacturing list. Most worrisome is the poor performance of Los Angeles-Long Beach, which ranked 46th out of 66 large metro areas. Still the nation’s largest manufacturing region, L.A. has lost some 4.7% of its industrial jobs since 2010, declining as the nation’s factory economy surged forward. Doing even worse is neighboring San Bernardino-Riverside, traditionally where L.A. firms expand, ranking a dismal 64th.

But not all the bad news is in California. The most poorly performing manufacturing metro areas include such old industrial hubs as Camden-Union, rock bottom at No. 66, which has lost 7% of its manufacturing jobs since 2009 and a remarkable 23% since 2007. Both No. 62 Newark-Union, N.J., and No. 56 Rochester, N.Y., are also rapidly becoming industrial has-beens.

Clearly America’s nascent industrial revival still has not reached many parts of the country. But given the evident relationship between growing economies generally and a vibrant manufacturing sector, perhaps more regions will place greater emphasis on industrial employment as they seek to recover from the Great Recession.

Best Cities for Manufacturing Jobs

2013 Mfg Rank - Large MSAs	Area	2013 Weighted MFG INDEX	2012 MFG Employment (1000s)	2012 Mfg Rank - Large MSAs	2013 Mfg Rank Change from 2012
1	Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX	87.1	248.3	4	3
2	Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN	82.2	72.5	47	45
3	Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA Metropolitan Division	80.4	169.9	1	(2)
4	Oklahoma City, OK	79.1	35.6	2	(2)
5	Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, MI Metropolitan Division	77.2	143.3	5	0
6	Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN	75.7	70.4	48	42
7	Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC	75.4	55.1	33	26
8	Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI Metropolitan Division	71.0	80.4	24	16
9	Fort Worth-Arlington, TX Metropolitan Division	70.1	92.8	9	0
10	Salt Lake City, UT	67.8	55.7	3	(7)
11	San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX	64.9	47.0	7	(4)
12	Birmingham-Hoover, AL	64.5	37.5	46	34
13	Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, NC-SC	64.3	71.0	22	9
14	Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI	59.5	119.5	10	(4)
15	Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI	59.2	181.5	15	0
16	Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX	59.2	51.1	8	(8)
17	Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, FL Metropolitan Division	58.0	26.7	16	(1)
18	San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA	57.7	156.5	11	(7)
19	Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA	57.4	31.6	14	(5)
20	Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, CA Metropolitan Division	56.9	158.0	20	0
21	Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, AZ	56.6	117.8	43	22
22	Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, CO	56.3	63.4	34	12
23	Indianapolis-Carmel, IN	55.3	83.7	50	27
24	Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA	54.8	114.7	19	(5)
25	Cincinnati-Middletown, OH-KY-IN	54.7	106.0	6	(19)
26	Pittsburgh, PA	54.1	89.3	28	2
27	Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH	53.9	122.4	18	(9)
28	Columbus, OH	53.0	65.6	21	(7)
29	Sacramento--Arden-Arcade--Roseville, CA	52.6	34.1	57	28
30	San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA	52.5	93.1	29	(1)
31	Honolulu, HI	52.4	10.8	36	5
32	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA	51.6	148.8	25	(7)
33	Raleigh-Cary, NC	51.2	27.2	45	12
34	Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL Metropolitan Division	50.9	324.7	26	(8)
35	Nassau-Suffolk, NY Metropolitan Division	49.3	73.4	35	0
36	Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY	49.0	50.9	12	(24)
37	Jacksonville, FL	47.6	28.0	53	16
38	Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA NECTA Division	47.2	91.5	23	(15)
39	Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT NECTA	46.7	56.8	27	(12)
40	Bergen-Hudson-Passaic, NJ	46.5	60.2	17	(23)
41	San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, CA Metropolitan Division	44.9	36.2	37	(4)
42	Oakland-Fremont-Hayward, CA Metropolitan Division	43.5	79.9	44	2
43	St. Louis, MO-IL	42.0	109.0	31	(12)
44	Providence-Fall River-Warwick, RI-MA NECTA	41.6	50.8	36	(8)
45	Dallas-Plano-Irving, TX Metropolitan Division	40.9	164.2	30	(15)
46	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA Metropolitan Division	40.8	362.7	49	3
47	Memphis, TN-MS-AR	40.2	43.7	42	(5)
48	Las Vegas-Paradise, NV	39.0	20.2	51	3
49	Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL	38.7	37.7	40	(9)
50	Philadelphia City, PA	38.6	23.1	55	5
51	West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach, FL Metropolitan Division	37.1	15.2	56	5
52	New York City, NY	35.7	75.2	58	6
53	Edison-New Brunswick, NJ Metropolitan Division	34.0	58.4	64	11
54	Richmond, VA	33.9	31.9	65	11
55	Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL	33.3	58.9	41	(14)
56	Rochester, NY	32.9	57.9	32	(24)
57	New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA	32.1	29.8	38	(19)
58	Northern Virginia, VA	30.7	21.9	39	(19)
59	Bethesda-Rockville-Frederick, MD Metropolitan Division	30.5	15.8	54	(5)
60	Kansas City, MO	29.6	37.8	13	(47)
61	Putnam-Rockland-Westchester, NY	27.7	24.5	63	2
62	Newark-Union, NJ-PA Metropolitan Division	27.5	63.4	52	(10)
63	Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, FL Metropolitan Division	26.8	35.0	59	(4)
64	Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA	25.5	86.4	62	(2)
65	Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metropolitan Division	24.6	32.0	61	(4)
66	Camden, NJ Metropolitan Division	21.9	35.3	60	(6)

