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 »
Around the nation, tourism officials are pushing the construction of publicly subsidized “headquarters” hotels to help fill publicly subsidized convention centers. One person who has tracked this industry carefully is University of Texas at San Antonio professor Heywood Sanders, author of the recent book, Convention Center Follies. In this commentary for City Observatory, Woody shares
Should your city build a headquarters hotel? 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 »
The last few months have witnessed a notable rebound in vehicle miles traveled. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports that for the year ended December, 2014, American’s drove 3.015 trillion miles, up about 1.7 percent from the previous year–the first noticeable increase in driving in more than a decade. The upward trend has led the
This week comes news that Target is laying off 1,700 workers at its Minneapolis headquarters, looking to become leaner and more efficient. It’s just the latest move in a shifting retail landscape in the United States. Target is not just downsizing its headquarters, it’s shifting to smaller urban stores–Target Express. Other retailers like Walmart and
Who’s Vulnerable to Retail Retrenchment? Read More »
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 1982, and that the “death of the McMansion” has been highly exaggerated, as have claims that development
Misleading Medians & the McMansion Mirage Read More »
Last month, City Observatory released a new report—Surging City Center Job Growth—chronicling a widespread rebound in city center jobs. For the first time in decades, job growth in city centers around the country has surpassed the rate of job growth in peripheral areas. In an article called “Fool for the City,” Jacob Anbinder of The
Has the Tide Turned? Read More »
