Las Vegas

Cities of the West: An American Success Story

Cullum Clark — Wed, 31 May 2023 20:28:36 -0400

America’s western cities are booming. The major metropolitan areas of the West—defined as the vast region west of the 98th parallel and east of the Cascade and California Coast Ranges—have far outperformed most other U.S. metros over the last several decades in attracting people and businesses and creating opportunity for their residents.

The continuing growth of America’s western urban civilization is an undertold success story. A unique mix of historical forces has shaped the cities of the West, despite the many differences among them. One central fact is that the West’s cities were late to develop relative to other U.S. cities. Another is that when they did, a distinctively modern form of American capitalism fueled their growth.

But a third force also made a decisive difference in the success of America’s western cities: aggressive federal policies that promoted the region’s economic growth. The policy program that helped build the West reflects a tradition closely associated with the thinking of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and Abraham Lincoln, but which only saw its full flowering in the West in the decades following the Civil War and continuing today.

There are 63 metropolitan areas between the 98th parallel and the Pacific Coast Ranges, based on U.S. Census Bureau definitions. These include seven with more than a million residents: Phoenix, Denver, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Tucson, and Fresno. It also makes sense to include the Fort Worth side of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro, despite its location a fraction of a degree east of the 98th parallel, in view of Fort Worth’s heavy emphasis on its western heritage and its motto, “Where the West Begins.”

Total population in these 64 metros, including the Fort Worth-Arlington metro division but not the eastern side of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, grew 14 percent from 2010 to 2021, compared with 9 percent for America’s 385 metro areas as a whole. But this growth reflects a wide range of experiences, with tepid growth in the struggling metros of California’s Central Valley and the Lower Rio Grande Valley and rapid expansion in the largest urban areas.

In the six largest areas—Phoenix, Denver, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City—plus smaller nearby metros within commuting distance of these places such as Tucson and Provo, Utah, population grew 19 percent between 2010 and 2021. These six areas are home to 24 million of the 37 million people living in the West’s metros, or 7 percent of America’s population.

Read the rest of this piece at The American System.

J. H. Cullum Clark is director of the George W. Bush Institute–Southern Methodist University Economic Growth Initiative and an adjunct profes-sor of economics at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He is coauthor of The Texas Triangle: An Emerging Power in the Global Economy (Texas A&M University Press, 2021).

Learning From Las Vegas: Liberace's Strip Mall

John Sanphillippo — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 20:28:58 -0400

For readers too young to have any memory of Liberace, in the 1950s and 60s he was one of the highest paid entertainers in the world. He had his own television show that rivaled “I Love Lucy” and he performed live at Carnegie Hall in New York and the London Palladium. He’s often dismissed as someone who appealed to women of a certain age and men of a certain persuasion. But whenever I see a rapper wearing heavy gold chains, diamond studs, garish watches, oversized rings, and extravagant furs stepping out of a ridiculously expensive car…. I see more than a little Liberace going on.

This was one of his many homes. If you’ve ever flown into Las Vegas International Airport you pretty much glided right over the roof. It’s super close to the main runway. My first impression? It looks like an Italian restaurant in New Jersey.

I recently saw the former home of Johnny Cash from the same Kennedy era time frame on a real estate listing site. It was a perfectly comfortable home, but like Liberace’s place it seemed underwhelming with its wagon wheel chandeliers and imitation wood beams hot glued to the kitchen ceiling. It was a little bit of Nashville in the hills of Southern California with a faux hacienda vibe and linoleum. Kitsch comes in many flavors.

Anyway, the Liberace Mansion is currently a private residence no doubt owned by someone who appreciates the distinctive aesthetic and provenance.

Around the corner are modest homes from the same period. It’s clear that for a long time these houses had declined and are only just recently turning over to new owners. As Vegas grew exponentially outward in every direction the lure of larger more up-to-date properties drew money and attention away from established neighborhoods. If these older places are lucky they get rediscovered every couple of generations and see new investment and care. Is the area tragically passé and a bad investment? Or is it convenient to culture and employment at a bargain price point compared to far flung subdivisions out on the suburban periphery? It depends on who you ask.

