Urban Issues

U.S. Residential Building Permits by Market Size: 2023

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In 2023 a total of more than 1.5 million residential building permits were issued in the United States, according to the Census Bureau.  read more »

Subjects:

Canadians Moving to Smaller Cities and Rural Areas

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For the last two centuries, one of the most important demographic trends has been the movement of people from rural areas to the cities.  read more »

The New Revolutionary Class

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No power on earth is more fearsome than a highly educated class that faces a constrained, even dismal, future.  read more »

The Middling Kingdom

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In July, on the 35th anniversary of World Population Day, the United Nations released a new report that reduced the world’s peak population prediction by 100 million  read more »

What's Great About Midwestern Cities

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Anyone who follow me here knows I write quite a bit about Midwestern cities. They’re what I know best and love most.  read more »

The West Faces a New Type of Housing Crisis

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Throughout the West, particularly the Anglosphere, housing costs are ravaging the middle class. Homeownership, long the key to social mobility, is on the decline  read more »

How the City of Angels Went to Hell

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A journey through Los Angeles, the adopted home of Vice President Kamala Harris, offers a masterclass in urban dysfunction.  read more »

Moving Away from Density to Less Dense Detached Housing Areas

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Further evidence of the continued dispersion of the US population is revealed by an examination of net domestic migration data  read more »

Faster, Better, More: How to House Australia

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This paper, by property expert Ross Elliott, explores the reasons behind our current housing shortages and identifies a range of policy measures which have contributed to – rather than alleviated – the magnitude of the current housing ‘crisis.’  read more »

Canada Total Fertility Rate (TFR) Drops to 1.26, BC to 1.00

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Statistics Canada, Canada’s government statistical agency, has announced that the nation’s Total Fertility Rate dropped to 1.26 in 2023.  read more »