Car culture is (slowly) dying, but the future is hard to predict

Car Culture Is Slowly Dying

I was driving to my uncle’s for Thanksgiving with my dad, my mom, and my wife; I dropped a knowledge bomb on my parents somewhere in that ride that literally seemed to give my father pause. Interested in what it… Continue Reading

WalletHub thinks you should move to Arizona in 2015

Gilbert Arizona

One day after I wrote about “Best Performing Cities” as per Milken, here’s more “best/worst/greatest/etc.” data for 2015. This is 2015’s Best and Worst Cities for jobs, via WalletHub. The methodology is on that link, and there’s a Forbes summary here. Number 1 is… Continue Reading

5 of the top 10 ‘Best Performing Cities’ in America are in Texas

Texas Flag Best Performing Cities

Start with the Milken Institute’s Best Performing Cities, then look at their process/methodology, and then look at this post analyzing the data on CityLab. Comfortable yet? OK, let’s get going. 

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Are Phoenix and Miami really going to become more walkable?

Miami Skyline

Two cities long associated with “You must have a car!” may be drastically shifting. Continue Reading

The New York Times probably doesn’t understand gentrification

Gentrification

Gentrification is a fairly important social construct, although admittedly probably a bunch of people overuse the word in the modern world. If you’ve never heard of it, first remove the rock above your body, and then read this: it’s basically when… Continue Reading

On the Global Livable Cities Index, the first U.S. city doesn’t appear until No. 17

Geneva

There are about a million and three different ways to rank cities — here, here, and here as examples — but it is broadly relevant to do so, or at least have some metrics assigned to cities. In the 1950s,… Continue Reading

Housing Crisis V2 is coming

Housing Crisis

2008 was a rough housing crisis, for sure. The general belief these days is that we’re out of it and things are better — Home Depot seems to explain/believe that as well — but in fact, we may not be,… Continue Reading

In big U.S. cities, the middle class is dead

American Dream

Probably no entity in American life has been scrutinized more than the middle class — they rise, they’re left for dead, they rise again, they die again, etc. It’s almost comical sometimes. But in reality, especially after the 2008 downturn,… Continue Reading