Manufacturing rankings by Michael Shires.

Michael Shires, Ph.D. is a professor at Pepperdine University School of Public Policy.

This piece originally appeared at Forbes.com.

by Angry Aspie.

Why Gentrification?

Aaron M. Renn — Tue, 14 May 2013 01:38:09 -0400

The mostly commonly chosen means, or at least attempted means, of revitalizing central cities that have fallen on hard times is gentrification. Gentrification is the process of replacing the poor population of a neighborhood with the affluent and reorienting the district along upscale lines. This has seen enormous success in large swaths of New York and Chicago, but even traditionally struggling cities like Cleveland have seen pockets of this type of development downtown.

What makes gentrification so attractive as a redevelopment strategy? There are many reasons.

The first and most easily understandable is that is works, at least in a given geographic area. There’s a proven track record and model for redeveloping cities on an upscale basis. It may do very little for the rest of the city, but it does work for those who live, work, and, perhaps most importantly, invest in them.

But perhaps the best question is: are there any other success models? It’s hard to point to many other successful models for redeveloping urban cores. The only alternative, and one that cities generally pursue in parallel, is attracting immigrants who seek out and revitalize out of fashion districts, often in outlying precincts of the city or the inner ring suburbs. Where there are successful working class districts in cities today, most of them are older neighborhoods that have hung on, not new ones birthed out of decline.

In a modern America where income equality and class divisions are a huge problem, it’s definitely mission critical for America to restart the middle class jobs engine and renew our metro regions as engines of upward mobility. But that’s easy to say and hard to do, at least from an inner city perspective.

The manufacturing jobs that previously supported a middle and comfortable working class lifestyle are gone and likely are not coming back. Public sector employment, traditionally another way to a middle class life in the city, is under extreme pressure due to fiscal mismanagement. Key services like the public schools remain intractably broken in most places. Segregation remains entrenched. What is the basis on which a middle or working class life will be re-established in the city? It isn’t clear. Untold billions pumped into various Great Society type programs accomplished little that was sustainable. Indeed, many programs like urban renewal, yesterday’s urban planning conventional wisdom, turned out to be disasters for cities. Community organizing may have launched the career of President Obama, but it’s not clear how it has helped Chicago’s marginalized communities. Given the paucity of models other than gentrification, it’s easy to see the attraction.

Other reasons also drive cities toward gentrification. Clearly with a fiscal crisis, attracting more high income taxpayers (even where local taxes are predominantly on property) is clearly attractive. And the existing affluent residents need to have some assurance that they are being taken seriously by the city and aren’t just being used as ATM machines for redistribution.

The change in the macro-economy that led to the income gap, including national policies that favor finance and technology rather than traditional manufacturing and energy type sectors, plays a huge role as well. These elite industries require a highly educated, highly skilled workforce and they are subject to clustering economics. Theories like “Creative Class” that describe this phenomenon suggest that this is a fickle group of people who seek out a gentrified neighborhood consisting largely of people like themselves. This has been glommed onto by the elite themselves – the various politicians, the wealthy, business executives, cultural leaders, academics and others. They hold power in cities and use this to justify further investment in gentrification related programs – that is, their own class interest – although these programs do little for anyone who is not elite.

Lastly, changes in the composition of local elites favor the publicly subsidized luxury real estate projects aimed at gentrification. In previous generations the CEOs of local operating businesses like banks and utilities were major power players. These tended to be fragmented industries and predominantly local in focus, so the overall civic health – in everything from education to infrastructure – was critical to the health of their core business. The interests of the community and CEOs were aligned.

