Inland Empire

Four Decades of Work Access (Commuting) in Los Angeles

Wendell Cox — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 20:28:58 -0400

This article describes work access in the Los Angeles combined statistical area (Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties) from 1980 to 2022, using US Census Bureau data. The combined statistical area (CSA) is comprised by the Los Angeles, Riverside-San Bernardino and Oxnard metropolitan areas. (view Table 1; pdf opens in new tab/window).

Over the period, there has been substantial employment growth, from a daily 5,184,000 workers in 1980 to 8,850,000 in 2022 (an increase of 71% in 42 years). The 2022 figure is down from the pre-pandemic (2019) total of 8,937,000. Both Los Angeles and Orange counties, the two most populous, had lower employment levels in 2022 than in 2019, with Los Angeles down 170,000 and Orange down 26,000. The other three counties had gains, including Riverside up 67,000, San Bernardino up 28,000 and Ventura up 1,000.

This job growth as we can see was overwhelmingly outside the urban core and is a acceleration of existing trends. Driving alone, working from home and car pools now accounted for 93% of work access in 2022 (Figure 1).

Driving Alone: Even in Los Angeles, driving alone is dropping, in response to the work at home revolution. Between 1980 and 2019, driving alone increased as a share of work access in all five counties, with an overall rise from 70.2% to 76.0%. This is despite opening an expansive urban rail system in Los Angeles County and a commuter rail system serving all five counties. In Los Angeles County, driving alone rose from 70.2% to 73.9% (view Table 2; pdf opens in new tab/window).

But the remote work revolution significantly reduced driving alone from 76.0% in 2019 to 67.4% in 2022, The total solo drivers were 5.929 million in 2022, below the 2015 figure of 6.093 million. In Los Angeles County, driving alone in 2022 fell below the 2010 level.

Working from Home: Working from home had an overall work from home market share of 15.7% in 2022, compared to 6.2% in 2019, an increase of 153%. The leaders in working from home were Orange County, both with a 17.8% market share and Los Angeles County with a 17% share. Ventura County was close behind, at 15.4%, while Riverside had an 11.7% share and San Bernardino County had an 11% share.

Overall, working from home has risen more to more than 10 times its 1980s share of 1.5%.

Car Pool: Car Pools suffered losses in the early years, but have attracted similar commuting numbers since 2010, having dropped from 900,000 to 898,000 in 2022.

Transit: Transit commuting fell to a level below that of 1980. In 2022, transit accounted for 218,000 daily work trips, well below the 264,000 in 1980. The peak year among those included in this analysis was 2010, when transit commuting rose to 381,000. Even before the pandemic, transit commuting was declining, and the 2019 market share was the lowest of any analyzed year. Transit commuting fell to 339,000 in 2019, and then fell about another one-third to 2022.

Recovery from the Pandemic: Transit’s pre-Covid 2019 market share was 3.8% overall and 5.7% in Los Angeles County. This compares to 5.0% for the CSA and 7.2% for Los Angeles County in 2010 (Figure 2).

Transit has done the least well in recovering from its pandemic losses, with 2022 commuting 35.8% below the 2019 figure. Driving alone has recovered to a loss of 11.3% of its 2019 commuting share.Meanwhile, among the work access modes that involve travel, car pools have done the best, rising to 5.7% above the 2019 level.Bicycle commuting has fallen 12.0% and walking has fallen by 6.4%.

There have been many significant dates since 1980. For example:

1980: Los Angeles County Transportation Commission adopts Proposition A, which is approved by the voters in the November election. Proposition A provided funding for a three-year flat fare, a program to support local government transit and funding for a proposed urban rail (light rail and subway) system.
1985: Record ridership year for the largest Los Angeles transit operator (SCRTD now Metro) at 497 million.
1990: First modern urban rail service begins on Line A (formerly the Blue Line), between downtown (7th and Flower) and Long Beach. The data shown on the tables is from before the start of service on this line. The rail system now serves more than 120 one-way route miles and significant expansions are being built and planned.
1992: Metrolink commuter rail system begins operation, with service to all five CSA counties as well as a station in San Diego County (Oceanside). Metrolink now serves more than 550 one-way route miles.
1993: Merger between the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (transportation policy organization) and the Southern California Rapid Transit District (transit operator), forming the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
2024: Largest Los Angeles transit operator (Metro) carried 300 million riders (fiscal year ended June 30), 40% below the peak year (1985).

Overall, the biggest change has to be the extensive rail systems, both urban and commuter, that have been opened. Having been on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission when the planning for the system began, I have been amazed that transit with rail served considerably fewer riders than transit before rail, when there were only buses. I, and likely most other members, expected material increases in ridership.

There is another large change, which is the shift of workers to residences in more suburban and exurban areas. This is particularly evident between 2010 and 2022, when only 7% of new (incremental) work access demand came from Los Angeles County, despite its having over one-half the population of the CSA. The greatest demand increases were in Riverside County (33% of the total) and San Bernardino County (31%), followed by Orange County (23%). The smallest share of the demand increase was in Ventura County (5%). (Figure 3) This is typical of the continuing spread of development to more distant suburbs and exurbs. None of this bodes well for the future of transit.

Also see:

The Cost of Opportunity Cost Blindness to the Riders and Taxpayers
Transit in Los Angeles: Lost Opportunities
The Work at Home Revolution: Data and Policy Implications

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.

Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985) and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.

Photo: Interstate 110 (Harbor Freeway)/Interstate 105 (Century Freeway) in Los Angeles County (which includes general purpose lanes, car pool lanes, toll lanes, an exclusive busway and light rail Line C, via Wikimedia, by Remi Jouan, under CC 3.0 License.

Report: How Will California Solve the Housing Crisis?

Karla López del Río — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 20:28:39 -0400

This new report examines the housing crisis in California and strategies to create more housing at affordable price points. Below is a summary and a link to download the full report.

Yes, the housing crisis is worse in California than elsewhere in the nation, yet there is a growing movement among a gamut of experts, planners, builders, lenders, and other professionals who make housing possible, to seek urgent transformational solutions.

Strategies with a stronger local focus, backed by multilevel government collaborations, can leverage community-centered public-private partnerships, that create housing at affordable price points for hardworking families and individuals, who are most of Californians.

For change to happen, there is overwhelming consensus around the urgency to overhaul regulations and policies at every level of government and to focus on environments that eliminate unnecessary costs, particularly around land prices and development fees. Historically, such regulations and policies were not built or designed in partnership with localities, so many are outdated and ineffective. The biggest impact of outdated regulations is delay costs to the building process, which ultimately are transferred to the consumer via higher home prices or killing projects altogether. New policies should be based on partnerships among different government levels working in conjunction to support local communities meet their housing needs.

