Politics

Feudal Future Podcast — Newsom's Next Move

Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 20:03:38 -0500

A governor with national ambitions, a party tug‑of‑war, and a state wrestling with affordability—this conversation goes straight at the question on everyone’s mind: can Gavin Newsom sell hope to a country tired of anger without getting buried by California’s record? We bring together seasoned strategists to weigh why prediction markets love his chances, how a relentless work ethic and podcast‑first media game reshape reach, and whether a transactional political style beats an old‑school “vision thing” when attention is fragmented and narratives move at internet speed.

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The Center for Demographics and Policy focuses on research and analysis of global, national, and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results over time. It involves Chapman students in demographic research under the supervision of the Center’s senior staff.

Students work with the Center’s director and engage in research that will serve them well as they look to develop their careers in business, the social sciences, and the arts. Students also have access to our advisory board, which includes distinguished Chapman faculty and major demographic scholars from across the country and the world.

For additional information, please contact Mahnaz Asghari, Associate Director of the Center for Demographics and Policy, at (714) 744-7635 or asghari@chapman.edu

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Buy Joel’s latest book, ‘The Coming of Neo-Feudalism‘

This show is presented by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, which focuses on research and analysis of global, national and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results over time.

Feudal Future Podcast — Immigration Crossroads

Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 11:56:24 -0400

Is there a middle ground between open borders and immigration restriction? This thought-provoking discussion with GOP strategist Mike Madrid and Venezuelan immigrant Dr. Daniel DiMartino explores the complex realities of America's immigration debate beyond the partisan talking points.

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For additional information, please contact Mahnaz Asghari, Associate Director of the Center for Demographics and Policy, at (714) 744-7635 or asghari@chapman.edu

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Anaheim's Gondola and John Zimmerman

Wendell Cox — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 11:27:20 -0400

I had the pleasure of serving with John Zimmerman on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (LACTC), which was the predecessor, along with the Southern California Regional Transportation District (SCRTD) to Metro (the present Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority).

John was elected to LACTC by local council members from Los Angeles County cities outside Los Angeles and Long Beach. He served as a Norwalk, California city councilman from 1957 to 1982. He was a dedicated and active member of LACTC and passed away in 1992.

The city of Norwalk is located immediately east of more famous Lakewood, which was in many ways a model of the post-World War II suburbanization that has dominated urban growth in the United States. Lakewood was incorporated in 1954 (see map above).

What reminded me of John was an article describing a proposal to develop a gondola system to link Disneyland with other attractions in the city of Anaheim. John frequently tried to create interest in a gondola based rapid transit system throughout Los Angeles County. He was convinced that it would maximize transit ridership cost effectively.

John was the only one of the 11 voting members who indicated any interest in the gondola proposal (this included me). The Anaheim proposal is far shorter, at 3.8 miles. More worryingly, it is not clear how the system would be funded, and according to Urbanize LA, the cost has tripled since December. Hopefully the Anaheim city council will recognize that a system that has tripled in cost in so little time can escalate even more on the way to completion.

But it seems clear that this gondola system has a chance to be built. I suspect if John were still with us, he would be an enthusiastic supporter.

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a Senior Fellow with Unleash Prosperity in Washington and 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 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), which was a predecessor agency to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro). 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.

SUNBLOCK: The Global Fight To Save Farmland From Big Solar

Robert Bryce — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 21:00:16 -0400

From Spain to Texas and India to England, solar projects are encroaching on prime agricultural land. Farmers and ranchers are fighting back.

In this mini-documentary, author and film producer Robert Bryce shows how the unchecked expansion of solar energy is paving over some of the world’s best farmland. In this 10-minute film, Bryce -- who has been reporting on land-use conflicts over alternative energy for 15 years -- talks to farmers and ranchers in Central Texas who are trying to protect the Blackland Prairie from the encroachment of massive solar projects. The film exposes the staggering scale of these giant projects, the global backlash against the solar industry, and emphasizes the importance of preserving agricultural land for future generations.

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Robert Bryce is a Texas-based author, journalist, film producer, and podcaster. His articles have appeared in a myriad of publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Time, Austin Chronicle, and Sydney Morning Herald.

Feudal Future Podcast — The Gender Gap & its Impact on the Global Future

Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 12:17:25 -0400

The widening gender gap is reshaping American society in profound and troubling ways. Join hosts Marshall Toplansky and Joel Kotkin as they dive deep into this growing divide with Christine Emba, author of "Rethinking Sex: A Provocation," and Aaron Renn, writer of "Life in the Negative World."

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For additional information, please contact Mahnaz Asghari, Associate Director of the Center for Demographics and Policy, at (714) 744-7635 or asghari@chapman.edu

Tweet thoughts: @joelkotkin, @mtoplansky, #FeudalFuture #BeyondFeudalism

Learn more about Joel’s book ‘The Coming of Neo-Feudalism‘

Waning American Pride Threatens the Republic

Joel Kotkin — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 11:29:55 -0400

American patriotism has sunk to a historic low, according to a new Gallup poll with national pride tumbling among Democrats in particular. Political polarisation has reached fever pitch, with each side increasingly viewing the other not as opponents but as enemies. Since 1994, the share of Republicans and Democrats who hold “very unfavourable” views of the other party has more than tripled, and now makes up a solid majority on both sides.

Cognitive elites often lay the blame — as they do for most things — at the feet of Donald Trump. As a symbol of rudeness and disregard for others, he has certainly made things worse. But America’s civic decline predates his ascent to power in 2016. Around 20 years ago, roughly 90% Democrats, Republicans and independents were “proud” to be American; today, barely a third of Democrats and half of independents feel that way, even as Republicans retain their patriotic leanings.

