Portland's inclusionary zoning requirement is a slow-motion train-wreck; apartment completions are down by two-thirds, and the development pipeline is drying up This will lead to slower housing supply growth and increas... →

Albina then and now Basically, Albina was wiped out by Interstate Ave 99E (ODOT)   1951 Memorial Coliseum (City) 1958 I-5 1962 Emmanuel Hospital (PDC)  1970s Blanchard Center (PPS)  1980 Convention Center 1990... →

Home prices are soaring, rents are falling The disparate impact of the recession on high income and low income households in driving the housing market in two directions at once. Job losses have been concentrated amo... →

Widening I-5 at the  Rose Quarter in Portland will produce an addition 17.4 to 34.8 million miles of vehicle travel and 7.8 to 15.5 thousand tons of greenhouse gases per year. These estimates come from a customized cal... →

The real housing discrimination today is institutional, not personal The unfinished business of dismantling the institutional racism built into zoning Overt, personal discrimination in housing is just the tip of the ... →

Covid-19 now disproportionately affects rural America, and is hitting red states harder than blue ones. Rural counties have 14 percent of US population and 21 percent of new Covid-19 cases. The nation's largest, densest... →

Covid-19 now disproportionately affects rural America, and is hitting red states harder than blue ones. OK, reporters, we're waiting for the stories about rural Americans decamping to cities (or suburbs) and from red st... →

Pay no attention to Zumper's claims about rent trends Zumper claims rents for one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments are moving in opposite directions in about a fifth of all markets There's a lot of hyperventilation... →

Forget about lofty greenhouse gas reduction goals and vision zero, our real climate and transportation policy is cheap gas The fall in gas prices in 2014 led to more driving, more SUV purchases, less transit ridership, ... →

Reallocating street space to buses is inherently equitable Charging a very high price to cars for using scarce road space promotes equity Just a year ago, New York took the bold step of of restricting traffic on 14th... →

Why are there so few studies charting displacement and cultural decline in non-gentrifying neighborhoods? The implicit assumption in most gentrification research is that if a neighborhood doesn't change, that it stays t... →

The Urban Institute has released an updated set of estimates that purport to measure which US cities are the most inclusive.  The report is conceptually flawed, and actually gets its conclusions backwards, classifying som... →

Rising inequality in the US isn't new; Declining inequality globally is. Scratch just beneath the surface of many daily problems, and you'll find income inequality is a contributing factor, if not the chief culprit.  W... →

Here's a thought:  Let's fight traffic congestion using the same techniques DOT's use to promote safety. Let's have  costumed superheroes weigh in against congestion, and spend billions on safety, instead of the other... →

The Big Idea: Many metro areas vie for the title of “best food city.” But what cities have the most options for grabbing a bite to eat -- and what does that say about where you live? There are plenty of competin... →

As Jane Jacobs so eloquently described it in The Death and Life of American Cities, much of the essence of urban living is reflected in the “sidewalk ballet” of people going about their daily errands, wandering along t... →

This week, we're running a three-part series on the flawed way that we measure housing affordability. This post looks at exactly what's wrong with one of the most common ways we determine what "affordable" means. Tomorro... →

A story published by the Washington Post’s Wonkblog last week made the headline claim that “The McMansion is back, and bigger than ever.”  The article says that new homes are an average of 1,000 feet larger than in ... →

The growing appreciation of the importance of cities, especially by leaders in business and science, is much appreciated and long overdue.  Many have embraced the Smart City banner.  But it seems each observer defines �... →

Cities are organisms, not machines; So a smart city has to learn and not be engineered The growing appreciation of the importance of cities, especially by leaders in business and science, is much appreciated and long ov... →

A framework for thinking about smart cities Cities are organisms, not machines The growing appreciation of the importance of cities, especially by leaders in business and science, is much appreciated and long overdue.  ... →

For more than a decade, one of the hottest trends in economic development has been pursuing biotechnology. Cities and states around the nation have made considerable investments in biotech research, ranging from California... →

