Building the New America: Report on trends shaping the migration of people and jobs

Report: Building the New America

How do we build a new urban model for America — one that is better aligned with the aspirations of most Americans? This newly released report examines the housing trends that are driving today's migration of people and jobs.
Corner of Canal and Baxter Streets in NYC

After Coronavirus We Need to Rethink Densely Populated Cities

by Joel Kotkin — For the better part of this millennium, the nation’s urban planning punditry has predicted that the future lay with its densest, largest, and most cosmopolitan cities.
San Jose housing not affordable

Make America’s Housing Affordable Again

by Randal O'Toole — Fifty years ago, housing was affordable everywhere in the country. The 1970 census found that the statewide ratio of median home prices to median family incomes was greater than 3.0 only in Hawaii (where it was 3.04). Price-to-income ratios were under 2.5 in every other state, and under 2.2 in California, New York, and other states that today are considered unaffordable.

Converting 59 Spur into Park, housing crisis drives socialism, and could Houston Get Google?

by Tory Gattis — Houston's consideration of turning the Bagby and Brazos portions of Spur 527 off 59 into a park, how the housing crisis drives socialism and more.
The Economist cover - and some housing facts

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

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...”
Houston Employment Forecast 2020

Three perfect days in HTX, growth forecasts, increasing our density, reducing homelessness, protesting property taxes, and more

The Greater Houston Partnership has released its 2020 Employment Forecast.  Only time will tell if their vision is 20/20... (sorry, couldn't help myself! ;-)

California Preening: Golden State on Path to High-Tech Feudalism

by Joel Kotkin — “We are the modern equivalent of the ancient city-states of Athens and Sparta....” declared then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2007. In truth, the Golden State is becoming a semi-feudal kingdom, with the nation’s widest gap between middle and upper incomes—72 percent, compared with the U.S. average of 57 percent—and its highest poverty rate.

Cities, Suburbs, and the New America

by SMU Video — SMU-Cox Folsom Institute for Real Estate, the SMU Economics Center, and the Center for Opportunity Urbanism presented a lively discussion on Cities, Suburbs, and the New America, and Minorities, Immigrants, and Millennials in America’s Favorite Geography.
San Joaquin county aerial photoWendell Cox

The Expanding and Dispersing San Francisco Bay Area

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.

Forced Upzoning is Bad Policy, But Here’s How We Can Mitigate Its Impacts

by John Mirisch — A number of bills in California's legislature attempt to “solve” the state’s housing challenges by overriding local municipal zoning ordinances and allowing developers to build up to Sacramento-mandated levels of density. The most notable of these bills is SB50, which has no provision for affordable housing, but espouses a “trickle-down” theory that building market-rate (i.e. luxury) housing will “filter” down to create more affordable housing.
Urban Midrise area with light rail

Three Studies That Show Density Doesn’t Determine Car Travel

by Fanis Grammenos — Recent research sheds new light on the critical issue of the link between car travel and urban density. Conventional planning wisdom has it that increasing development density bestows benefits, most importantly that of reducing driving.