In February, we released our latest CityReport documenting a remarkable turnaround in the pattern of job growth within metropolitan areas. After decades of steady job decentralization, the period 2007-2011 marked the first time that city centers in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas recorded faster job growth than their surrounding peripheries. Much of that rebound seemed […]
More evidence on city center job growth Read More »
Yet again, a black citizen dies at the hands of the police. This event and the ensuing riots in Baltimore are a painful reminder of the deep divisions that cleave our cities. There’s little we can add to this debate, except perhaps to say that there’s a strong evidence for a point made by Richard
On Baltimore: Concentrated Poverty, Segregation, and Inequality Read More »
Will somebody teach the Atlantic and Bloomberg how to do long division? In this post, we take down more breathless contrarian reporting about how Millennials are just as suburban and car-obsessed as previous generations. Following several stories drawing questionable inferences from flawed migration data claiming that Millennials are disproportionately choosing the suburbs (they’re not) come
Young People are Buying Fewer Cars Read More »
It’s spring in the city On October 20 of last year, just six months ago, we launched City Observatory, a website and think tank devoted to data-driven analysis of cities and the policies that shape them. We are delighted to have participated in ongoing national discussions about a number of important policy issues facing cities.
Our six month anniversary! Read More »
Nationally, the average black household has an income 42 percent lower than average white household. But that figure masks huge differences from one metropolitan area to another. And though any number of factors may influence the size of a place’s racial income gap, just one of them – residential segregation – allows you to
Want to close the Black/White Income Gap? Work to Reduce Segregation. Read More »
To begin, let’s be clear about one thing: we’re huge fans of Walk Score–the free Internet based service that rates every residential address in the United States (and a growing list of other countries) of a scale of 0 to 100, based on their proximity to a series of common destinations. The concept and implementation
Walkability rankings: One step forward, one step back Read More »
In February, we released our latest CityReport Surging City Center Job Growth, presenting evidence showing employment growing faster in the city centers of the nation’s largest metros since 2007. Another set of analysts has, independent of our work, produced findings that point to renewed job growth in the nation’s inner city neighborhoods. A new report
More evidence of surging city job growth Read More »
City Observatory, April 1. 2015 A new City Observatory analysis reveals a new and dangerous threat to the nation’s economic productivity: costly and growing coffee congestion. Yes, there’s another black fluid that’s even more important than oil to the functioning of the U.S. economy: coffee. Because an estimated 100 million of us American workers can’t
The Cappuccino Congestion Index Read More »
More jobs are close at hand in cities. And on average the poor live closer to jobs than the non-poor. One of the most enduring explanations for urban poverty is the “spatial mismatch hypothesis” promulgated by John Kain in the 1960s. Briefly, the hypothesis holds that as jobs have increasingly suburbanized, job opportunities are moving
How important is proximity to jobs for the poor? Read More »
Over at 538, Ben Casselman offers up a provocative, contrarian article “Think Millennials prefer cities? Think Again.” He claims that newly released census data show that, contrary to the “all the hipsters are moving to cities” meme, millennials–like previous generations–are actually migrating towards the suburbs. This is a case where we think the usually reliable
Twenty-somethings are choosing cities. Really. Read More »