Lack of reform to regulations will deepen our housing crisis and further complicate California’s housing system, which is a convoluted combination of multilevel regulations and policy tools influenced by a span of laws that date back to the 1947 British post-war Towns and Country Planning Acts, which laid down procedures to control urban sprawl into the countryside, to the 2017 “by right” housing laws that streamline California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) regulations to accelerate affordable housing projects. As a result, the state’s housing crisis has evolved into three interconnected housing sub-crises: lack of housing pathways for the homeless, costly affordable (subsidized) housing, and unaffordable market-rate housing. In the current regulatory environment, each of these crises behaves differently at the local level and creates unique challenges that call for more research along with tailored resources, policies, and champions in diverse regions.

Despite staggering challenges, Californians have not sat idly by and are creating several novel housing initiatives that are showing promising results around the state - including solutions for the homeless. Many emerging models connect unusual networks to include local voices that strengthen community-level data, which landscapes niche markets to craft tailored housing solutions. Practitioners are taking on non-traditional projects that use different sources of capital, technology, and partners. From an increased number of community-centered public-private partnerships that build capacity to overcome construction hurdles, to community-private partnerships that skip public funding altogether to avoid building delay costs, they all strive to bend the affordability curve and yield units that meet diverse market demands.

Such endeavors bring hope for viable housing solutions, particularly in areas with significant demographic shifts, such as the rapidly growing inland regions where investment and partnership with state and federal governments are historically weak. Considering the many limitations of local governments to promote housing development, their role would be more functional in flexible policy environments geared towards meeting the diverse housing challenges of their localities, including unincorporated areas of California. Funding allocations would go further with multilevel government collaborations, where each level invests an equitable share of resources to strategically leverage other local assets. In turn, such strategies would be most successful in a friendlier regulatory ecosystem where public-private sectors can work together effectively to construct both affordable market-rate and affordable housing solutions.

Innovation is core to California’s spirit, and, with a more sophisticated approach that combines data and collaboration, these novel projects illustrate promising new approaches for improving housing and reducing the exodus of Californians to other states.

Read/Download the full report

Karla López del Río is a community development executive with a track record of creating collaborations and leading research initiatives that promote more equitable public policies. Karla leverages her expertise and passion to help communities reach their fullest potential. In her various professional positions, she has forged thousands of community-centered, multi-level, cross-sectoral partnerships among public, private, and local organizations, leading to increased civic engagement, housing solutions, and innovative resident-led projects. With a pracademic approach, Karla combines prefessional experience, academics, and data to create practical solutions for socioeconomic issues. Over the years, her work has resulted in multi-million dollar investments in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods across Southern California.

California 2022: 400,000 Leave, Yolo County Grows the Most

Wendell Cox — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 20:28:58 -0500

California continues to lose population, according to the latest State Department of Finance estimates for the year ended July 2022.

The state dropped from 39.2 to 39.0 million population in 2022, for a loss of 211,000 residents. This is a minus 0.54 percent annual rate. The state had natural population growth of 106,000, comprised of 424,000 births and 318,000 deaths and a net gain of 90,000 from international migration.

The key, as it has been for many years, lies in substantial net domestic migration. More than 406,000 more residents moved out than moving in from other states and the District of Columbia. This is nearly half-again as large as the 276,700 in 2021, which was the largest net domestic migration loss reported in two decades. (Figure 1).

These changes are also altering the state’s geography. Among the state’s 58 counties, only 18 gained population, while 40 lost. Similarly, 18 counties added net domestic migrants, one county had zero and 57 lost domestic migrants.

Yolo County

Amazingly, the largest growth occurred in the 27th largest county, Yolo, with only 0.6% of California’s population. Yolo County is in the Sacramento metropolitan area, directly across the Sacramento River from the state capital. Yolo County gained 6,900 new residents, a stunningly low figure for the maximum population growth in a state of 39 million. But the growth rate of 3.18% was very strong, as a result of its comparatively small population (222,000). Yolo County also led the state in net domestic migration, gaining 5,900 new residents.

Yolo’s share of the population growth of the 18 counties gaining population is 22.25%, while its share of the net domestic migration in the 18 gaining counties is 44.7%. At the same time, these shares could never have been achieved but for California’s unprecedented losses (Figure 2).

The improbable strength of the Yolo County trend in relation to the much more populous counties of the state is illustrated in Figures 3 through 5, which are maps provided by DOF. Yolo County’s location is identified in the map at the top of the article.

Yolo County edged out much larger Riverside County, which gained a 6700 residents, reaching a population of 2.44 million and has typically been among the fastest growing counties in the state. Riverside County sustained a net domestic migration loss, at 3,700.

Yolo County includes the city of West Sacramento, an extension of the Sacramento built-up urban area. A prominent University of California campuses is located in Davis and Woodland is the county seat.

Yolo County is well placed for commuting throughout the Sacramento metropolitan area. It is also well suited for hybrid model commuting (working mostly from home) to jobs located throughout the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas. Yolo County and the Sacramento housing market (metropolitan area) also have considerably more affordable housing than the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas, though it is still severely unaffordable by international standards. Sacramento’s median multiple (median house price divided by median household income) was 6.0 in the Fall, while much more affordable than San Francisco (10.7) and San Jose (11.5), where the median house had a price equivalent to from 4.7 to 5.5 more years of median household income. These factors auger well for the Yolo County in a state that has more than enough challenges in attracting residents from elsewhere.

Other Counties

Los Angeles County continued to be not only the largest county in the state, but also the nation, and is still nearly double the population of Cook County, Illinois (county seat: Chicago), which is the second largest in the nation (5.2 million). In 2022 Los Angeles County had 9.8 million residents, which is down more than 300,000 from its 2020 US peak of 10.1 million. Los Angeles County had the state’s largest loss, at 113,000, or a minus 1.14 percent rate. Los Angeles County lost 161,000 net domestic migrants, also by far the largest loss among the counties.

The second largest population loss was in Santa Clara County, heart of the Silicon Valley (county seat: San Jose). Santa Clara county lost 16,600 residents and now has a population of 1.83 million. Santa Clara county had the second largest net domestic migration loss, 30,900.

Alameda County (county seat: Oakland), across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco, had the fourth largest population loss at 16,000 or a rate of minus 0.96. Alameda County lost 27,300 net domestic migrants.

Orange County (county seat: Santa Ana), in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, had the fifth largest population loss, at 14,800, or a rate of minus 0.47 percent. Orange County also suffered the third largest net domestic migration lost, at 30,500.

Contra Costa County (county seat: Martinez), just north of Alameda County in the San Francisco metropolitan area lost 10,800 residents for a rate of minus 0.93%. Contra Costa County lost 16,400 net domestic migrants.

Sacramento County, adjacent to Yolo, lost 9700 residents, the rate of minus 0.61%. Sacramento County lost 18,800 net domestic migrants.

Ventura County, abutting Los Angeles County, lost 8900 residents, a loss rate of minus 1.06%. Ventura County lost 12,100 net domestic migrants.