The legacy of the Sixties and popular opposition to the Vietnam War is critical here: many protesters from that era became college professors, who in turn trained the next generation of teachers, journalists, and bureaucrats. Unsurprisingly, patriotic sentiment among Generation Z is now roughly half that of Baby Boomers. Rather than raise the flag in spite of the country’s flaws, today’s elites often view the Stars and Stripes as an emblem of fascist repression. One leading organiser of the “No Kings” movement even urges Americans to skip 4 July celebrations entirely, calling the US “a country that doesn’t love you back”.

The capture of the educational bureaucracy (especially in blue states) has led to an emphasis on progressive values over basic civics. Like many educators, I’m continually shocked by students’ ignorance — confirmed by national test results — of basic concepts such as the reasons for the Electoral College, the tripartite structure of Government, or the origins of the Senate. Just one in four students is proficient in civics, and that number is declining.

Read the rest of this piece at: UnHerd.

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.

Feudal Future Podcast — Breaking Down the NYC Mayor's Race

Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 17:01:44 -0400

The battle for New York City’s future is heating up as former Governor Andrew Cuomo faces off against progressive challenger Zoran Mamdani in what’s shaping up to be an unpredictable mayoral race. With ranked-choice voting, multiple candidates, and current Mayor Eric Adams making a last-minute decision not to run in the Democratic primary, the city’s political landscape has never been more complex.

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For additional information, please contact Mahnaz Asghari, sponsored project analyst for the Office of Research, at (714) 744-7635 or asghari@chapman.edu.

Tweet thoughts: @joelkotkin, @mtoplansky, #FeudalFuture #BeyondFeudalism

Learn more about Joel’s book ‘The Coming of Neo-Feudalism‘

Blue State Housing Crisis is Costing Democrats Voters

Joel Kotkin — Fri, 16 May 2025 11:58:00 -0400

Amid the talk about tariffs and other Trumpian foibles, little attention has been paid to America’s festering housing crisis. This could prove a more lasting political issue in the US, as well as throughout much of the West.

These trends are the focus of a new report (to which I contributed an introduction) on global housing prices by Wendell Cox. High housing prices, he notes, are widely linked to strict regulatory policies, mostly seeking to hamper suburban growth and force development into urban cores. Almost all the US cities with the highest prices — San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego — have enacted these urban containment or compact city strategies, which force people to live in denser, smaller, and more expensive inner-city housing.

Such approaches are widely popular with planners, progressives, and green activists. However, by restricting development on the more affordable suburban fringe, they drive up housing costs across entire metropolitan areas. This has deepened a stark and unprecedented divide between US regions. In much of the country — especially the Midwest, parts of Pennsylvania, and the South — home prices remain affordable, with median prices roughly three times the median income. By contrast, in coastal California and much of the Northeast, that ratio has surged to around nine to one.

All of this has turned housing into a potent political issue. In a Gallup survey last month, Americans ranked housing as their top financial worry behind inflation. In a Harvard poll of 18- to 29-year-olds last year, housing ranked as the third-most important issue overall, after inflation and healthcare. Meanwhile, around 65% of California residents consider housing costs a major concern — an astonishing figure.

Prices also affect levels of homeownership, long a linchpin of middle-class aspiration. January home sales were down 5% from last year’s dismal numbers. Record numbers of first-time buyers are stuck on the sidelines as housing affordability stands at its lowest level in 40 years, and one in three pay over 30% of their income in mortgage or rent.

The young — tomorrow’s voters — are the most directly hit. According to US Census Bureau data, the rate of homeownership among young adults aged 25–34 was 45.4% for Generation X, but dropped to 37% for Millennials. This decline comes despite nearly three in five Millennials viewing homeownership as a core part of the American dream.

Ultimately, the differential in housing will upset America’s long-term political balance. Housing costs are driving young people, immigrants and minorities to Sun-Belt and even Rust-Belt locales, while the Northeastern and West Coast metros continue to lose domestic migrants. Few young people can expect to afford living in California, where the rich now dominate the housing market, and more than a third of all real-estate transactions in recent years topped $1 million.

Read the rest of this piece at: UnHerd.

The Five Years of Feudal Future

Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — Fri, 16 May 2025 11:47:03 -0400

As the Feudal Future podcast marks its fifth anniversary, hosts Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky examine how dramatically our society has evolved since they first warned about the emergence of neo-feudalism—a concentration of wealth and power resembling historical feudal systems.

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For additional information, please contact Mahnaz Asghari, sponsored project analyst for the Office of Research, at (714) 744-7635 or asghari@chapman.edu.

Tweet thoughts: @joelkotkin, @mtoplansky, #FeudalFuture #BeyondFeudalism

Learn more about Joel’s book ‘The Coming of Neo-Feudalism‘

Feudal Future Podcast — Crossroads: The Democratic Party in Transition

Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 17:12:53 -0400

America stands at a political crossroads where old alliances are shifting and economic realities are reshaping party loyalties. The Democratic Party faces a profound identity crisis - pragmatic at the local level where mayors tackle real problems head-on, yet seemingly detached at the national level where ideology often trumps practicality.

Our fascinating conversation with David Gershwin, Democratic strategist, and Jim Wunderman, CEO of the Bay Area Council, explores this tension that could determine not just the Democratic Party's future but America's economic direction.

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For additional information, please contact Mahnaz Asghari, sponsored project analyst for the Office of Research, at (714) 744-7635 or asghari@chapman.edu.

Tweet thoughts: @joelkotkin, @mtoplansky, #FeudalFuture #BeyondFeudalism

Learn more about Joel’s book ‘The Coming of Neo-Feudalism‘