Wendell Cox

About Wendell Cox

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a founding senior fellow at the Urban Reform Institute, Houston, a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.
Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985) and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.

Entries by Wendell Cox

Demographia International Housing Affordability — 2021 Edition

February 22, 2021 /3 Comments/in Demographics, Reports /by Wendell Cox

The Urban Reform Institute and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy are pleased to present the 2021 edition of Demographia International Housing Affordability. This report provides housing affordability ratings, using the median multiple, a measurement of income in relation to housing prices…

Combined Statistical Areas: Ready for the Dispersion Demand

August 6, 2020 in Demographics, Housing, Small Cities, Suburbs, Urban Issues /by Wendell Cox

by Wendell Cox — The years to come seem likely to see America’s historic population dispersion continue or accelerate, as pandemic and lockdown worries have severely reduced the attractiveness of dense urban cores.

Domestic Migration to Dispersion Accelerates (Even Before COVID)

May 19, 2020 in Demographics, Economics, Small Cities, Suburbs, Urban Issues /by Wendell Cox

by Wendell Cox — In what could turn out to be a “dry run” for the post-COVID19 era, net domestic migration has strongly shifted away from the larger metropolitan areas, to smaller areas.

Subways Seeded the NYC Epidemic: MIT Economist

May 1, 2020 in Politics & Policy, Urban Issues /by Wendell Cox

by Wendell Cox — According to an MIT economist, continued high ridership on MTA subways and the rapid surge in infections during the first two weeks of March at best supports the hypothesis that the subways played a role.

“Exposure Density” and the Pandemic

April 17, 2020 in Demographics, Urban Issues /by Wendell Cox

by Wendell Cox — My article last week, Early Observations on the Pandemic and Population Density, suggested that the risk of infection is a function of being close to people who are infected. The most fundamental issue is thus, how close people are to one-another in their daily lives.

Early Observations on the Pandemic and Population Density

April 10, 2020 in Demographics /by Wendell Cox

by Wendell Cox — It is still too early to draw precise conclusions on the extent to which the spread of the COVID-19 is related to urban population density. But there are important recurring themes.

Policy Brief: How Urban Planning Caused the Housing Crisis

February 16, 2020 in Reports /by Wendell Cox

This Policy Brief by Wendell Cox, Senior Fellow of the Center for Opportunity Urbanism responds to The Economist cover story on home ownership as a key factor in causing the housing crisis.

To The Economist: Planning, Not Home Ownership, Caused the Housing Crisis

February 7, 2020 in Housing, Planning, Politics & Policy, Suburbs, Urban Issues /by Wendell Cox

by Wendell Cox — The January 16, 2020 cover story in The Economist magazine trumpeted “The West’s biggest economic policy mistake: It’s obsession with home ownership undermines growth, fairness and public faith in capitalism…”

The Expanding and Dispersing San Francisco Bay Area

November 12, 2019 in Demographics, Economics, Housing, Suburbs, Urban Issues /by Wendell Cox

by Wendell Cox — This decade has witnessed an unprecedented expansion of the Greater San Francisco Bay Area (the San Jose-San Francisco combined statistical area or CSA), with the addition of three Central Valley metropolitan areas, Stockton, Modesto and Merced. Over the same period, there has been both a drop in the population growth rate and a shift of growth to the Central Valley exurban metropolitan areas.

Greater Los Angeles Area Growth Tanking and Dispersing

November 6, 2019 in Demographics, Economics, Housing, Suburbs, Urban Issues /by Wendell Cox

by Wendell Cox — For decades, there has been substantial dispersion of population in Greater Los Angeles (Los Angeles combined statistical area or CSA), as the suburban areas outside the urban core have dominated population growth.