demographics

A Thursday morning (February 11, 2021) announcement from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (USDOT) shows that US air passenger volumes have fallen behind China for the first time. This is also the first time that the US has not been the world leader, based on available data.  read more »

The Census Bureau has just published its 2020 state population estimates, which indicate that the state that has led growth in the United States for the last 170 years lost 70,000 residents last year.  read more »

One impact of the coronavirus has been to accelerate some trends that were already present in the marketplace beforehand.  read more »

The Figures below provide an update through September 13, 2020 to the relationship between county urban densities and COVID-19 death rates. The data continues to show a strong association between higher urban densities and death rates.  read more »

The Figures below provide an update through August 7, 2020 to the relationship between county urban densities and COVID-19 death rates. The data continues to show a strong association between higher urban densities and death rates.  read more »

A new report authored by Joel Kotkin, Ali Modarres, and Wendell Cox examines how California's planning policies are contributing to the affordable housing crisis.  read more »

Montreal’s mayor Valerie Plante has “widened” some sidewalks to provide sufficient space for pedestrian use while providing sufficient social distancing. Where implemented, sidewalks have been widened to 4.5 meters (nearly 15 feet) by extension into streets (with barriers to protect from car and truck traffic.) This action is being taken only in the highest volume areas of the city.

Pandemics have always been the enemy of dense, urban life. Cities, where people live in close quarters and mix with people from other places, are ideal breeding grounds for contagions. So far, by contrast, there have been comparatively few coronavirus infections in the vast middle of the United States, particularly in the rural reaches.  read more »

Perhaps no region in the world is more associated with talent than the once-booming San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley. In the first four years of the decade, the area netted an average of 10,000 domestic migrants annually. But by 2016, the tide had turned. About 12,000 residents fled San Francisco that year, and the net outflow for 2017 climbed to 25,000.  read more »

As George Bernard Shaw is reported to have said, Britain and America are two countries separated by a common language. So too, America and Australia, not to mention America and Canada, New Zealand, and elsewhere.  read more »