Directly across the street older homes are being scraped for new development. The University of Nevada is right across the road. The dirt has more value than the vintage buildings that sit on it. Traffic makes this a less desirable venue for single family properties. Commercial and institutional uses are pressing in.

Several properties on the block have been repurposed as social service facilities, youth outreach centers, women’s shelters, and housing assistance agencies. The point here is that over time places evolve and change. The Las Vegas of 1962 is gone and isn’t coming back.

Read the rest of this piece at Granola Shotgun.

Johnny Sanphillippo is an amateur architecture buff with a passionate interest in where and how we all live and occupy the landscape, from small rural towns to skyscrapers and everything in between. He travels often, conducts interviews with people of interest, and gathers photos and video of places worth talking about (which he often shares on Strong Towns). Johnny writes for Strong Towns, and his blog, Granola Shotgun.

Photos: by the author

Learning From Las Vegas: Sustainable vs. Susceptible

John Sanphillippo — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 20:28:58 -0400

I hear a great deal about sustainability in the built environment that sounds both encouraging and delusional. These messages come from well intentioned environmentalists as well as corporate marketing departments. The general tone of the conversation is similar either way. Everyone can continue to live the way we do now, but by making a few minor adjustments we’ll transition away from coal, oil, and natural gas to benign materials and clean renewable energy. This transition will save households money, preserve nature, and be profitable for private enterprise. Along the way we’ll hardly even notice the difference. I make a point of exploring anything that purports to be “green” to see if it passes the smell test.

Las Vegas is a great place to poke around and examine these themes. This part of Nevada receives 4 inches (10 cm) of rain per year. To put that into perspective, the national average is 38 inches (96 cm.)

The dominant soil is a sedimentary rock that’s a combination of heavy clay, gravel, sand and calcium carbonate called hardpan or caliche. It’s basically a naturally occurring form of concrete and quite possibly the worst material you could imagine if you were interested in growing anything.

The high temperature in Las Vegas is 125 F (51 C) and the low is 8 degrees (– 13 C). Without modern machinery and a national network keeping this place supplied with essentials there’s no way the current population of 2,200,000 people could survive in this environment. Las Vegas is basically a space colony.

Before my trip to Vegas I did some research and made a short list of award winning buildings to visit. This newly constructed suburban office park is one of them. Axiom is a Class A property and sports a LEED certification from the Green Building Council. It’s the first phase of a larger commercial development on this site.

First off, it’s a glass box in a desert. If you’ve ever left your car out in the sun on a hot summer day you know what happens. You can bake a potato in the glove box. Combine this with the fact that the building is surrounded by black asphalt paving and concrete. They soak up heat all day long then radiate it back out into the night. If you were trying to design a structure that maximized the worst aspects of the extreme climate this is exactly how you’d do it.

Of course, specialty glass is used in these buildings to keep the heat out and prevent the worst aspects of the greenhouse effect. And there are little gestures of drought tolerant native plantings on the edge of the pavement along with the rainwater catchment swales behind the multistory parking garage. These are the elements that add up to the environmental certifications. Look! LED lights! An Energy Star rated industrial air conditioning compressor!

None of this factors in the energy and pollution associated with manufacturing and transporting this amount of steel, glass, and concrete. Notice how the garage is larger than the office building itself. All the green credentials in the world won’t change the fact that everyday hundreds of cars will drive to and from this place for decades because it’s in a far flung location.

Is this building more efficient than a similar one built twenty or thirty years ago? Yes. As Las Vegas continues to grow and builds many more such places farther and farther out in the desert does it really matter? Shrug.

Read the rest of this piece at Granola Shotgun.