San Mateo County (county seat: Redwood City), between Santa Clara county and San Francisco last 8100 residents, a rate of minus 1.08%. Its net domestic migration loss was 12,700.

San Diego County lost 4800 residents, but had a much higher net domestic migration loss, at 25,100, the second highest in the state.

San Francisco County (the city of San Francisco) had a loss of 4400 residents and 8700 domestic migrants.

The largest percentage losses, however, were in smaller counties. Lassen County (county seat: Susanville) had a 4.75 percent loss. Del Norte County (county seat Crescent City), where the Pacific Coast meets the Oregon border, had a 2.78 percent loss.

The table below summarizes the county data provided by the California State Department of Finance. The largest gains and losses in population and net domestic migration are illustrated in Figures 6 through 9.

Major Metropolitan Areas

Population growth and net domestic migration for the major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 population) can be obtained by combining their county data). The Los Angeles, Riverside-San Bernardino, San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, San Jose and Fresno metropolitan areas had a disproportionately higher percentage of overall population loss compared to their share of the state’s population. These metros had 78.5% of the state population in 2021. They accounted for 90.3% of the population loss and 87.3% of the net domestic migration loss (Figures 4 and 5, above).

Perhaps the principal challenge in turning around the state’s demographics is materially improving housing affordability. According to the Sacramento Bee, H. D. Palmer, deputy director of external affairs at the California Department of Finance, said that the shrinking population reflects the Golden State’s housing affordability crisis.

It remains to be seen whether the rising concern in the state about this driver of domestic migration will be translated into results that do justice to the intentions.

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a founding senior fellow at the Urban Reform Institute, Houston, a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.

Photo: Yolo County, California’s 2022 growth center via Wikimedia in Public Domain.

Table (back to reference)

Click the image below to open a larger file in a new tab or window

Housing Affordability in California: Part 3 — A Way Forward

Wendell Cox — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 19:28:58 -0500

Urban containment has significant costs. In commenting on the association between London’s urban growth boundary,¹ and the higher costs of housing, The Economist said: “Suburbs rarely cease growing of their own accord. The only reliable way to stop them, it turns out, is to stop them forcefully. But the consequences of doing that are severe.”² These are evident in California:

Middle-Income Housing Affordability: Downs noted that even a 10 percent increase in house prices is "socially significant” because of the number of households it denies home ownership.³ As the Economic Report of the President shows, this is a price premium long since exceeded in California.⁴
High Poverty Rates: California is testimony to those consequences, with the highest cost of living adjusted poverty rate of any state (including better known centers of poverty, like Mississippi and West Virginia).⁵
Worsening Inequality: By definition, as housing affordability becomes more severe, inequality is increased, because fewer households can afford the higher prices. Some are forced to seek housing subsidies, which can require years on waiting lists, assuming that waiting lists are open. For example, all nine waiting lists are closed in the city of San Francisco.⁶ And, as noted above, nearly all of the cost of living difference between high cost metros and the national average is explained by higher housing costs.⁷ Moreover, higher cost housing has resulted in a massive intergenerational wealth transfer, as existing owners have reaped huge gains in house values, which has severely limited homeownership among younger households. Unaffordable housing is a principal driver of rising inequality.
Retarded Economic Growth: Research indicates that tighter land-use regulation has diminished national economic growth, while relaxation could produce “significant growth effects.”⁸ One estimate indicates that US labor productivity would be 12.4% higher if states rolled back their housing regulation levels halfway to the Texas level.⁹
Declining population growth and increasing domestic migration: For nearly all the 20th century, California was the national growth leader. In every census from 1930 to 2000, California added more residents than any other state. In 1900, California ranked 21st in population in 1900, and by 1970 had reached the top position, which it has occupied since that time. But much has changed since then. California lost 70,000 residents in 2019-20, and there has been a net outflow of residents to other states of 2.7 million since 2000¹⁰, as housing affordability has deteriorated.

Without restoring the competitive supply of land on the urban fringe, material improvement in housing affordability is likely impossible. Indeed the prospect is for further worsening, with pent-up demand driving prices even higher.

This article is adapted and updated from Chapter 2 (“California’s Housing Crisis”) by Wendell Cox in Saving California: Solutions to California’s Biggest Policy Problems, Stephen Greenhut, editor. The chapter is being published by newgeography.com with permission of the Pacific Research Institute, in three parts:
Part I: Housing Affordability in California: The Situation
Part II: Housing Affordability in California: Urban Land Markets
Part III: Housing Affordability in California: A Way Forward (this piece)

A Way Forward: The Housing Opportunity Area

Solving California’s housing crisis will require addressing the root of the problem — land values have risen to a point that prevents production for all but the most affluent middle-income households in the four coastal markets.

However, though housing is severely unaffordable in the interior markets, it is far better than on the coast. There may be an opportunity to stop further affordability retardation, by preserving a modicum of middle-income affordability, while giving businesses a relocation area sufficiently competitive relative with other states.

A Housing Opportunity Area

It is recommended that a “Housing Opportunity Area” (HOA) be legislated in the interior, to restore the competitive market for land, thereby preventing further deterioration in housing affordability.

Geographical Extent: The HOA would include the San Joaquin and Sacramento valley counties from Shasta to Kern, as well as San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial and Antelope Valley in Los Angeles County.¹¹

Regulation in the HOA: Land-use regulation in the HOA would be liberalized.¹² The HOA would be exempt from urban containment, and other post-1970 regulations associated with undermining the competitive market for land. Like the CEQA streamlining authorized for subsidized low-income housing in Senate Bill 7,¹³ it is proposed that zoning and land use regulatory streamlining would apply to middle-income and low income greenfield projects. Authorization would be virtually automatic for developments of, say, at least 50 plus houses or apartments, that is to be served by infrastructure (public or private). Adjacent development would not be required, though reasonable detached housing maximum lot sizes would be allowed (consistent with California’s historic small lot sizes). This type of development would be particularly appropriate given the current shift to much greater remote working.

Effect: Prevention of further housing affordability deterioration would provide an otherwise fleeting opportunity for middle-income households to achieve the California Dream of home ownership, rather than leave California. Moreover, the stronger economic and housing affordability in the interior could unleash competitive pressures on the coastal markets that could influence better housing affordability.

The HOA would be transformational, but is the type of root cause solution that may be necessary to address California’s housing crisis.

Impact Fee Reform: The state needs to identify means to finance new development from general revenue sources, not new owners and apartment dwellers.

Conclusion

The major regulatory changes adopted in California but not in most other places have been widespread urban containment (growth control and CEQA) at the housing market level and, to a lesser extent, the excessively high municipal impact fees. The association between these strategies and deteriorated housing affordability is clear.

