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

Ultimate Agglomeration Diseconomy: The Standard of Living

in Demographics, Economics, Housing, Suburbs/by Wendell Cox

Wendell Cox — It is hard to imagine a more destructive agglomeration effect than reducing the standard of living. Yet this is what the loss of housing affordability does.

Census 2021 Estimates: Increased Dispersion

in Demographics, Small Cities, Suburbs, Urban Issues/by Wendell Cox

by Wendell Cox — Increased dispersion began before COVID, but accelerated in 2021 with what the Census Bureau characterized as “a shift from larger, more populous counties to medium and smaller ones.”

Higher Urban Densities Associated with the Worst Housing Affordability

in Demographics, Housing/by Wendell Cox

by Wendell Cox — Densification of existing urban areas leads to worse housing affordability, according to a recent study of 53 major US markets.

Demographia International Housing Affordability – 2022 Edition Released

in Demographics, Economics, Housing, Reports/by Wendell Cox

Demographia International Housing Affordability rates middle-income housing affordability in 92 major housing markets in eight nations: Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States). This edition covers the third quarter (September quarter) of 2021.

Demographia International Housing Affordability — 2021 Edition

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

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)

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

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

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

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.