January 2016

You may be surprised to hear that condos, all else equal, are more expensive than houses. You should be, because it’s not true. But that didn’t deter Joel Kotkin, the one-man cottage industry of curious

At City Observatory, we post several new commentaries each week on a variety of urban themes, and aim to provide discrete, coherent analyses of specific questions, and contributing to the policy dialog about cities. At

Gas prices are down, driving is up, and so, too, is carbon pollution. In a little over a year, the US has given up about one-sixth of the progress it made in reducing transportation’s carbon

This week, Planetizen named City Observatory one of its 10 best urban websites of 2015, adding that “every single post is essential reading.” We’re extremely grateful for the recognition, and are excited about continuing our

Cities are becoming more important to the economic health of the country. How do we know? We can boil the answer down to four charts, each of which plots a key indicator of urban economic

Houston doesn’t have much of a reputation for public transit, although about 300,000 rides are taken on trains and buses in the region every weekday. Recently, though, the local transit agency, Metro, has been making