Appendix Boxes

Box 1
Urban Sprawl in California

Urban planning has been pre-occupied with curbing urban expansion, popularly called “urban sprawl,” and has embraced urban containment as a principal solution. Regrettably, urban containment is strongly associated with severely unaffordable housing and its consequences (below).

Paradoxically, California is the least sprawling of any state. California has the highest urban densities, at 4,304 residents per square mile in 2010. New York ranks second, at 4,161. Further, California’s density of new urban development was more than double that of any other state and more than 5.5 times the national average between 2000 and 2010.¹⁴ The three densest large urban areas in the United States are Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose, all denser, perhaps surprisingly, than New York.¹⁵

Box 2
Evaluation of Other Explanations

There are other views on the causes of California’s housing affordability crisis.

Shortage of Developable Land: In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, the high house prices are often blamed on a shortage of land. However,, there is no shortage of agricultural land, which has typically been used for new urban development. In 2017, the total agricultural land in just the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas alone was equal to 150% of the urbanized land.¹⁶

As a matter of interest, geographer John Fraser Hart of the University of Minnesota has noted that “The loss of cropland to suburban encroachment may be cause for intense local concern, but attempts to thwart development cannot be justified on grounds of a net national loss of good cropland.¹⁷

Moreover, agricultural land costs have increased 30% per acre since 1969,¹⁸ far less than the nine times increase in land values.¹⁹ The 2017 value of agricultural averaged $1,800 per quarter acre,²⁰ far less than the average quarter acre residential lot in metro San Francisco ($900,000) and San Jose metros ($1,200,000) — from 500 to more than 660 times agricultural values.²¹ The “land shortage” results from public policy, not topography.

Demand: Housing affordability deterioration is frequently blamed on increased demand, especially by international interests, major investors, and investment or “speculation.” Demand generally leads to higher prices only if there is not enough supply, which makes it more difficult to build houses affordable to middle-income households. Housing affordability can then worsen further, as demand continues to increase, without sufficient supply enhancement.

View and download endnotes (PDF opens in new tab or window)

Photo: The Bakersfield Arch, by Nick Chapman; used under CC 2.0 License. Bakersfield, California: Metropolitan area in the California Central Valley, nearly 1,000,000 residents

Only Interior Counties, San Benito, Riverside and Monterey Grow in 2021

Wendell Cox — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 20:28:58 -0500

Preliminary county population estimates just released by the state Department of Finance show that California’s population decline is persisting and accelerating. The state lost 173,000 residents over the year ending July 1, 2021. The Department of Finance reports that there were 56,500 Covid related deaths over the same period, which would account for about one-third of the population loss. Net domestic migration dropped to the lowest rate in a decade, down 277,000 --- more than the population of Marin County. Net domestic migration losses were sustained in all years from 2011 to 2021, but rapidly expanded by more than eight times from the lowest point of minus 34,000 by 2021. (Figure 1).

Population

Only 20 of California’s counties added population in the year ended July 1, 2021. The other 38 counties lost population. County population change is shown in Figure 2 and in Table 1, below.

San Benito, Monterey and Riverside counties gained, along with counties in the Central Valley (San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys). San Benito County, the southern extension of Santa Clara County (San Jose and much of Silicon Valley) grew the fastest (1.27%). Adjacent Monterey County also grew. Salinas is the Monterey County seat and largest city between San Jose and Oxnard along the Route 101 corridor. Riverside County, just beyond the Los Angeles metropolitan area also gained and added the most population, at just over 10,000.

Colusa County in the Sacramento Valley had the second strongest population gain, followed by Placer in metro Sacramento, Merced (recently added to the San Francisco Bay Area combined statistical area by the Office of Management and Budget) and San Joaquin, the latter two in the San Joaquin Valley.

Other Sacramento Valley counties gaining population included Glenn, Shasta, Sutter, Tehama, Yolo, Yuba as well as Sacramento metro counties El Dorado, Yolo and Sacramento.

Other San Joaquin Valley counties gaining population were Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Tulare.

Other Population Growth Highlights

Los Angeles County is estimated to have fallen under 10 million, which a loss of 68,000. However its loss rate, of minus 0.67% was only 37th worst. Adjacent Los Angeles metro county Orange lost 22,000, with a net domestic migration rate of minus 0.72% (ranked 39th).

San Francisco lost 15,400 residents, for net domestic migration rate of minus 1.77% and a ranking of 55th.

Butte (county seat Chico) lost 10,100 and had the largest population loss rate (minus 4.76%). Butte County has been particularly unlucky in having serious wildfires, which led to a drop in the city of Paradise population from 26,200 in the 2010 census to 4,800 in the 2020 census (a loss of 82%). Butte County’s 2021 population of 201,000 is down from 235,000 in 2018, a loss of 14%. Butte also continues to shed domestic migrants at the greatest rate in the state Table 1, below.

Net Domestic Migration

There were 24 counties gaining net domestic migrants, with 34 losing. All but two of the counties gaining net domestic migrants were in the interior. Placer County, in the Sacramento metropolitan area led the state, adding 0.95% of its 2020 population through net domestic migration. San Benito County added 0.76% through domestic migration followed by Tehama, El Dorado and Colusa. There was also positive net domestic migration in Sierra Nevada counties, such as Plumas, Nevada, Sierra and Amador.

As in population growth, Riverside County also led in the number of net domestic migrants, at 6,000. This is 0.25% of its 2020 population, which ranks it at 13th.

The massive net domestic migration losses continue in Butte County (9,500) at a rate of minus 4.51%, which had the highest loss (duplicating its population loss ranking). If Butte County were to sustain this same number of net domestic out migrants annually, the last resident would leave less than 25 years from now, though that probability is nil.

Other Net Domestic Migration Highlights

Los Angeles County lost the largest number of net domestic migrants, at 83,500. However, its minus 0.83 % ranks 43rd, ahead of 15 other counties.

One such county was San Francisco, with a net domestic migration rate of minus 2.01% or 17,500. San Francisco rated 57th, ahead of only Butte County (above). The San Francisco loss rate is more than double the rate of Los Angeles County.

San Diego County lost 28,000 net domestic migrants, for a rate of minus 0.84% and a ranking of 44th.

As in its population trend, Orange County’s net domestic migration trend trailed that of Los Angeles, at minus 0.95%, for a ranking of 46th (a loss of 30,200).

Rays of Hope

As California’s demographic decline intensifies, there remain rays of hope in parts of the state where the cost of living can be afforded by some incoming middle-income households. These are principally in the interior, on the east side of the Coast Range, north of the Transverse Ranges to about Cajon Pass and the Inland Empire (Riverside-San Bernardino metro). Interestingly, some of the strongest domestic migration (in terms of percentage rate) is in the Sacramento Valley, even north of the Sacramento area. Moreover, the positive trends in some Sierra counties may be an indication of remote workers moving to some of the most attractive environments in the nation.