Today, most large-scale, and even many smaller, businesses have been nationalized or globalized, and the local power players are increasingly people like lawyers, real estate developers, and construction magnates who make money by the hour or project. The shift from locally focused operating businesses to national or global operating businesses, with remaining locally owned and focused businesses tending to be of the transactional type, produced a local elite who prefers doing deals than building broad community success. Unsurprisingly, they’ve doubled down on high end luxury developments, often subsidized by the government.

Lastly, once the ball gets rolling on gentrification, market forces can sustain it provided that the overall policy set remains favorable to elite type development. And having a lot of high end, swanky type development generates buzz for a city, something more prosaic, and more broadly based, working class success never does.

Given the lack of proven alternative models and the alignment of multiple incentives behind it, there’s no surprise gentrification is the almost universal aspirational choice for cities in redevelopment. But the gentrification model in most places is simply too narrow to move the needle or produce any benefits down the economic ladder. It is imperative that urban thinkers and leaders try harder to find models that provide more inclusive and broadly-based and socially sustainable benefits.

Aaron M. Renn is an independent writer on urban affairs and the founder of Telestrian, a data analysis and mapping tool. He writes at The Urbanophile.

Photo by Dom Dada.

Housing Market Fringe Movement

Joel Kotkin — Mon, 13 May 2013 01:38:53 -0400

A year or two ago, pundits and planners, in California and elsewhere, proclaimed – and largely celebrated – the demise of suburbia. They were particularly heartened by a report, financed by portions of the real estate industry, that predicted the market for single-family homes in the state was hopelessly flooded, with a supply overhang of up to 25 years. The "new California dream" would supplant the ranch house with a high-density apartment, built along a transit or bus line.

So much for the grand theory. As the economy has begun to recover from its nadir, single-family home sales have taken off, both in California and across the country. In 2012, prices rose by 6 percent nationwide, and pent-up demand has spurred interest among investors and buyers.

In California, the new dream imagined by planners, pundits and their real estate backers is being supplanted by, well, a more traditional aspiration. In our state, hard hit by the most-recent housing bubble, single-family home prices surged 24 percent over the past year as inventories dropped precipitously. In some particularly desirable areas, such as Irvine, the supply constraints are at levels lower than experienced even in boom times.

We are beginning to see a resurgence – which we were told never to expect – in new projects. The government reported recently that housing permits, still well below their peak, surged in February to their highest level since June 2008, an increase of nearly 34 percent from a year earlier.

In Southern California, prospects for new single-family home construction are beginning to gear up. Toll Brothers, for example, recently bought into a new 2,000-home development in Lake Forest. Developers are turning over land across a vast portion of the state, particularly in places like Riverside-San Bernardino, which were at the epicenter of the housing bust but are now showing signs of recovery.

The media's surprise at these developments reflects the disconnect between the perceptions of planners, academics and some developers and reality on the ground. In the past decade or two, a huge industry has arisen, proclaiming the end of the single-family home and heralding the rise of densely populated urban cores. Yet, an analysis of the 2010 Census shows that growth in the suburbs, as opposed to core cities, actually rose from 85 percent to 91 percent from the previous decade.

So, too, did the proportion of detached single-family homes, which grabbed 80 percent of the market during 2000-10, leaving 20 percent for multifamily buildings and townhouses. And now, with the market recovering, single-family homes in 2012 accounted for nearly two of three homes sold. Overall, sales of single-family homes in the past year were roughly seven times those for co-ops and condos nationwide.

What's behind this? It may have something to do with a little thing called consumer preference. Overall surveys tend to show that roughly 80 percent of adults prefer single-family houses, usually in either suburbs or exurbs.

Of course, many insist that, in the aftermath of the 2007 housing bust, Americans now are finally unlearning their bad habits. In 2010, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, pointing to the flood of foreclosures in suburban reaches of Phoenix, claimed that the die, indeed, was already cast. "We've reached the limits of suburban development," Donovan claimed. "People are beginning to vote with their feet and come back to the central cities."

Yet, although the Great Recession certainly slowed overall migration to suburbs, numbers for 2011, the most recent available, showed domestic migrants continued to head away from core counties and toward those in the suburbs and exurbs. Now that the economy is improving, this trend seems likely to continue, or even accelerate.

Core cities may be reviving, but this is still a suburban nation; conservative estimates indicate than more than 70 percent of residents in major metropolitan areas live in suburbs. To be sure, areas within three miles of an urban core grew 4.7 percent in the past decade, or 206,000, a nice reversal from previous declines. Yet this represented less than one-half the metropolitan growth rate of 10.6 percent. Further, this growth was more than negated by a 272,000 loss of people living from two miles to five miles from the urban core.

