Newgeography.com - Economic, demographic, and political commentary about places

With the prospect of a long, deep recession staring us in the face, are there any reasons for optimism?

You betcha!

The central characteristic of the American economy – resiliency – is now being severely tested. But there are ample reasons to believe it will pass that test. Simply put, even after this crisis the US will still have the world's largest, most dynamic, most productive, most innovative, most technologically advanced, most competitive and most venturesome economy.  read more »

The presidential campaign is over and the global financial crisis remains. President-elect Barack Obama offers hope for a fresh start even as he prepares to face a backlog of enormous problems. I believe that our nation is up to any and all challenges, able to achieve a new unity and purpose in these trying times.

Yes We Can, indeed.

You’ll hear some others say that these challenging times leave no room for finger-pointing over the origins of the financial mess we face.  read more »

Last month, Congress gave the treasury secretary $700 billion, which he said he urgently needed to buy toxic securities from the balance sheets of some of our largest financial institutions that were in financial trouble.

The secretary said that the economy was in danger, and the bailout funds were necessary to prevent a collapse.

I agree the economy is in trouble. And I am anxious to support emergency measures that will give our economy a lift.  read more »

By Richard Reep

To date, luminaries of the New Urbanist movement such as Andres Duany and Peter Calthorpe have done little to change Orlando. The central Florida city remains balkanized, market-driven, and vaguely cosmopolitan in nature. Orlando’s vitality does not depend on the physical form of the city, but rather the spiritual involvement of its citizens, the safety and security that they gain from their urban choice as well as the unique mix of jobs created by the employment of Orlando. These three intangible factors drive the form, and a healthy city planning process will not ignore this in favor of a rigid dress code.  read more »

What could prove to be the worst economic decline since 1929 may also have the unintended consequence of creating a booming real estate market for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area over the next few years. Ironically this has been brought on not, as one might expect, by Democrats – traditionally the party of Washington – but by the often fervently anti-DC Republicans.  read more »

No brief outline can do justice to weaving together the potentially convergent strands that compose the key elements of the remaking of the American economy. None of the policy prescriptions here are original, but it is important to see them as complimentary parts of a larger whole:  read more »

You get mean-spirited when you feel left out of joy. Somebody else’s joy raises envy when you haven’t had any yourself. Cities are like that, jealously eyeing other cities as if there were more fun and delight and oh, “buzz,” to be had elsewhere.

In fact it’s an illusion that the party is going on somewhere else. The action is where you make it, and in a city you have lots of help doing it. In fact that’s what justifies city life – the signature of any great city. Self-rejoicing. It’s something more than plain pride, or confidence or superiority, or a call for “buzz,” excitement, or (yech) prosperity.  read more »

Will this historic election alter the American physical landscape as well as the electoral one? Much will depend on whether the Obama Administration will focus on trying to revive the economy or move to reshape it.

Bold leadership sounds great in the abstract, but embarking on profound changes in the economy is both politically risky and economically daunting. Government, especially the one the new president will inherit, is severely limited in its competence and capacity to reshape the American share of the global economy.  read more »

Back in 2002, I compared housing to gold. The surge in home buying in the 2000s looked like the 1970s rush to buy gold. Like the current times, the 1970s were a time of great economic uncertainty, followed by the rapid inflation of prices in the 1980s. Regardless of the actual return on investment, many people bought gold as a hedge against financial and economic turmoil. When Americans bought houses in the 2000s, they believed homes would provide some of that same protection, in addition to being a place to live.  read more »

Stimulus fever is in the air, and with the election of Sen. Barack Obama to become the 44th US president, it’s now reaching a fever pitch. US automakers have already made the rounds on Washington DC, meeting with Congressional leadership to generate political support for another $25 billion in government subsidy to avoid bankruptcy. Now, congressional leaders and some economists are clamoring for $150 billion to $300 billion in additional stimulus to goose the national economy – all this on top of the $700 billion financial services “rescue package” passed in October.  read more »