Photos: by the author, courtesy Granola Shotgun

Learning From Las Vegas: Tony Hsieh’s Big Gamble

John Sanphillippo — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 20:28:58 -0400

Back in 2014 I was in the live audience here in San Francisco listening to Tony Hsieh speak. He gave a presentation that was partly about the formation of his company Zappos. But more interestingly to me, it was about his attempts at urban revitalization in downtown Las Vegas where his company had relocated. (Feel free to skip ahead to the 20:23 minute mark of the video to get to the downtown Las Vegas segment.)

editor's note: video embedded below is set up to start at 20:20 mark

Zappos sells shoes on the internet. Back in 1999 when the company first launched this was a novel business model. A significant portion of what Zappos does involves a call center where customers interact with company representatives. These jobs are usually pretty unpleasant and don’t typically pay very well. Many companies outsource the entire call center process to other firms with no connection to the primary business. Employees at such places have been known to quit and take a similar job at a competitor’s call center for as little as an extra 25 cents per hour. That turnover is expensive since companies are constantly having to hire and train new employees. And having inexperienced and unhappy workers tends to translate to a mediocre experience for customers which isn’t great for business.

Tony Hsieh decided he could cultivate a high quality work environment and keep his employees happy. That would translate to lower turnover, better customer relations, and a more profitable business. The first step was to relocate the business to a place where there was already a large pool of people with experience in customer service. Las Vegas, with its extensive hospitality industry, was on the top of that list. Nevada is also a considerably less expensive place for both businesses and employees.

At first Zappos operated out of a few generic insular office buildings in Henderson, a suburb about half an hour outside of Las Vegas. This was standard practice for most companies at the time. Employees lived in garden apartment complexes, condos, or tract homes and drove to work in private vehicles. Giant parking lots. Huge highways. Big box stores. Nothing out of the ordinary. Reviews of Zappos from call center workers from that time were generally positive, although it’s clear Hsieh’s corporate culture self selected for a particular variety of extroverts.

Read the rest of this piece at Granola Shotgun.

Photo: DHBook via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.

Learning From Las Vegas: Academic Taxonomy

John Sanphillippo — Fri, 20 May 2022 20:28:58 -0400

I just returned from a trip to Las Vegas. I was ready for a little post pandemic adventure and Vegas is just so easy. It was good to get out into the world again and explore the ever evolving Vegas metroplex. Inevitably, I found myself going back and referencing the classic text, “Learning from Las Vegas.”

In the late 1960s Denise Scott Brown, a Zambia born and British educated architecture professor, travelled to Las Vegas. She and her colleagues Robert Venturi and Steven Izenour went on to write, “Learning from Las Vegas” in 1972. Instead of dismissing Vegas as a tacky tourist trap like most other academics, the trio treated the city the way serious scholars might explore Rome. They wanted to understand what made the place tick.

Source

Robert Venturi was from Philadelphia and had studied classical architecture at Princeton in an era when modernism was the dominant style. He didn’t necessarily reject the minimal glass boxes of the time, but he did insist that symbolism and ornamentation in architecture were still important. The quotidian landscape was of interest to him, particularly as ordinary objects conveyed social and cultural significance.

Source: Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates

Together the authors created a scientific taxonomy for what they observed. Some buildings were called “ducks.” These are structures with a physical form that communicates their function - like a shop that sells duck eggs that’s shaped like a duck. The building itself is the sign.

Other buildings were categorized as “decorated sheds.” These are no nonsense functional boxes with oversized signage and appliquéd ornamentation facing the street. The signs are effectively the architecture.

In both cases the goal of these buildings is to respond to the reality of the dispersed horizontal auto oriented landscape. Buildings need to communicate to a public that exists largely in vehicles traveling at high speed from a distance.

Read the rest of this piece at Granola Shotgun.

Photo: The Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, courtesy Granola Shotgun

Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO and Founder of Las Vegas Downtown Project, Dies Aged 46

Aaron M. Renn — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 20:29:01 -0500

In a tragic development, Tony Hsieh, the former CEO of Zappos and founder of the Las Vegas Downtown project, died at at 46 of complications from injuries suffered in a house fire.