Contrast this with fringe growth. Over the past decade, for example, areas five to 10 miles further from the core expanded their populations by 1.1 million. Areas further out, 10 to 20 miles, added 6.5 million residents. Areas beyond 20 miles from the urban core saw the largest growth, 8.6 million – 40 times the growth in the urban core and nearly four times the percentage growth (18.0 percent).

It does not appear that the Great Recession reversed these trends. An analysis of population growth in 2011-2012 by Jed Kolko, chief economist for the real estate website Trulia, found that the old patterns reinforced themselves, with strong, but numerically small, growth in the core, but the most robust expansion at the fringes. "The suburbanization of America," Kolko suggests, "marches on."

In Southern California, this also is the pattern. From 2000-10, the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area added twice as many people as did Los Angeles and three times that of San Diego. Overall growth in Los Angeles has been strongest toward its urban fringe. Although media coverage has focused on the growing residential population of Los Angeles' downtown, which expanded from 35,884 to 51,329 over the decade, this population is actually smaller than that of the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Sherman Oaks. It is also more than 5,000 fewer people that in the Riverside County community of Eastvale, once primarily an area of dairy farms that incorporated only in 2010 and whose population has increased eight-fold since 2000.

The geography of the post-crash economy, despite the strong losses in suburban industries like manufacturing and construction, also has remained much as it was before the recession, and may begin to assert itself more in the future. A new report from the urban-core-oriented Brookings Institution found that the percentage of jobs within three miles of the urban core dropped in all but nine of the nation's 100-largest metropolitan areas; only Washington, D.C., saw strong relative growth in its core.

Overall, the periphery is now the dominant job center in metropolitan America, with more than 65 percent of all jobs in the largest metropolitan areas and with twice as many jobs 10 miles from the urban core as in the core itself. This undercuts the assertions by planners and retro-urbanists that we can cut commutes by coercing people to live closer to the core. The real trend is that many historically bedroom communities are nearing parity between jobs and resident employees. The jobs/housing balance, which measures the number of jobs per resident employee in a geographical area, has reached 0.89 (jobs per resident workers) in the suburbs of the country's 51 major metropolitan areas, according to American Community Survey 2011 data.

This proportion is greater in Southern California, where numerous job centers compete with downtown Los Angeles, which holds barely 3 percent of the region's employment. Instead, many of the region's strongest job centers – Ontario, Burbank, West Los Angeles, Valencia – are themselves suburban in nature. Overall, the strongest office markets remain in places like around John Wayne Airport and West Los Angeles, which have recovered much more than downtown Los Angeles, despite that area's much ballyhooed "vibrancy."

If the goal is to reduce both commute times and energy use, perhaps these dispersed centers may offer the best hope. In Irvine, for example, by 2000 there were three jobs for every resident; roughly two in five residents worked in the city. Commutes for Irvine residents are among the shortest in the Los Angeles basin, notes Ali Modarres, chairman of the Geography Department at Cal State Los Angeles.

There's also a danger that policies seeking to restrict construction of single-family homes could further inflate housing prices and thus also create a potential oversupply of the multifamily product that the planners and many developers want to push. This is particularly true here in sunny Southern California, where the single-family house represents, in historian Sam Bass Warner's phrase, "the glory of Los Angeles and an expression of its design for living."

Given these deep-seated preferences, perhaps it would make more sense if our planners, and some developers, would awake from their dogmatic slumbers. Their job should be to facilitate the quality of life that people seek, not to tell them how to live. That means admitting that the future of both America and, particularly, Southern California, is likely to remain largely suburban for years to come.

This piece originally appeared in the Orange County Register.

Suburbs photo courtesy of BigStockPhoto.com.

Slow the Presses!

Wendell Cox — Sat, 11 May 2013 01:38:01 -0400

It has been a difficult time for newspapers. The industry has experienced serious challenges due to multiple factors going back at least to the early 1960s when the three major television networks began their extensive and widely popular evening news programs, with the likes of Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.

Recent Setbacks

The rise of the Internet over the last two decades has posed a much larger challenge. More people were able to access more interactive news sources, including the Internet editions of major newspapers, nearly all of which were free in the beginning. Then there was Apple, with its ground-breaking iPad which made accessing news sources more user-friendly. Newspapers competed hard to design their own applications, which often required paid subscriptions. Of course, Ipad has competitors now and many newspapers have implemented paid firewalls for their Internet sites.

However, the Great Recession may have dealt the most important blow to the print edition. The collapse of the housing market brought a catastrophic decline in real estate and help wanted classified advertisements, a key source of revenues. Added to this was a drop in overall business, which also reduced advertising revenues.