(This post coincides with the newly released report, Surging City Center Job Growth. The report and more details are found here.) For decades, urban economists have chronicled the steady decentralization of employment in... →

We recently featured a post regarding how venture capital is associated with economic mobility. We know that these are strongly correlated—and that, if we are concerned with the ability of children today to obtain ‘The... →

For over half a century, American cities were decentralizing, with suburban areas surpassing city centers in both population and job growth. It appears that these economic and demographic tides are now changing. Over the p... →

The work of Raj Chetty and his colleagues at the Equality of Opportunity project has spurred intense interest in the extent of economic mobility, measured by the likelihood that children born to low-income parents achieve ... →

Great public spaces make great cities. But so do great private spaces. They provide opportunities for people to socialize, and provide the character that make a city more livable and unique. We have already talked about ho... →

The number of eating places per capita is a key measure of a city's livability Cities are great places for consumers.  They provide an abundance and variety of choices, especially in the form of experiences. While our ... →

The Big Idea: Many metro areas vie for the title of “best food city.” But what cities have the most options for grabbing a bite to eat -- and what does that say about where you live? There are plenty of competin... →

Which metropolitan economies are the most productive?  Our broadest measure of economic output is gross domestic product -- the total value of goods and services produced by our economy.  Economists usually compare the p... →

Note: This article appeared originally in the February 13, 2010, edition of The Oregonian. Forgive any anachronistic references. These are tough economic times. Although economists tell us the recession is officially o... →

The red state/blue state divide is a persistent feature of American politics. Political differences among states are also associated with important economic differences, and a similar patterns hold across and within metro ... →

Recently, we discussed the growth in the number of urban high-poverty neighborhoods, which we illustrated by examining the distribution of poverty rates among census tracts. This analysis showed that high poverty neighborh... →

For the past several months, Portland’s City Council has been wrestling with various proposals to raise additional funds to pay for maintaining and improving city streets. After considering a range of ideas, including fe... →

At City Observatory, we’ve come the conclusion that every city has its own unique characteristics that both define its identity and which play a key role in shaping its economic opportunities.  These distinctive traits ... →

The number of security guards is a good measure of a city's level of "anti-social" capital In his book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam popularized the term “social capital.” Putnam also developed a clever series of sta... →

Cops per capita: An indicator of "Anti-social" capital?"  Why do some cities have vastly fewer police officers relative to their population than others? In the 1966 film "The Thin Blue Line" director William Friedki... →

Every city has its own unique characteristics. We know that industrial and occupational specializations can be measured using standard economic tools like location quotients. But some of the more intangible characteristics... →

In his book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam popularized the term “social capital.” Putnam also developed a clever series of statistics for measuring social capital. He looked at survey data about interpersonal trust (can ... →

In his book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam popularized the term “social capital.” Putnam also developed a clever series of statistics for measuring social capital. He looked at survey data about interpersonal trust (can ... →

The big idea: housing in desirable city neighborhoods in getting more expensive because the demand for urban living is growing. The solution? Build more great neighborhoods. To an economist, prices are an important signa... →

The Myth: Crime in cities is on the rise The Reality: Cities are getting safer For decades, the common perception about cities is that they were dangerous, dirty, and crowded. A look at the facts tells a differen... →

If your impression of cities came entirely from watching the evening news, you might think that cities are saddled with ever-increasing traffic congestion and rising crime rates. From talking to your Great Aunt Ida at Than... →

The Myth: Cities are polluted and have dirty air The Reality: Urban air quality has improved dramatically since 1990 For decades, the common perception about cities is that they were dangerous, dirty, and crowded... →

A new report detailing the “costs” of congestion twists the data to become little more than talking points for the highway lobby. For transportation geeks, Halloween came early this year. A new report claims ... →

The creation and allocation of living space within a metropolitan area shapes our well-being and the regional economy. →

Every city has its own unique character and strengths which shape its economic opportunities. →

The quality of life in cities is an essential ingredient and contributor to economic prosperity. →