By Scott Beyer… As the U.S. grows more urban and diverse, the debate rages over which city-building model will best create future prosperity. A new Houston think tank is providing views on this subject seldom heard in urban planning circles. In late 2014, Joel Kotkin, a Chapman University geographer and fellow Forbes writer, started the Center […]
By Joel Kotkin & Wendell Cox Report on Best Cities for Minorities To us, cities emerge because they provide opportunity to people, and are sustainable only so long as they continue to do so. This report examines the places where minorities are thriving economically today. Read the Report (PDF)
By Scott Beyer Contributor It was only a matter of time. For decades, Houston, TX, avoided government centralization even amid rapid growth, functioning without zoning, a master plan, or even a broad vision for how it was supposed to look. But as the centralized model has become popular elsewhere, local officials felt that they were […]
By Joel Kotkin & Wendell Cox… California, our beautiful, resource-rich state, has managed to miss both the recent energy boom and the renaissance of American manufacturing. Hollywood is gradually surrendering its dominion in a war of a thousand cuts and subsidies. California’s poverty rate – adjusted for housing costs – is the nation’s worst, and […]
By Wendell Cox — The Economist headline reads…
The recent report on “California Social Priorities” — released by Chapman University’s Center for Demographics and Policy and the topic of the first meeting of the Houston based Center for Opportunity Urbanism — stirred up some controversy. A largely negative response came from Josh Stephens from the California Planning and Development Report https://www.cp-dr.com/node/3707 . The […]
By Wendell Cox 03/27/2015 Texas continues to dominate major metropolitan area growth. Among the 53 major metropolitan areas (with more than 1 million population), Texas cities occupied three of five top positions in population growth, and four of the top 10 (Figure 1). Other parts of the nation are adding population in large numbers as well. The […]
By Dr. David Friedman Center for Opportunity Urbanism Read the Report (PDF)
BY JOEL KOTKIN and WENDELL COX… In this highly polarized political environment, states and localities, are ever more taking on the character of separate countries. Washington’s gridlock is increasingly matched by decisive, often “go it alone” polices from local authorities. Rather than create a brave, increasingly federalized second New Deal, the Obama years, particularly since […]
by Ross Elliott 03/07/2015 Advocates of higher density housing development in Australia’s major cities – inner city areas in particular – are fond of pointing to a range of statistics as evidence of rising demand. Dwelling approvals, dwelling commencements, tower crane counts and various other sources, both reputable and dodgy, are referenced and then highly […]