Some large newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal,and The New York Times claim they have gained circulation. However, looking beneath the gross numbers provided by the Alliance for Audited Media, it is clear that virtually all of the gains are in on line editions, while print editions continue to decline. Even the online gains may be overstated, because a print edition subscriber who is also an online edition subscriber gets counted twice for the same newspaper.

Smaller Press Runs

A review of the change in circulation in the nation's 20 largest newspapers since 1998 indicates the depth of the losses. The year 1998 is chosen because newspaper circulations remained at high levels and the losses to Internet editions and other media sources has not yet occurred.

From 1998 to 2013, the 20 largest newspapers lost more than 5 million of their 13.4 million weekday print subscribers, a loss of nearly four out of ten subscribers (39 percent). At the same time, there were substantial differences among the top 20 papers in their losses (Table).

Top 15 Newspapers in 1998: 1998-2013 Print Circulation
Newspaper	1998	2013	% Change
The Wall Street Journal	1,740	1,481	-14.9%
USA Today	1,653	1,424	-13.8%
The New York Times	1,067	731	-31.5%
Los Angeles Times	1,068	433	-59.5%
The Washington Post	759	431	-43.2%
New York Post	438	409	-6.6%
Chicago Tribune	673	368	-45.3%
New York Daily News	723	360	-50.1%
Arizona Republic	435	286	-34.3%
Newsday (Long Island)	572	266	-53.5%
Houston Chronicle	551	231	-58.0%
Minneapolis Star Tribune	335	228	-32.0%
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer B.	382	216	-43.4%
The Denver Post	342	214	-37.5%
San Diego Union-Tribune	378	194	-48.7%
The Dallas Morning News	480	191	-60.3%
The Philadelphia Inquirer	429	185	-56.9%
Chicago Sun-Times	486	185	-62.0%
Newark Star-Ledger	407	180	-55.7%
The Boston Globe	471	172	-63.5%
Total	13,389	8,185	-38.9%
In thousands
Source: Alliance for Audited Media & predecessor

Losers and Catastrophic Losers

All of the newspapers lost subscribers, but some lost many more than others. The New York Post, a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, posted the smallest loss, less than 30,000 of its 1998 subscriber base of 438,000.

USA Today, Gannett’s unique national general-interest newspaper, experienced the second smallest loss, at 13.8 percent. USA Today, also the newest newspaper on the list (1982), is the nation's second-largest newspaper and fell from a circulation of 1.65 million in 1990 to 1.42 million in 2013.

Another Murdoch title, The Wall Street Journal, purchased in 2007, did a third-best in holding onto its print readership. The Journal retained its position as the largest daily newspaper in the nation, with circulation dropping from 1.74 million in 1998 to 1.48 million in 2013. This amounted to a small loss compared to other newspapers (14.9 percent). The 260,000 loss in actual subscribers was larger than the total current daily circulation of 10 of the top 20 US newspapers (such as the Houston Chronicleand The Boston Globe).

The nation's third largest newspaper, The New York Times, lost nearly one-third of its print circulation between 1998 and 2013. Even so, this was less than the loss rate of all but three newspapers (The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today).

The largest relative circulation loss was atThe Boston Globe, which saw a departure of nearly two-thirds (63.5 percent) of its subscribers. This was more than double the losses by its owner, The New York Times.

Two other newspapers lost 60 percent or more of their readers between 1998 and 2013. The Chicago Sun-Times experienced a loss of 62 percent while The Dallas Morning News saw 60 percent of its subscribers flee. This huge loss is particularly notable, given that the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area is one of the fastest growing regions in the world. For example, in Phoenix, which has also grown very rapidly, theArizona Republic lost only one third of its readership, having taken advantage of the rapidly expanding market.

Perhaps most disastrous has been the decline at the Los Angeles Times. For more than two decades, the LA Times had been the nation's third or fourth largest newspaper, following The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and sometimes The New York Times. This ranking was not much changed in 2013, as the LA Times was the fourth largest newspaper.

However, over 15 years, the LA Times lost nearly 6 out of every 10 of its subscribers. In 1998, the LA Times had 1,000 more subscribers than The New York Times, at 1,088,000. By 2013, print subscriptions at LA Times had fallen to 433,000. Over the period, The New York Times managed to secure a stranglehold on third position, opening a nearly 300,000 subscriber lead over the LA Times. Should the losses at the LA Times continue at this rate, it could be passed by both The Washington Post and the New York Post within a couple of years (Figure).