From what I know about him, Hsieh was one of the good guys. I also had some personal interactions with him. I discovered that he was reading my blog when his assistant reached out to tell me that he wanted to give me $1000. Later, he invited me out to Vegas to stay in one of his “crash pads” and check out what they were doing in downtown Las Vegas.

You might say this was marketing on his part. Well yes, yes it was - and very good marketing too. I’ve said many times before, most cities could only dream of having someone as motivated and competent as Tony Hsieh selling their city.

But he went well beyond marketing. He gave me and a couple people who owned a small business he was trying to recruit to Las Vegas, a personal tour of the downtown project. He gave me his cell phone number (and responded to texts). He would hang out at the Gold Spike (a former casino he bought) and just sit at the bar and talk with people. I had more personal time with him than any other high net worth person/CEO I’ve ever interacted with.

If there’s one thing I can’t abide it’s people who think they are too cool for school. Tony was nothing like that. The number of people on Twitter telling stories about how he personally did something for them is a testament to that. The number of people who got the “WOW” experience from Tony Hsieh is certainly quite large.

While I had some critiques of the downtown project, his vision to remake the unbelievably bleak downtown Las Vegas into a hub of creativity was audacity on steroids. Again, most cities could only dream of having someone with that kind of vision and willingness to attempt the impossible.

His business book and memoir Delivering Happiness is well worth reading.

In the world of urbanism, Tony Hsieh will definitely be missed.

You can read my review of the Downtown Project on my personal homepage: part one and part two.

This piece first appeared on Heartland Intelligence.

Aaron M. Renn is an opinion-leading urban analyst, consultant, speaker and writer on a mission to help America’s cities and people thrive and find real success in the 21st century. He focuses on urban, economic development and infrastructure policy in the greater American Midwest. He also regularly contributes to and is cited by national and global media outlets, and his work has appeared in many publications, including the The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Photo credit: Nan Palmero, CC BY 2.0

Two Decades of Interstate Migration

Wendell Cox — Sun, 13 Sep 2020 20:29:01 -0400

America is still a mobile nation. Back in the 2000-2010 decade, 12.9 million people moved interstate, nearly five percent of the total population. In the 2010s the population has been a bit less mobile, with net domestic migration of 11.7 million residents, slightly under four percent. Nonetheless, 11.7 million is a large number. This is nearly equal to the population of Ohio, with only five states being larger (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois). This article describes net domestic migration trends by state from 2000 to 2019 (Note).

Top Domestic Migration Population Gainers

As has been the case with population growth for decades, states in the South and the West had the largest numbers of net domestic migrants. Six of the top ten states were in the South, and four were in the West. However, unlike in the middle to late decades of the 20th Century, California no longer ranks among the leaders.

Florida: Number 1 in Net Domestic Migration

Florida and Texas attracted by far the largest number of new net domestic migrants over the past two decades (Figure 1). Florida added nearly 2.5 million residents from other states. This is more people than live in each of 18 states and the District of Columbia. Florida also placed fifth in its proportionate net domestic migration gain,—15.5%—in relation to its 2000 population (Figure 2).

Back in 2000, Florida had 15.3 million residents, and grew to 21.5 million by 2019. This 6.2 million increase propelled Florida to third place, ahead of New York, which grew from 18.3 million in 2000 to 19.4 million in 2019.

Texas: Number 2 in Net Domestic Migration

Texas, the nation’s second most populous state had the second largest gain in net domestic migration, at just below 2 million. During the two decades, the two largest Texas metropolitan areas, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston moved from below the top five to positions four and five respectively.

Arizona and North Carolina: Over 1 Million Gains

Arizona had a net domestic migration gain of 1.2 million, the third largest gain. In proportional terms, Arizona was the second largest gainer, at 22.8% relative to its 2000 population. North Carolina nearly equaled Arizona’s population increase in numbers from domestic migration and had the sixth largest percentage gain (14.3%).