Table 1 (back to top reference)

CALIFORNIA POPULATION 2020-2021
By County
	Population
County	2020	2021	Change	Rank	Net Domestic Migration	Rank
Alameda	1,682	1,672	-0.59%	35	-1.02%	48
Alpine	1	1	-1.50%	53	0.17%	15
Amador	41	40	-0.47%	32	0.09%	21
Butte	211	201	-4.76%	58	-4.51%	58
Calaveras	45	45	-0.37%	29	0.12%	16
Colusa	22	22	1.07%	2	0.53%	5
Contra Costa	1,167	1,164	-0.25%	27	-0.58%	36
Del Norte	28	28	-0.78%	42	-0.36%	30
El Dorado	191	192	0.37%	11	0.55%	4
Fresno	1,009	1,014	0.48%	9	0.01%	24
Glenn	29	29	0.64%	8	0.40%	9
Humboldt	137	135	-0.77%	41	-0.61%	39
Imperial	179	177	-0.83%	44	-1.28%	49
Inyo	19	19	-0.24%	26	0.10%	19
Kern	907	908	0.14%	17	-0.36%	28
Kings	153	154	0.35%	12	-0.37%	31
Lake	68	68	-0.02%	21	0.23%	14
Lassen	32	31	-2.02%	57	-1.94%	56
Los Angeles	10,012	9,945	-0.67%	37	-0.83%	43
Madera	157	157	0.09%	19	-0.36%	29
Marin	262	260	-0.76%	40	-0.76%	42
Mariposa	17	17	-0.46%	30	0.11%	17
Mendocino	92	91	-0.87%	46	-0.69%	41
Merced	281	283	0.83%	4	0.29%	12
Modoc	9	9	-1.28%	52	-0.65%	40
Mono	13	13	-0.85%	45	-1.37%	51
Monterey	439	440	0.16%	16	-0.42%	33
Napa	138	138	-0.60%	36	-0.59%	38
Nevada	102	102	-0.35%	28	0.07%	22
Orange	3,185	3,162	-0.72%	39	-0.95%	46
Placer	405	409	0.92%	3	0.95%	1
Plumas	20	20	-0.04%	23	0.45%	7
Riverside	2,421	2,432	0.42%	10	0.25%	13
Sacramento	1,586	1,586	0.02%	20	-0.38%	32
San Benito	64	65	1.27%	1	0.76%	2
San Bernardino	2,182	2,181	-0.03%	22	-0.32%	27
San Diego	3,304	3,288	-0.46%	30	-0.84%	44
San Francisco	871	856	-1.77%	55	-2.01%	57
San Joaquin	781	787	0.77%	5	0.41%	8
San Luis Obispo	283	279	-1.55%	54	-1.47%	52
San Mateo	763	757	-0.90%	47	-1.34%	50
Santa Barbara	449	443	-1.23%	50	-1.58%	54
Santa Clara	1,934	1,913	-1.06%	49	-1.56%	53
Santa Cruz	272	268	-1.77%	55	-1.82%	55
Shasta	182	182	0.11%	18	0.51%	6
Sierra	3	3	-0.49%	33	0.09%	20
Siskiyou	44	44	-0.68%	38	0.01%	23
Solano	453	453	-0.19%	25	-0.48%	35
Sonoma	490	485	-0.97%	48	-0.96%	47
Stanislaus	554	553	-0.15%	24	-0.46%	34
Sutter	101	101	0.72%	7	0.30%	10
Tehama	66	66	0.35%	12	0.56%	3
Trinity	16	16	-0.55%	34	-0.07%	25
Tulare	473	475	0.32%	14	-0.26%	26
Tuolumne	56	55	-1.24%	51	-0.59%	37
Ventura	845	838	-0.79%	43	-0.95%	45
Yolo	217	217	0.27%	15	0.10%	18
Yuba	81	82	0.76%	6	0.29%	11
CALIFORNIA	39,542	39,369	-0.70%	-277	-0.44%

Photo: San Gabriel Mountains in the Transverse Ranges looking toward the Mojave Desert, via Wikimedia under CC 2.0 License.

The Next Entrepreneurial Revolution

Joel Kotkin — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 20:28:58 -0400

The coronavirus pandemic has altered the future of American business. The virus-driven disruption has proved more profound than anything imagined by Silicon Valley, costing more jobs than in any year since the Great Depression. But there’s also good news, as Americans’ instinctive entrepreneurial spirit is driving growth and innovation: 4.4 million new business applications were recorded by census data in 2020, compared with roughly 3.5 million in 2019. Self-employment, pummeled at first, has recovered more rapidly than conventional salaried jobs, as more Americans reinvent themselves as entrepreneurs.

To be sure, the initial impact of the pandemic favored big chains and accelerated the already dangerous corporate concentration in technology—Amazon tripled its profits in the third quarter of 2020 and the top seven tech firms added $3.4 trillion in value last year. This in turn has made all business, as well as ordinary Americans, subject to manipulation by the handful of “platforms” that control the primary means of communication. Meanwhile, lockdowns drove an estimated 160,000 small businesses out of existence and left those that survived to face “an existential threat,” according to the Harvard Business Review.

Like pandemics of the past, the current one, according to Berkeley economists Laura Tyson and Jan Mischke, has already driven new investments in technology that could reverse the long-term decline in U.S. productivity. Low real estate prices could spark a return to street-level enterprise, even in places like Manhattan that have long been ultra-costly.

But the focus of opportunity is more likely to be found in the suburbs and exurbs, as well as in the middle of the country. The movement of populations away from the big urban centers started before COVID, but a recent study in CityLab notes that it has since accelerated in places like California’s Inland Empire, the Hudson Valley, and the New Jersey suburbs. Overall, according to demographer Wendell Cox, offices on the fringe have recovered far faster than those in the largest urban cores like Manhattan, San Francisco, Chicago, and Houston.

The geography of work has changed as well. Upward of 30% of those who plan to work remotely after the pandemic, notes a recent Upwork survey, plan to do so outside the house: in coffee houses, coworking spaces, or other office environments closer to home. This has created a new market for suburban office spaces, real estate investor Andrew Segal told me. He sees remote offices filling with workers who may be tired of working at home but do not want to go back to their long commutes. Segal has recently purchased properties in the suburban commuter sheds around Chicago, New York, Phoenix, and Colorado Springs. “The problem is called COVID, but it’s really about commuting,” suggested Segal, who is based in Houston. “People now know they can get their work done from somewhere else that’s easier to get to than Manhattan, downtown Houston, Chicago, or Los Angeles.”

Businesses are following the trend. Between September 2019 and September 2020, according to the firm American Communities and based on federal data, inner cities experienced nearly a 10% loss in jobs, while outer suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas fared far better. According to Jay Garner, president of Site Selectors Guild, companies are looking increasingly at smaller cities and even rural locations rather than in the big core cities. Indeed, seven of the top 10 midsize cities preferred for new investments include not just sunbelt boomtowns but heartland cities like Columbus, Des Moines, Indianapolis, and Kansas City.