In raw subscriber numbers, the LA Times losses were the most precipitous by far at 635,000, compared to second largest loss at the New York Daily News at 363,000. The Daily News continues a long slide, having been the nation’s largest newspaper for decades to the 1970s. It is now the third-largest paper in the three paper New York City market, having been passed by the New York Post some time ago. The Daily News, however, still leads the suburban Newsdayand Newark Star-Ledger.

Even Bigger Losses

Some of the larger declines in newspaper circulation are not evident in the latest data. For example, The San Francisco Chronicle experienced a drop of 65 percent in its circulation from 1998 to 2012 (2013 data not available). The spectacular decline of Detroit’s two metropolitan dailies has outstripped all of the others over a longer period of time. In the middle 1980s, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News each had circulations of approximately 650,000. By 2012, the Free Press had fallen to approximately 135,000 and the News to under 80,000. These drops were much larger than the city of Detroit’s population loss. Now, the two papers offer home delivery only three days of the week (Thursday, Friday and Sunday), while subscribers are encouraged to use internet editions on other days.

Of course, over the last 15 years, a number of familiar titles have been closed, such as the Rocky Mountain News (Denver), the separate Atlanta Journal and Constitution (now combined as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) and the Cincinnati Post. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer took the intermediate step of shutting down its print edition, but retaining an Internet edition, which has remained a strong presence online.

Where from Here?

There have been other changes as well. Virtually all of the US broadsheets (the wide, familiar print format) are now printed in more compact editions, having been reduced from approximately 15 inches wide to 12 or even 11 inches wide (28, 30.5 and 38 centimeters). There are international format changes, as well. The Times of London (weekday edition) converted from broadsheet to tabloid in 2004, while The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s uniquely named The Age switched to tabloid format in March.

The communications business has changed over the past two decades. Newspapers have been trying to cope, but it seems unlikely that print editions will experience any resurgence. The open question is whether the newer online strategies will save them from oblivion, but that’s hard to predict.

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.

Photo: Los Angeles Times headquarters courtesy of WikiCommons

The Cleveland Miracle That Should Never Have Been

Richey Piiparinen — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:45:54 -0400

“[T]he most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.” Writer David Foster Wallace

The story of the three Cleveland women kidnapped over 10 years ago and recently found alive in a house on the city’s Near West Side has captivated the national imagination. There is the miracle aspect from the fact that such situations rarely end this way. There is the hero aspect that is Charles Ramsey, the raw dog, uber-Cleveland man that tells it like it is (e.g., “Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little, pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms.”) But that is not what this essay is about. Rather, it is about our failure as a city, particularly a failure of priority.

On Monday, May 6th, the feeling in the air as one of the girls-turned-women emerged into her freedom was torn. There was elation at the miracle that the supposed dead were alive, yet there was also a collective unease that comes with the reality that Cleveland can be a violent city, and that there was a need for a miracle in the first place.

Worse, the fact that the decades-long captivity occurred in the shadows of Cleveland’s revitalization success story, Ohio City—the city’s artisan district and home of the West Side Market—well, let’s just say it was enough to give many in this city pause. Including myself.

Specifically, the week’s events left me acutely aware that Cleveland is still comprised of remnants of a post-industrial community. For it is a city still reeling. Still struggling. Still failing the most vulnerable. And it is a city still culpable, if only through fostering a continued failure in leadership that refuses to build the city the right way.

Yes, like many cities, there are pockets of reinvestment, such as the gentrifying neighborhoods of Detroit Shoreway, Downtown, University Circle, Ohio City, and Tremont. And reinvestment in inner-city neighborhoods is needed, as concentrated poverty and segregation is no path forward. But Cleveland is not going to consume and play its way out of this. Re-treading the entertainment district into whatever urban revitalization fad appears to be going on in any given decade will only lead to what we always got: a perpetual state of “revitalization”. What will work is a real reconstitution of Cleveland’s neighborhoods; that is, a reconstitution of people, and not simply of place. To that end, think of the city as a net. No amount of investment will stick until we rethread our community fabric, which involves growing the people that comprise a community in the first place.

How does a city do this? Well, the first step is to not get too cute, and to do the obvious realities right.. No amount of beautification projects will save a post-industrial city. A city needs to focus on the basics, as you develop a city like you grow a child. Here, the psychologist Albert Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can help.