Other Top Population Gainers

Six other states added more than one-half million residents through net domestic migration. These included Georgia (820,000), South Carolina (680,000), Nevada (610,000), Washington (570,000), Colorado (560,000) and Tennessee (520,000).

Top Proportionate Gainers

Nevada had by far the largest proportionate gain in net domestic migration, at 30.5% relative to its 2000 population. Idaho and South Carolina placed third and fourth respectively, behind Arizona and ahead of Florida. Colorado, Oregon, Delaware and Georgia followed North Carolina (above), with proportionate gains of from 10.0% to 13.1%.

Again, all of the top proportionate gainers were in the South or West, with five from each region. Delaware, perhaps best seen as a border state, may be a surprise, because of its location in the Northeast Corridor (Washington to Boston), and its northernmost county (New Castle, with county seat Wilmington) in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. However, the net domestic migration gains in Delaware were all in its two other counties (Kent and Suffolk), which are well-positioned to attract relatively large numbers of movers from the nearby Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, which shed nearly 600,000 net domestic migrants over the last two decades.

The Losers: Moving from New York and California

Five Northeastern states were among the 10 losing the most net domestic migrants from 2000 to 2019. In addition, three of the 10 greatest losses were in the Midwest, one in the West and one in the South.

Three states lost more than one million residents through net domestic migration. New York lost the most at 3.1 million (Figure 3). This is as many people as live in the states of Nevada or Arkansas. New York was also the largest proportional loser, at 16.2% of its 2000 population (Figure 4).

California was not far behind, losing 2.4 million residents by net domestic migration. This is more people than live in Houston, the nation’s fourth largest city. Due to having more than twice as many residents as New York, its proportional loss was much less, at 7.1%, ranking the tenth greatest in the nation.

Illinois lost the third most net domestic migrants (1.5 million) and had the second largest proportional loss, at 12.1% of its 2000 population.

New Jersey, which is largely split between the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, suffered the fourth net domestic migration loss, at nearly one million. New Jersey placed third in proportional decline, at 11.3%.

Two other states lost more than 500,000 net domestic migrants, Michigan and Ohio. Massachusetts, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Connecticut lost over 300,000 net domestic migrants. Louisiana’s huge loss can be largely attributed to the impacts of Hurricane Katrina, in the middle 2000s.

Other Proportional Losses

Four of the largest proportional losses were in Northeastern states, three were in the West, two in the Midwest and one in the South.

Outside of New York, Illinois and New Jersey, Alaska had the largest proportional loss, at 10.8%. Louisiana lost 9.4% of its population to net domestic migration, while Connecticut, Hawaii, Michigan and Rhode Island lost more than eight percent.

Trends

The future could see an acceleration of the trends noted above. The COVID-19 has produced all sorts of evidence that people are moving away from overcrowding and density (both residential and employment) and relying more on telework than on physical commutes, especially to the largest central business districts. This has shown than many people do not have to live within convenient daily commuting distance from employment locations, because their commutes are from one room to another. In 2019, more than one-third of intercounty net migration moves were employment related, according to the Current Population Survey. In the future, fewer people are likely to need to move to be closer to their jobs, because of a probably much higher rate of teleworking.

The biggest losses have taken place in the largest legacy downtowns: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston.

At the same time, housing considerations drove about one quarter of net domestic migration. Three of the states losing the most net domestic migrants from 2000 to 2020 have severely unaffordable metropolitan areas, according to the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey. These include California (with Los Angeles, San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, Riverside-San Bernardino, Sacramento, and Fresno), and New York and New Jersey, which includes nearly all of the New York metropolitan area.

The large net domestic migration losses in these states could well continue, due to increased teleworking and overly expensive housing. After COVID, Americans are again on the move, a trend that will impact our economy, politics and social future. It will be fascinating if new migration numbers surpass those of the past decade.

Note: The Census Bureau estimates net domestic migration trends, which are released with the annual population estimates. In both the 2000s and 2010s, data is provided from April (the decennial census date) of the “00” year through June of the “09” year (the end of the annual “estimate year”). As a result, no data is available for January through March 2000, July 2009 through March 2010 and June 2019 through December 2019.

