Why we wrote “Less in Common,” our latest CityReport. We’ve come increasingly to understand the role of social capital in the effective function of cities and urban economies. The success of both local and national economies hinges not just on machines and equipment, skilled workers, a financial system and the rule of law, but also […]
The Civic Commons & City Success Read More »
The essence of cities is bringing people—from all walks of life—together in one place. Social interaction and a robust mixing of people from different backgrounds, of different ages, with different incomes and interests is part of the secret sauce that enables progress and creates opportunity. This ease of exchange underpins important aspects of our personal
Gentrification is a big issue in a few places, and not an issue at all elsewhere. Big cities with expensive housing are the flashpoint for gentrification. The city-policy-sphere is rife with debate on gentrification. Just in the past weeks, we have a French sociologist’s indictment of bourgeois movement to the central city, the Mayor of
Is gentrification a rare big city malady? Read More »
There’s probably no better example of the faddish, “me too” approach to urban economic development than the pursuit by cities of every size for a slice of the convention and trade show business. Cities have built and expanded convention centers for decades, and in the past few years it’s become increasingly popular to publicly subsidize
The Convention Center Business Turns Ugly Read More »
Traffic projections used to justify highway expansions are often wildly wrong The recent Wisconsin court case doesn’t substitute better models, but it does require DOTs to show their data and assumptions instead of hiding them The road less traveled: Wisconsin Highway 23 There’s a lot of high-fiving in the progressive transportation community about last month’s
Show Your Work: Getting DOT Traffic Forecasts Out of the Black Box Read More »
Truck freight movement gets a subsidy of between $57 and $128 billion annually in the form of uncompensated social costs, over and above what trucks pay in taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If trucking companies paid the full costs associated with moving truck freight, we’d have less road damage and congestion, fewer crashes,
The real welfare Cadillacs have 18 wheels Read More »
There’s little question that technology is important to cities. Without elevators and electricity, for example, it would be almost inconceivable that we could have dense urban centers. So thinking about how advances in technology are likely to affect city success is critically important. And while technology captures our imagination, sometimes we become so fixated on
Fake city, flawed thinking Read More »
It’s unusual to flag an economics article as a “must-read” for general audiences: but if you care about cities and place, and about the prospects for the American Dream in the 21st Century, you owe it to yourself to read this new article by Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, “The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility:
New evidence on integration and economic mobility Read More »
(* with apologies to Donald Shoup) A new report from Tony Dutzik, Gideon Weissman and Phineas Baxandall confirms, in tremendous detail, a very basic fact of transportation finance that’s widely disbelieved or ignored: drivers don’t come close to paying the costs of the roads they use. Published jointly by the Frontier Groups and U. S.
There’s no such thing as a Free-Way* Read More »
Notes from your far flung correspondent, in the shadow of the Acropolis. Though the local economy is still in turmoil, Athens is still awash in the steady tramping of tourists. Compared to your correspondent’s last visit to this city three decades ago, the distinguishing mark of tourism is no longer the long lines of foreigners
City of ideas, and the idea of cities Read More »