To wit, city leaders must prioritize physiological needs: eradicate food deserts, curb environmental threats, etc. Then, focus on safety. Not just manning safety force slots, but making sure those protecting us respect their duty. There are big questions about this in Cleveland. Also, shelter. Real local housing policies are needed, as are innovative educational and workforce development strategies. If you want to get creative, you can even leverage and strategize various needs together, like utilizing a glut of vacant storefronts into small business/entrepreneurial initiatives. Next, encourage social and cultural attachment so the benefits of community capital can be had. Don’t worry. If persons can breathe, eat, work, feel safe, and go home, they are likely to do this on their own. In fact that is the beauty of a hierarchy approach, as investment at the bottom turns into a self-fulfilling process up top. And then the icing on the cake: actualizing individuals, perhaps through fostering creative capital programs. That said, creatively classifying a city is doing it backwards if you haven’t built your city from the foundation up. Said Maslow: “A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.”

And while this makes intuitive sense to regular Clevelanders, it is confusing for the local leaders, if only through the advice of revitalization experts. For instance, in an article addressing concerns over whether or not Detroit’s investment should go to a bike path initiative, the author references an expert as to why the answer is “yes”:

As Peter Kageyama argues in his book For the Love of Cities, “In the city making ‘hierarchy of needs’ we see most communities focused on bottom-line, core issues of making cities functional and safe. There still are many communities that struggle to even deliver functional and safe but that is not the problem. The problem is when communities only focus on the functional and safe and never raise their aspirations.”…Ultimately, places that do not engage us emotionally do not feel worth caring about.

Clicking on the link above to Kageyama’s page, the expert details his thoughts and his audience:

I focus primarily on American cities though the ideas are relevant to any place. I pay particular attention to some of our most challenged places such as Detroit, Cleveland and New Orleans as they have become hot beds of social innovation as government and the “official” city-makers have struggled to reconcile shrinking budgets and diminished capabilities. Into this vacuum has flowed a new breed of city-maker – usually young, independent, unofficial, creative, rule breaking and entrepreneurial. These are the new “frontiersmen” and “frontierswomen” who are rebuilding these cities from the ground up.

There are a few problems here. First, while attachment to place is important, the logic is a bit flawed. A person insecure in various aspects of livability, like food and shelter, is not going to have their concerns addressed via an emotional connection to a given place. I am not saying developing place is bad. I am only saying such an approach is akin investing in nice drapes as your house is on fire. Put the fire out. Protect your people. Grow your people. After all, according to economic developer Jim Russell, people develop, not places.

Second, local leaders are elected for a reason. To lead. And to serve and protect. “Frontiersmen” or Frontierswomen” are not going to protect the preyed upon—notwithstanding Charles Ramsey, though I doubt that is what Kageyama had in mind.

No doubt, the events in Cleveland have shaken the city—yet another tear in an already torn city. And while the local and national news media is branding the escape of three women and one child as the “Miracle in Cleveland”, it wasn’t. At least not for us. We failed these young women. We failed the women before them. I hope this serves as our wake-up call. We will not play our way out of this. And if we continue to try, there will always be shame in the shadows of our revitalization.

Richey Piiparinen is a writer and policy researcher based in Cleveland. He is co-editor of Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology. Read more from him at his blog and at Rust Belt Chic.

Top photo Courtesy of WOIO/AP

Can Public Banks Help Fix Local Finance?

Jason Sibert — Wed, 08 May 2013 01:38:31 -0400

Are public banks the answer for the recession-induced decline in municipal revenue and other ills that plague our cities? It’s a solution being discussed in more than one American city.

Mike Krauss, a founder of the Public Banking Institute and a chairmen of the Pennsylvania Pubic Bank Project, both non-profits that promote public banking, said this month an ad hoc committee made up of Philadelphia City Council members and civic groups started working on the adoption of language for a public bank in the city. He also said the measure is being adopted out of a need for “affordable and sustainable credit.” The PPBP is leading the effort for public banking in the city.

The recession’s impact on municipal taxes and anger at Wall Street were factors in the push for a public bank. Krauss described the losses to Philadelphia’s school district, street, police and fire departments as “phenomenal.”

Krauss mentioned North Dakota’s public bank, founded in 1919 to promote agriculture, commerce and industry in the state, as a role model for cities. The North Dakota bank arose in reaction to farmers’ anger over the predatory practices of East Coast and Minneapolis banks. The bank’s revenues come from the state’s general revenue fund. Krauss cites the Bank of North Dakota’s 2.9 billion portfolio in a state with a population of roughly 600,000 as an example of its success. Philadelphia has a population of approximately 1.5 million. Krauss also said a public bank would be a job creator for cities and again used the BND as an example, as it produced a job for every 100,000 dollars it loaned.

Like North Dakota’s bank, the proposed public bank in Philadelphia wouldn’t be a commercial bank that offers checking and savings accounts. It would lend money for city projects and also partner with local commercial banks on loans. There are also efforts underway for public banks in San Francisco and Boston, according to Krauss.

