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 →