Urban Issues

I’ve been a big fan of Alan Mallach of the Center for Community Progress for years. I first met him at a Cleveland Fed conference in Cincinnati in 2017, and later interviewed him at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy  read more »

The steady decline of fertility rates in Australia presents a multifaceted challenge with wide-reaching implications for the nation’s social, cultural, and economic future.  read more »

Like many older industrial towns, Paramount, a mostly Latino city of 50,000 located 18 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, has been through hard times.  read more »

During its run, I absolutely loved the HBO series The Wire. It was a fascinating show that provided deep insight into the institutional corrosion that felled post-industrial cities like Baltimore.  read more »

If you want to know what’s happening in a place, ask a cab driver.

On a Sunday afternoon, during a short ride to the British Museum, I asked our cabbie about his energy bills  read more »

In honor of Black History Month, I annually write some piece that honors the significance and impact of the contributions of Black people on the American urban environment.  read more »

It looms, all glamour and glass, like a strange Wellsian monster. Floor by floor it comes, casting the Colorado River in shadow as it goes. By the time it’s finished, sometime next year, it’ll be the tallest building in Texas  read more »

I’ve had my differences with the YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) movement. Over the years I’ve written multiple pieces raising a position on zoning reform that rarely gets discussed  read more »

On his second day in office, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy directed federal transportation agencies to “give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average,”  read more »

Three weeks ago I wrote a piece about the role that a “Rust Belt Diaspora,” or the people who relocated from Rust Belt to Sun Belt states over the last 50 years  read more »