Photograph: Chicago Loop, second largest US central business district, in the state with the second largest net domestic migration loss rate from 2000 to 2019 (by author).

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 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.

Of Niche Markets and Broad Markets: Commuting in the US

Wendell Cox — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 21:29:58 -0400

The six transit legacy cities - mostly urban cores that grew largely before the advent of the automobile - increased their concentration of transit work trips to 57.9% of the national transit commuting, according to the 2018 American Community Survey. At the same time, working at home strengthened its position as the nation’s third leading mode of work access, with transit falling to fourth. The transit commuting market share dropped from 5.0% in 2017 to 4.9% in 2018. Carpooling, after at least three decades of decline, has seen an increase in this decade.

Concentration of Transit Commuting Destinations in Legacy Cities

Based on transit work trip destinations (as opposed to residences of commuters) the cities of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Washington increased their share of commuting by 4.8% (2.6% points) in just eight years (from 2010 to 2018). The legacy cities are home to the six largest downtown areas (central business districts) in the United States, the destination for most of their transit commuting.

This increased concentration occurred even as transit commuting has begun to trend downward, from the 2015, the peak ridership post-1960 year (Figure 1). The transit legacy cities accounted for 6.1% of the nation’s employment in 2018. Their 57.9 share of transit commuting is nearly 10 times their equivalent share of jobs. The more favorable performance of the legacy cities in this decade resulted in their garnering 79.7%% of the increased commuting, more than 13 times their share of jobs.

The intensity of the concentration is illustrated in Figure 2, which compares employment, transit commuting and transit commuting increase (2010 to 2018) shares for legacy cities and the balance of the nation. The work trip market share to the legacy cities is 47%. By comparison, in the rest of the nation, transit’s work trip share is a miniscule 2.1%. Only 19 of the nation’s 53 major metropolitan areas has a transit work trip share of 3.0% or more.

However, to get to jobs outside the legacy cities (in the same metropolitan areas), transit commuting is only 8.6% of the national total. Strikingly, in New York, nearly 51% percent of the jobs are outside the city of New York. Transit’s share to these jobs is only 4.4%, a fraction of the 58.0% who use transit to jobs in the city of New York (the urban core)(Figure 3). Large differences between transit commuting to downtown and the suburbs occurs in most major metropolitan areas, not just those with legacy cities.

New York continues to have by far the largest transit commute share, at 30.9% (Figure 4). The lowest transit commute shares are in Birmingham and Oklahoma City, at 0.6%. Transit work trip data is provided in the Table below by mode.

Working at Home: The Big Winner

The American Community Survey data reveals working at home continues to be the big winner among the most popular employment access modes. Between 2017 and 2018, working at home (which includes telecommuting) gained 258,000 workers nationally, rising from 8.00 to 8.25 million in total. This was a considerable accomplishment. Working at home increased disproportionately relative to driving alone. Having only 7% of the driving alone volume in 2017, working at home added more than 20% of the entire commuting increase over the last year.

Working at home strengthened its number three position, following driving alone and vehicle pools, and now exceeding transit by more than 600,000. In 44 of the 53 major metropolitan areas, working at home accounted for more employment access than transit. The nine exceptions, in which transit led working at home included the six metropolitan areas with “legacy cities” plus Seattle, Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Overall, working at home has increased 2.3 million since 2010. It now has a market share of 5.3%, up from 4.3% in 2010.

Raleigh again had the highest work at home market share, at 9.1%, followed by Austin, Denver, Portland and San Francisco. The great advantage of working at home is that it reduces traffic, and does so without public subsidy (Figure 5). The work at home market shares exceeded that of transit in all but one of the ten top metropolitan areas (San Francisco, with its legacy city). Meanwhile, among the other nine strongest work at home metropolitan areas, seven have built expensive rail systems. Each of these has cost from hundreds of millions to billions of tax dollars. Yet, working at home, which is virtually unsubsidized has attracted substantially greater use.