Analysis by Zen Business this year found that the best places for small businesses in terms of taxes, survivability, and regulation were overwhelmingly in the South, parts of the Great Plains, Utah, and across the Midwest. Places like the Bay Area, New York, and Southern California crowded the bottom of the list. In some cities like San Francisco, even opening an ice cream shop has become subject to unendurable, endless regulatory reviews. Many heartland cities are exploiting this opportunity, with some offering generous bonuses to telecommuters from the coasts.

Read the rest of this piece on Tablet Magazine.

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.

Photo: G. Keith Hall via Wikimedia under CC 3.0 License.

The Other California

Joel Kotkin and Karla López del Rio — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 20:28:59 -0500

California’s coastal urban centers, once the ultimate land of opportunity, suffer notorious traffic congestion, unaffordable housing, and a social chasm defined by a shrinking middle class, a small wealthy sector, and a sizable population seemingly locked in poverty. If there is a future for the region’s middle and upwardly mobile working class, it’s more likely to be found in the state’s large, generally more affordable, interior, known as the Inland Empire, or “the IE.” But for that to happen, the area’s promise needs to be better recognized—and supported—by policymakers.

Starting in the second half of the nineteenth century as a rural area with a few small cities built around affordable land and imported water—San Bernardino, Riverside, Ontario—the Inland Empire evolved as a place where, as the city of Chino’s motto puts it, “Everything Grows.” Over the years, the IE’s burgeoning farm economy attracted Mormons, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Basques, and Russians, and the area was also home to a large Latino workforce. By the end of the twentieth century, the IE was California’s growth hub. More than 300,000 people moved in from the state’s coast between 2007 and 2011, representing America’s largest county-to-county population shift. The IE is now one of the nation’s fastest-growing economies, and Riverside–San Bernardino–Ontario, with 4.5 million residents, is America’s 13th-largest metropolitan statistical area, ahead of Seattle, San Diego, and Denver.

As California’s overall rate of growth falls below the national average for the first time, with Los Angeles itself losing population, the IE continues to attract migrants, particularly families. It has remained, according to the American Community Survey, the only large region in the state that exceeds the national average of residents between the ages of 15 and 50 with children. Most of the area’s growth comes from the increased influx of immigrants and minorities, heavily Latino. The IE turned majority Latino in 2017, according to census data.

The Inland Empire also seems well positioned to benefit from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The American Enterprise Institute has found that, since the pandemic began, less dense areas, like the IE, are growing much faster than denser ones. In 2020 so far, for instance, new home sales are up 13 percent in the IE, compared with the same period in 2019, but are down 16 percent in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Though the IE’s larger existing home market has taken a hit, its decline is 50 percent less than that experienced in Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

The employment picture is robust, too. Over the past decade, the IE grew its jobs by 25 percent, equaling the Bay Area’s pace and almost doubling that of Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Last year, the IE created more jobs than any major metropolitan area in the state.

The Inland Empire’s trajectory, however, is not problem-free, by any means. While jobs are plentiful, high-wage employment has been scarce. Overall income growth has been among the lowest in the country, and wages rank among the lowest of any of the nation’s 50 largest counties. Even as educated professionals have moved to the area, business-service growth has remained tepid, well below that of the Bay Area and, perhaps more important, of key competitor regions such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas–Fort Worth, and Salt Lake City. Some 350,000 of the IE’s skilled and non-skilled workers commute daily to the coast for work. According to its 2018 “State of Work in the Inland Empire” report, the Center for Social Innovation at the University of California found that residents of Riverside tend to go to high-priced Orange County, while San Bernardino residents head to Los Angeles. As a result, two IE communities, Corona and Moreno Valley, rank in the top ten nationally for average length of commuting time.

Read the rest of this piece at City Journal.

Joel Kotkin is the Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Urban Reform Institute. His latest book is The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. Karla López del Río is associate director of the Center for Social Innovation at UC Riverside.

Perspective: U. S. COVID-19 Deaths and Urban Population Density

Wendell Cox — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 20:29:01 -0400

There is wide consensus that the COVID-19 virus spreads person-to-person, especially in confined spaces that are insufficiently ventilated. It is exacerbated by prolonged proximity, which John Brooks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s chief medical officer indicates is 15 minutes or more of unprotected contact with someone less than 6 feet away. Avoiding such proximity is the justification for social distancing and face masks and the lockdowns that have been implemented around the world.

Preventing infection means minimizing exposure density, which is the duration of risky contacts that can be estimated using factors from population density to much more precise measures of crowding that vary by personal lifestyles and living conditions.

The best (lowest) geographic level for which there is comprehensive national COVID-19 death data available now is for counties. It may be tempting to evaluate death rates using county population densities, which are readily available. However, many counties have very large rural areas that drive down overall densities and can mask significant urban densities.

By definition, a disease spread by personal contact is likely to be associated densities the reflect the risk of exposure — the sum of exposure densities, duration weighted. Exposure density is far greater in urban areas than in rural areas and strongly associated with higher urban densities, as indicated below.

This article is provided from a perspective of COVID-19 death rates by categories of county urban, rather than total county densities, through July 8, 2020, based on data published by USAFacts.org.

The Influence of Large Rural Areas on County Densities

Overall county densities differ markedly from their urban densities.

The ultimate example may be a comparison between Cuyahoga County Ohio (Cleveland) and San Bernardino County (in the Los Angeles combined statistical area).

In 2010 Cuyahoga County’s 1.2 million residents lived at an overall population density of 2,800 per square mile and an urban density of 3,063 per square mile. In other words, Cuyahoga’s urban density was about 9% denser than its overall density.

In 2010 San Bernardino County’s 2.2 million residents lived at an overall population density of 101 per square mile and an urban density of 3,090 per square mile. San Bernardino’s urban density was about 3,000% more (30 times more) than its overall density.

San Bernardino’s huge rural area drives down the overall density. For the purposes of COVID-19 analysis, the urban density is more appropriate than the total density, because the urban density is a better surrogate for the proximities that can are associated with infection.

This applies to much more than Cleveland and San Bernardino. For example, other million-plus counties with under 1,000 per square mile densities include Maricopa (Phoenix), fifth most populous county in the nation, San Diego, Riverside (California) and Palm Beach (Florida). Their much higher urban densities are substantially diluted because their rural areas are so large.

This problem was identified by the Census Bureau with respect to metropolitan areas in 2012: “Overall densities … can be heavily affected by the size of the geographic units for which they are calculated.” Counties are the building blocks of metropolitan areas, and their often-overwhelming rural land areas create this difficulty.

Perspective: County Urban Densities

County densities can differ materially from county urban densities.

There are 955 counties with urban densities below 1,000 per square mile. This is less than one-third of the nation’s counties. By contrast, 95% of US counties (2,996) have densities below 1,000 per square mile (Figure 1).

