The federal government owns about 640 million acres of land — some 28 percent of the land area of the United States  read more »

In the annals of stupid and poorly run schemes, the California High-Speed Rail project ranks among the worst. Its future, even a dramatically scaled down one, has become ever more precarious  read more »

(Note: this is a post modified and updated from one written ten years ago on the 20th anniversary of the 1995 Chicago heat wave. I included some new reflections and context on that time. More than anything, however, I want to make clear that segregation and inequality benefits some people but also exacts deadly costs on others. Please take a look. -Pete)  read more »

In today’s Democratic Party, nothing succeeds like failure. According to a recent poll tracker, the preferred candidates to contest the 2028 presidential election are a host of proven losers.  read more »

Bret Stephens recently argued that if Zohran Mamdani becomes mayor of New York City, Republicans should welcome it.  read more »

The recently released book, The Future of Labor, is an anthology that offers an exploration of how artificial intelligence (AI), digitalisation and technological transformation are reshaping the future of work. The first section of Chapter 4 — authored by Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — is excerpted below.  read more »

It’s time for me to follow up on the post I wrote ten days ago in response to fellow planner and Substacker Bill Fulton’s "garlic knot" cities concept.  read more »

Even as Californians protest the crude and often brutal deportation tactics employed by President Trump’s ICE and Homeland Security agents, we’re giving too little thought to how our state, and the nation, is failing the very immigrant community we want to protect.  read more »