Working at home exhibits little of the concentration observed in transit. All 53 of the major metropolitan areas have work at home shares of 2.5% or more. By contrast, 28 major metropolitan areas have transit commuting shares below 2.5%. Memphis had the lowest work at home share. Second lowest Buffalo, at 3.5% had a work at home market share larger than the transit market shares in 39 major metropolitan areas.

Carpool Resurgence

Carpools increased 300,000 between 2017 and 2018 and more than 600,000 since 2010. This follows decades of decline. This, however, was not enough to keep the mode from falling to 9.0% of the market in 2018 from 9.7% in 2017. There were 19.1 million carpools in 1980, the first year carpool data was collected and only 13.9 million now. The high market share was in Salt Lake City, at 12.0% (Figure 6), while the lowest was in New York, at 6.3%.

Ride Hailing

The data show a huge increase in taxicab use, which is probably due to recently initiated ride hailing services like Uber and Lyft. Taxicab commuting has increased more than 150%, from 150,000 to 360,000. The impact may be even greater. “Other” means of commuting increased almost 300,000, for a 25% increase. This was greater than that of all other modes of employment access, except for work and home and taxicab. It is not hard to imagine some respondents ticking “other” if they did not associate these new services with “taxicab.”

Work Access: Niche Markets and Mass Markets

While transit used to serve the largest share of motorized urban trips (probably about 90 years ago, but I have found no data), it has become a “niche” market among commuters who have a choice (have a car).Transit is about downtown and the urban core, with much of the share of transit commuting being destinations in these areas. Mind you, these are important markets, but they are small in the overall context of employment and transit’s access to metropolitan area jobs is miniscule.

The other three largest modes, cars, car pools and working at home serve broad markets. They can reach virtually any job in the metropolitan area, or in the case of working at home, many jobs around the world. That’s why those three modes hold a near monopoly on commuting, and represent most of its growth. With them, you can get from here to there.