Counties with urban densities under 1,000 per square mile (including counties without urban areas) are estimated to have 17 million residents. By comparison, using total density, counties with under 1,000 per square mile are estimated to have 204 million residents --- 12 times as many (Figure 2). The analysis below describes reallocating more than 185 million US residents from counties with overall densities of less than 1,000 to the urban density categories from 1,000 to 7,499 per square mile. All of this reallocation is within the suburban range (under 7,500) as defined in the City Sector Model (See “Population Growth Concentrated in Auto Oriented Suburbs and Metropolitan Areas”).

Using urban densities rather than total densities reclassifies counties with overwhelming urban populations to higher density categories. For example, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Maricopa, and Miami-Dade counties move up two density categories. King County, Washington (Seattle) moves up one category. Other highly urbanized counties with smaller rural land areas remain in the same density categories, such as Cuyahoga County, Dallas County, Texas, Harris (Houston), Hennepin County (Minneapolis) Cook County (Chicago), Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) and Franklin County, Ohio (Columbus).

Coincidentally, the US Census Bureau generally considers 1,000 per square mile to be the minimum urban density in its urban area criteria.

County Death Rates by Urban Density Categories

Counties with higher urban densities have a far higher percentage of the COVID-19 deaths, as is illustrated in Figures 3 and 4. Further, the higher urban density counties tend to have proportionally more deaths than their share of the national population (Figure 5). With just 4.3% of the nation’s population (Figure 6), counties with 7,500 per square mile urban population densities have 21.7% of the COVID-19 deaths (Figure 7) as of July 8, 2020.

New York County (Manhattan), the nation’s densest and the only county with greater than 50,000 urban density is estimated to have a death rate of 1.906 per 1,000 population. Manhattan has 4.8 times its proportional share of deaths, with 2.4% of the nation’s deaths. However, Manhattan’s death rate is lower than the 2nd highest urban density category (25,000 to 49,999), and is discussed further in “The Manhattan Anomaly,” below.
The highest death rate is among counties with from 25,000 to 49,999 urban densities, at 3.000 per 1,000 population. This includes two counties, both in New York city, Bronx County and Kings County (Brooklyn). These two counties have 7.5 times their proportional share of deaths, with 9.1% of deaths and only 1.2% of the population.
The counties with from 10,000 to 24,999 urban densities are estimated to have a death rate of 1.814 per 1,000 population. These include Queens (New York city), San Francisco, Hudson (which includes Jersey City), Suffolk (which includes Boston) and Philadelphia. These counties have 4.6 times their proportional share of deaths, with 8.6% of deaths and only 1.9% of the population.
The 7,500 to 9,999 density category is estimated to have a death rate of 1.000 per 1,000 population. These include 5 county-equivalent jurisdictions, the District of Columbia (Washington) the city of Alexandria, VA, Richmond County, VA, Arlington County, VA and the city of Baltimore. These counties have 2.5 times their proportional share of deaths, with 1.7% of deaths and only 0.7% of the population.
The 5,000 to 7,499 density category (similar to the highest density suburban areas) is estimated to have a death rate of 0.589 per 1,000 population. This includes 15 counties, such as Los Angeles County, Essex County, NJ (Newark) Miami-Dade County (Florida), Cook County, IL (Chicago), Orange County. CA (Anaheim & Santa Ana), Alameda County CA (Oakland), and Denver County, CO. These counties have 1.5 times their proportional share of deaths, with 13.4% of deaths and only 9.1% of the population.
The 2,500 to 4,999 density category is estimated to have a death rate of 0.318 per 1,000 population. These counties have less than their proportional share of deaths (0.8), with 22.4% of deaths and 28.1% of the population.
The 1,000 to 2,499 density category is estimated to have a death rate of 0.301 per 1,000 population. These counties have less than their proportional share of deaths (0.8), with 40.3% of deaths and 53.3% of the population.
The under 1,000 urban density category is estimated to have a death rate of 0.161 per 1,000 population. These counties also have proportionately fewer deaths (0.4), with 5.2% of deaths and 2.1% of the population.

The use of urban densities reduces the death rates in the lower density categories, by transferring counties with substantial masked urbanization into their urban density categories. There are no changes, however, among the counties with 7,500 or higher density since their rural influence is virtually zero (Figure 8).

The Manhattan Anomaly

There has been surprise that the nation’s densest county, New York County (Manhattan) has a lower death rate than other boroughs (counties) with lower densities: The Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn (Kings County). Manhattan has advantages that are associated with lower exposure densities, such as:

Manhattan residents are exposed to considerably less prolonged risk of infection on transit than in the outer boroughs. The average Manhattan transit commuter has a 37.5-minute one-way work trip. In contrast, the average one-way transit work trip for residents of the Bronx and Queens is 18 minutes longer. Brooklyn transit work trips are 13 minutes longer and Staten Island work trips are 36 minutes longer.
Higher rates of poverty have been associated with higher death rates, while higher incomes are associated with less infection risk. Median household incomes in Manhattan are 55% higher than in The Bronx, 44% higher than in Brooklyn, 27% higher than in Staten Island and 19% higher than Queens.

Even so, Manhattan’s COVID-19 deaths rate are 4.8 times its share of the national population.

The “Surge” in Context

A number of recent articles have described a “surge” in infections; However, the surge has not produced a surge in deaths. Comparing A comparison of the last three weeks indicates reveals about 10% reductions in hard hit New York City, with the three counties that comprise the two highest urban density categories (New York, Kings and Bronx). The New York City declines have been attributed to social distancing and a strict lockdown, both of which required a more substantial change in behavior due to the city’s much higher density and transit ridership than anywhere else in the nation.

There were smaller reductions in the 7,500 to 9,999 and 10,000 to 24,999 urban density categories. There were small increases in the lower urban population density categories. The strong relationship between higher death rates and higher urban density categories remains (Figure 9).

The good news is that death rates have dropped substantially. During the first eight days of July, daily deaths declined 73% from the peak daily rate of April 16-30 (Figure 10). What seems clear is although the virus has spread widely, its most lethal impacts have, for the most part, been felt where urban densities are greater.

Methodology Note:

The analysis uses death data as allocated to counties on a daily basis by USA Facts. County urban population density is estimated from 2010 Census data and scaled to 2019 using the rate of change in the total populations. This is by no means the optimal method for analyzing the association between COVID-19 deaths and urban densities. But it is about as far as such analysis can go at the national level until more local COVID-19 death data is available.

Photograph: The Bronx (foreground), Queens and Manhattan (background), by author.

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy and demographics firm. He is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Opportunity Urbanism (US), Senior Fellow for Housing Affordability and Municipal Policy for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (Canada), and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University (California). He is co-author of the "Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey" and author of "Demographia World Urban Areas" and "War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life." He was appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, where he served with the leading city and county leadership as the only non-elected member. Speaker of the House of Representatives appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council. He served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, a national university in Paris.

