The Metro Framing Urbanists Didn't Know They Needed

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If you’ve ever taken any interest in how cities grow and evolve, I’m sure you’ve noticed this before.

Urbanists want data. We want data that helps us understand how the places we love and live in got to be what they are. We want to know what makes them tick, what’s replicable.  read more »

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The Road to Neo-Feudalism

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For middle- and working-class people across the developed world, home ownership has served as a primary driver of upward mobility. But in a growing number of places, this aspiration is being systematically undermined  read more »

April 2024 Transit Ridership 74.6% of 2019

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Transit systems carried less than 75 percent as many riders in April 2024 as in the same month before the pandemic  read more »

The Media's Great Awokening is Alienating the Masses

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When I was a cub reporter working at the Washington Post a half-century ago, being a journalist was first and foremost a craft. I once tried to slip my opinion into an article, but my editor wrote on the copy that ‘nobody gives a shit what you think’.  read more »

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The Demographic Dilemma: How Urban Planning is Deepening Australia’s Social Divide

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For over two decades, urban planning’s preoccupation with urban form above all else, has diminished its ability to resolve the growing social and economic divide occurring across the nation.  read more »

The Green Road to Tyranny

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In all the hysteria about the threat to democracy connected to the bombast of Donald Trump, an arguably greater long-term threat is mounting, though all but ignored  read more »

Envisioning Rust Belt Success

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My Defining Rust Belt Urbanism piece three weeks ago, in which I discuss the themes of what would drive Midwest urban rebirth, prompted a great question.  read more »

How California Became a Warning to the World

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For generations, California has led the world in creating cutting-edge ideas and opportunities for newcomers.  read more »

Thinking in Public

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My newsletter happy hour here in Indiana is from 6p-8p in Carmel. The event is sold out, but if you are interested in going please email me and I can probably add you to the list.  read more »

Subjects:

Are Progressives to Blame for the Worsening Housing Crisis?

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In recent years, housing has emerged as arguably the key driver of class divisions in the Western world. For decades, working- and middle-class people could dream reasonably about buying a house  read more »