Demographics

Migration Myths and Political Change

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“California migration turned Colorado blue.” That sums up a common belief about how domestic (as well as international) migration plays out politically.  read more »

The Future of Cities: California's Inland Empire

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Ryan Atwood was the juvenile delinquent from the slums of Chino, just east of the county line, as depicted in the popular show The O.C. However, Chino was not a crime-ridden pocket in the Golden State  read more »

Ex-Urbia

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"Town and country must be married and out of this joyous union will spring a new hope, a new life, a new civilization.”
— Ebenezer Howard, 1898"

All cities must evolve over time. Those that fail to do so end up, at best, like Venice, Vienna, or Florence: lifestyle and tourist hubs. This fate now awaits our greatest urban cores if they cannot address the demographic, social, and economic forces transforming the metropolitan landscape.  read more »

Demographia International Housing Affordability – 2023 Edition Released

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Demographia International Housing Affordability rates middle-income housing affordability in 94 major housing markets in eight nations: Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. This edition covers the third quarter (September quarter) of 2022.  read more »

The Future of Cities: The Evolution of New York City Politics

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It's always been a mug's fame to best against New York City, which was counted out only to quickly bounce back after 9/11 and again in 2008 after the financial system nearly collapsed and took the world economy with it.  read more »

Canada and the U.S. are Not Systemically Racist — and the Numbers Prove It

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As we talk about the future, we also need to confront the past. History, with all its complexities, defines our civilization, creating both cautionary tales and forging a common identity  read more »

2022 Residential Building Permits by Housing Market

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The US Census Bureau has released preliminary data for residential building permits by metropolitan area (housing market). This article provides data for all of the 384 metropolitan areas, with emphasis on the 113 with populations exceeding 500,000 residents (Note).  read more »

California Has a Population Problem – At a Minimum

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There’s not much reason to expect more than a churn of mediocrity from the Los Angeles Times these days.  read more »

The Ghost of Ancient Rome Haunts America

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The death of Ancient Rome wasn’t so much a collapse as a slow, interminable decay: between the second and sixth centuries AD, its population declined from a million people to just 30,000.  read more »

Race, Class, and Culture

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Racial divisions have become the stalking horse of our politics and social discourse, with racism defined as white on black (often extending to Western vs. non-Western ethnicities). Google Trends reveals how the online topic of racism has steadily risen over the past decade, spiking like a seismic reading of an earthquake in June, 2020 that marked the George Floyd tragedy and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed.  read more »