Small Cities

For the last two centuries, one of the most important demographic trends has been the movement of people from rural areas to the cities.  read more »

Further evidence of the continued dispersion of the US population is revealed by an examination of net domestic migration data  read more »

For more than 75 years America has been dispersing away from dense urban cores, with nearly all population growth in neighborhoods with a suburban form  read more »

Between 2020 and 2023 (annual population estimates, as of July 1), more than 3.2 million US residents moved from counties with higher urban population densities (number of urban residents divided by urban square miles), to counties with lower urban densities.  read more »

I’ve always been intrigued by the role of universities in the growth and development of cities. It’s well known that universities can have an outsized role on smaller towns and cities  read more »

Americans are familiar with steep political divisions on issues like race, class, and gender. Perhaps less understood, but arguably more definitive, is the widening gap between the cognitive elites concentrated in big cities and the rest of the country.  read more »

In recent years, driven by the rising cost of living and the remote work revolution, Americans have been moving to more affordable housing markets. This is evident in an analysis of American Community Survey data gathered over five years (2018 to 2022).

Housing Affordability and Net Domestic Migration: The Nexus  read more »

Americans, with little help from government, are reinventing themselves and boosting their prospects by settling in less expensive, less regulated regions where rents and house prices are more affordable.  read more »

The dominant philosophy that guides North American land use and transportation policy is advocacy of car ownership. The logic is simple. If you have a car you have automatic access to a wide variety of geographic employment options at any time of the day or night regardless of weather.  read more »

Sometimes a story takes a number of years to ripen. And sometimes two or three stories merge in unexpected ways. I just had a moment of convergence when new infill development, sub rosa adaptation, and wartime migration all collided.  read more »