Public Banking Institute Chairmen Marc Armstrong said that over a trillion dollars in revenue from states and municipalities are deposited in big Wall Street banks every year. Armstrong also said many of the deposits are used to provide loans for transnational corporations that don’t invest in their states and cities. Public banks can provide loans as low as one percent interest, and Wall Street banks consider their existence as a threat, said Armstrong. When it comes to taxation and other issues that confront cities, a public bank could be used as a weapon against the rent-seeking – meaning using social and political circumstances to extract more money out of the public – activities by financiers. The public bank would instead invest in higher education, automotive and banking industries and as a tool for productive economic enterprises and individuals. This weapon could in turn create more vibrant activities in urban economies.

Krauss admitted the possibilities for the use of revenue generated by a public bank are endless, and he said investment in the school district, infrastructure and public safety would be positives. However, other job creating services and projects could be a reality – free wi-fi, the construction of affordable rental housing for retired people and low income residents, rent-to-own home ownership (or condo) programs, research and development to support public science, scientific innovation and high technology industries, childcare facilities, higher education for city residents, public media, new parks, free or reduced utilities for businesses and individuals, and also investments in energy efficiency, recycling, renewable energy and car sharing.

The positive impacts of the above mentioned investments go beyond public banking, as it is the starting point for a more vibrant urban economy, education system and ecology. With a new source of revenue, business taxes could be slashed to promote business formation in public banking inclined cities, and more businesses within city limits would mean even more revenue.

Similar to slashing taxes for business, free or reduced costs on wi-fi and utilities would also help local businesses and individuals by reducing their overhead costs and in turn create more jobs, as more money could be spent in the form of investment by businesses themselves and in increased individual purchasing power that works its way back into local businesses.

Recycling would have a similar effect, as it’s cheaper for a city to recycle, if the program is a well-run, than to pay for waste collection, land filling and incineration. By reducing the costs of waste, cities could again reduce business taxes and once again create more business formation, and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling reduces pollution not only by reducing the waste sent to landfills, but it also reduces the need for cutting down more trees and the inputs needed to manufacture a product.

Urban and non-urban citizens all create waste and for that reason recycling is a bigger job creator than renewable energy which cannot produce all of our energy due to intermittency and also the cost, as it’s still more expensive than traditional forms. Despite these drawbacks, new revenue could be used to create jobs in solar energy by installing solar panels on public buildings – school district offices, schools, and city hall. Also worth thinking about is the possibility of constructing biogas plants that break down organic waste – which can come from the vast amount of sewage a city creates – to create another, perhaps more reliable form of renewable energy.

The additional revenue produced by the use of public banking and increased business formation could also be used to lift the burden of rent-seeking higher education institutions by offering lower interest loans to help young people attain a higher education, affordable rent and affordable home or condo ownership without acquiring crushing debt. Cities could offer a few years of free vocational, art, culinary and business education. The media is full of stories of urban residents burdened with student loan debt which benefits universities, colleges and the government and decreases the amount of money circulating into local businesses. Also, cities would benefit from this investment by creating a new generation of productive workers, chefs and artists and the businesses that are created along with them.

Low interest loans could also be offered to local real estate interest for rent-to-own condo and house programs and affordable apartments could be constructed with low-interest loan portfolios. Of course, landlords would have to abide by low-rent policies if they are to take advantage of the policies, blunting the rent raising effects of gentrification while maintaining its’ positive side.

Cities could also put public dollars behind a new innovation in transportation – car sharing - which has been pioneered by Zipcar. Cities could help expand the company’s business by offering it low tax rates and subsides to locate within their borders; those arguing they would wasteful should take a second look at what’s spent on sports stadiums. Or maybe cities could building their own car sharing industry with local business leaders. The expansion of car sharing would mean less impact on the infrastructure and reduce the amount spent on infrastructure. It would also reduce traffic congestion and make it possible for residents of surrounding suburbs to enjoy the city’s attractions.

Cities can and should be hubs for creative people and immigrants, as they see life in almost-dead neighborhoods and create gentrifying enterprises such as restaurants, cafes, music venues, art galleries, artisan manufacturing, coffee roasting, small boutique retailers and all sorts of internet and technology businesses. However, cities can’t and shouldn’t lose focus on what sustains critical functions such as public safety, infrastructure and education – revenue. The public bank offers an opportunity for cities to invest in themselves, not the profit portfolios of Wall Street.

Jason Sibert is a freelance writer who has lived in the St. Louis Metro Area since the late 90's. He worked for the Suburban Journals for a decade and his work has appeared in various publications over the last four years.

Photo by David Shankbone.