Last month, we took exception to critics of Detroit’s economic rebound who argued that it was a failure because the job and population growth that the city has enjoyed has only reached a few neighborhoods, chiefly those in and around the downtown. A key part of our position was that successful development needs to achieve […]
Getting to critical mass in Detroit Read More »
How should we view the early signs of a turnaround in Detroit? Better to light a single candle than simply curse the darkness. The past decades have been full of dark days for Detroit, but there are finally signs of a turnaround, a first few glimmers that the city is stemming the downward spiral of
Cursing the candle Read More »
Our City Observatory report, Less in Common, catalogs the ways that we as a nation have been growing increasingly separated from one another. Changes in technology, the economy and society have all coalesced to create more fragmentation and division. As Robert Putnam described this trend in his 2000 book, we are “Bowling Alone.” And while
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 most people be trusted?) as well as behavioral data (do people regularly visit neighbors, attend public meetings, belong to civic organizations?). Putnam’s
Anti-Social Capital? Read More »
Last Friday, President Trump signed an Executive Order effectively blocking entry to the US for nationals of seven countries—Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. We’ll leave aside the fearful, xenophobic and anti-American aspects of this policy: others have addressed them far more eloquently than we can at City Observatory. And while there’s no
Openness to immigration drives economic success Read More »
A new study of gentrification sheds light on how neighborhoods change. Here are the takeaways: The population of urban neighborhoods is always changing because moving is so common, especially for renters. There’s little evidence that gentrification causes overall rates of moving to increase, either for homeowners or renters. Homeowners don’t seem to be affected at
Constant change and gentrification Read More »
Does geometry bias our view of how neighborhoods work? Imagine a neighborhood that looks like this: On any given block, there might be a handful of small apartment buildings—three-flats—which are usually clustered near intersections and on major streets. Everything else is modest single-family homes, built on lots the same size as the three-flats. What kind
How urban geometry creates neighborhood identity Read More »
Overall, America is becoming more diverse, but in many places the neighborhoods we live in remain quite segregated. The population of the typical US metropolitan area has a much more ethnically and racially mixed composition than it did just a few decades ago. Overall, measured levels of segregation between racial and ethnic groups are declining.
How diverse are the neighborhoods white people live in? Read More »
There’s a large a growing body of research that shows the importance of peer effects on lifetime economic success of kids. For example, while the education level your parents is a strong determinant of your level of education, it turns out that the education level of your neighbors is nearly half as strong. Much of
More evidence for peer effects: Help with homework edition Read More »
In cities, you’ll sometimes hear people talk about a “daytime population”: not how many people live in a place, but how many gather there regularly during their waking hours. So while 1.6 million people may actually live in Manhattan, there are nearly twice that many people on the island during a given workday. Most studies
Daytime and nighttime segregation Read More »