San Bernardino Slams Brakes On Big Solar

Ronald Stein — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 01:33:38 -0400

The San Bernardino County’s Board of Supervisors slammed the brakes on big solar projects and highlighted a challenge California could face if it seeks to eliminate the use of fossil fuels.

When we look at the hysteria to replace our current energy sources with renewable electricity from wind and solar, we’re reminded of the phrase from the 1967 Paul Newman film Cool Hand Luke, “What we have here is a failure to communicate”.

Numerous Politicians and lawmakers are joining the hype and hysteria bandwagon intent on converting our fossil fuel and nuclear electricity generation to wind and solar renewables, but the local citizens are not buying into the conversion miasma without some clear explanations as to what, how and why.

San Bernardino locals are soundly voicing their objections to those land devouring renewable projects that are viewed as extremely wasteful uses of land resources, unsightly monstrosities that destroy vegetation, trees, and wildlife and many see as eyesores that destroy ecosystems and lead to higher electricity prices and lower property values for nearby residents, saying not-in-my-back-yard! So, with no places to locate the renewables farms, what’s next?

To compound this “failure to communicate” with the blue collars, California is already taking actions that may be irreversible! The State’s Congress has already passed legislation requiring 100% of its electricity to be generated from renewables by the year 2045. Thus, no electricity generated from Nuclear or Natural Gas in California by 2045. Dam the torpedoes, they say. Full speed ahead!

To meet this ill-fated target of 100% clean energy by 2045, growth in renewable electricity technology including advanced storage facilities will be required to be up and running on all cylinders by then in order to replace the electricity that is now generated by Nuclear and Natural Gas.

California is phasing out nuclear reactors to generate zero emission electricity. In 2013 California already shutdown the continuous nuclear facility of SCE’s San Onofre Generating Station which generated 2,200 megawatts of power and will be closing PG&E’s Diablo Canyon’s 2,160 megawatts of power in 2024 getting ready for the renewable replacements. Most recently Los Angeles Mayor Gil Garcetti announced the forthcoming closures of three DWP natural gas-powered plants, located at El Segundo, Long Beach, and the Los Angeles Harbor, again getting ready for those renewables. If this wasn’t so scary, it would be laughable.

The powerful organizations like NIMBY – “Not-In-My-Back-Yard”, BANANA – “Build-Absolutely-Nothing-Anywhere-Near-Anything”, SOBBY – “Some-Other-Bugger’s-Back-Yard”, and NAMBI – “Not-Against-My-Business-or-Industry” that put up oppositions to proposed developments in their local area can easily initiate a herd of lawsuits to stop or delay projects for eternity and present significant infrastructure hurdles even for worthwhile projects while creating insurmountable hurdles for bogus projects as they rightfully target pork barrel projects from progressing.

To go along with all the hysteria to support renewables, astoundingly, with all the world’s efforts to protect life, wind farms are “legally” killing hundreds of thousands of top predator birds like eagles and hawks, and decimating bat populations every year. Without any regard for how this affects the ecosystems in their areas it’s appalling that society has given the wind farm industry a get-out-of-jail FREE card.

In 2017, the former President Obamas’ administration finalized a rule that lets wind-energy companies operate high-speed turbines for up to 30 years — even if it means killing or injuring thousands of species protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Under the new rule, wind farms may acquire an eagle “take” permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) that allows the site to participate in the nationwide killing of up to 4,200 bald eagles annually, under incidental “take” permits without compensatory mitigation. It’s shocking that wind farms can legally obtain permits from the USFWS to kill those majestic bald eagles. I cry foul! I wonder if the renewable industry is proud of those new jobs being created also include those that need to clean up the mess from those creatures chopped up by the wind generator blades and from those fried from the heat from the solar panels?

Our politicians may be oblivious to the governments’ acceptance of animal cruelty toward birds of prey, but the public is loudly rejecting this atrocity toward “taking”, which is a nice word for killing, bald eagles.

The inability of our politicians to communicate their grand plans, inclusive of the Green New Deal, and gain the buy-in from blue collars, before jumping off the cliff is a guaranteed primrose path to failure. The recent rejection of a one million acre solar farm in San Bernardino, California, along with similar expected actions from other local communities will most likely squelch the idea of a Green New Deal and a “super grid” from ever coming to fruition.

Now that politicians have set in motion actions to remove current and proven infrastructures for electricity generation without any places designated to put those new wind and solar farms, what’s next? The over reach of imminent domain is prohibited by our Constitution and that protection has recently been upheld by the Supreme Court. The citizenry of California is not bending over to allow these new energy policies to disrupt their lives and I applaud them.

This piece originally appeared on CFact.

Ronald Stein is the Founder and Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure at PTS Advance headquartered in Irvine, California and a researcher and commentator on climate, energy, environment and public policy.

What the Census Numbers Tell Us

Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 01:33:38 -0400

The most recent Census population estimates revealed something that the mainstream media would prefer to ignore—the slowing population growth of big cities, including New York. The New York Times, for example, trumpeted Gotham’s historically high population yet failed to mention that the city’s growth is not only dramatically slowing but also, in the case of Brooklyn, declining for the first time since 2006. New York’s rate of growth, impressive earlier in this decade, now ranks among the nation’s lowest, mostly because of rising domestic outmigration. In 2017, nearly three times as many domestic migrants left the city as in 2011. This may be one reason why rents, which have soared for a decade, have begun to flatten, though they remain at a level many potential newcomers may still find difficult to afford.

New York’s population slowdown is hardly unique. Many of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas have seen domestic outmigration surge over the last few years. The highest-percentage declines were found in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and, remarkably, tech-heavy San Jose, which ranked worst among 53 metropolitan areas with populations above 1 million. Last year, the San Francisco Bay Area’s seven metros experienced outmigration more than ten times higher than the annual average since 2010. This includes the “boomtown” San Francisco metropolitan area, which attracted domestic migrants from 2010 through 2015 but saw strong net outmigration last year. At 0.60 percent, San Francisco’s 2017 population growth was half its post-2010 average. In 2017, population growth in Los Angeles was among the lowest in the nation, and at 0.19 percent, down two-thirds from its annual average since 2010.

Read the entire piece at City Journal.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com. He is the Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book is The Human City: Urbanism for the rest of us. He is also author of The New Class Conflict, The City: A Global History, and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. He lives in Orange County, CA.

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy and demographics firm. He is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Opportunity Urbanism (US), Senior Fellow for Housing Affordability and Municipal Policy for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (Canada), and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University (California). He is co-author of the "Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey" and author of "Demographia World Urban Areas" and "War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life." He was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, where he served with the leading city and county leadership as the only non-elected member. He served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, a national university in Paris.

Photo: s.yume, via Flickr, using CC License.