EMPLOYMENT ACCESS BY MEANS OF ACCESS
US Major Metroopolitan Areas: 2018
	Drive Alone	Car Pool	Transit	Taxi	Motor-Cycle	Bicycle	Walk	Other	Home
Atlanta, GA	77.3%	8.9%	3.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	1.3%	1.2%	7.6%
Austin, TX	76.9%	8.7%	1.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.8%	1.9%	0.7%	8.7%
Baltimore, MD	77.0%	8.0%	6.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%	2.4%	0.8%	5.3%
Birmingham, AL	84.8%	8.8%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.9%	0.6%	4.2%
Boston, MA-NH	66.1%	7.0%	13.2%	0.3%	0.0%	1.1%	5.6%	1.0%	5.5%
Buffalo, NY	82.1%	6.8%	3.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%	3.0%	0.8%	3.5%
Charlotte, NC-SC	79.2%	9.4%	1.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	1.4%	0.9%	7.3%
Chicago, IL-IN-WI	69.8%	8.0%	12.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.7%	2.8%	0.9%	5.4%
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	81.6%	8.2%	1.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	2.2%	0.8%	5.1%
Cleveland, OH	81.6%	7.9%	2.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%	1.9%	0.8%	4.6%
Columbus, OH	81.3%	8.2%	1.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	2.2%	0.7%	5.5%
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	80.8%	9.5%	1.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	1.3%	0.9%	5.8%
Denver, CO	75.0%	8.2%	3.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.9%	2.4%	0.8%	8.7%
Detroit, MI	83.2%	8.6%	1.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	1.4%	0.7%	4.3%
Grand Rapids, MI	82.0%	9.1%	1.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%	2.2%	0.5%	4.2%
Hartford, CT	81.2%	7.7%	2.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	1.8%	0.8%	5.7%
Houston, TX	81.0%	9.4%	2.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.9%	1.3%	4.9%
Indianapolis. IN	83.4%	8.0%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	1.3%	1.0%	5.0%
Jacksonville, FL	80.3%	8.5%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.6%	1.6%	1.5%	6.4%
Kansas City, MO-KS	83.8%	7.8%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	1.2%	0.7%	5.2%
Las Vegas, NV	78.7%	9.8%	3.3%	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%	1.4%	2.1%	4.1%
Los Angeles, CA	75.0%	9.5%	4.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.6%	2.5%	1.1%	5.9%
Louisville, KY-IN	82.2%	8.5%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	1.3%	1.0%	4.9%
Memphis, TN-MS-AR	86.1%	9.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.9%	0.6%	2.5%
Miami, FL	77.7%	9.2%	3.1%	0.5%	0.2%	0.7%	1.4%	1.4%	5.7%
Milwaukee,WI	81.5%	7.5%	2.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.5%	2.3%	0.3%	5.0%
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	77.4%	8.1%	4.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.8%	2.4%	0.6%	5.9%
Nashville, TN	80.9%	9.2%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	1.5%	1.0%	6.2%
New Orleans. LA	78.6%	9.3%	2.6%	0.3%	0.1%	1.2%	2.5%	0.9%	4.5%
New York, NY-NJ-PA	50.3%	6.3%	30.9%	0.8%	0.0%	0.7%	5.5%	0.8%	4.7%
Oklahoma City, OK	82.9%	8.8%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	2.1%	1.0%	4.2%
Orlando, FL	80.3%	10.4%	1.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	1.1%	0.9%	5.0%
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	72.3%	7.2%	9.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.6%	3.4%	0.8%	5.5%
Phoenix, AZ	75.8%	11.2%	1.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.7%	1.3%	1.2%	7.4%
Pittsburgh, PA	76.6%	8.3%	5.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	3.4%	0.5%	5.1%
Portland, OR-WA	70.4%	8.8%	6.1%	0.2%	0.2%	2.0%	3.4%	0.7%	8.1%
Providence, RI-MA	81.3%	8.5%	2.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%	3.0%	0.6%	3.8%
Raleigh, NC	79.0%	8.9%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	1.3%	0.5%	9.1%
Richmond, VA	81.2%	8.7%	1.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.7%	1.4%	0.9%	5.2%
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	79.8%	10.9%	1.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%	1.5%	1.0%	5.0%
Rochester, NY	80.9%	7.9%	2.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.5%	3.0%	0.4%	4.8%
Sacramento, CA	76.6%	9.2%	2.2%	0.2%	0.3%	1.3%	1.7%	0.8%	7.9%
St. Louis,, MO-IL	83.6%	6.9%	2.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	1.8%	0.6%	4.6%
Salt Lake City, UT	74.5%	12.0%	3.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.7%	2.2%	0.5%	6.7%
San Antonio, TX	79.2%	11.2%	1.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	1.8%	1.0%	4.6%
San Diego, CA	76.5%	8.8%	2.6%	0.2%	0.5%	0.4%	3.1%	1.2%	6.6%
San Francisco, CA	57.2%	9.6%	17.3%	0.7%	0.4%	1.9%	4.7%	1.2%	7.0%
San Jose, CA	75.3%	10.3%	4.0%	0.3%	0.3%	1.6%	2.2%	0.9%	5.0%
Seattle, WA	66.1%	10.0%	10.7%	0.3%	0.3%	1.1%	4.1%	0.7%	6.7%
Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	78.9%	9.0%	1.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.5%	1.4%	1.1%	7.3%
Tucson, AZ	76.8%	10.0%	2.1%	0.2%	0.4%	1.5%	2.1%	1.3%	5.5%
Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	81.2%	8.5%	1.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%	2.8%	1.0%	4.4%
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	65.8%	9.2%	13.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.9%	3.3%	1.0%	6.1%
UNITED STATES	76.3%	9.0%	4.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.5%	2.6%	0.9%	5.3%
Derived from American Community Survey 2018.

Photograph: Interstate 5 in Orange County California, with elevated express lanes (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.

Las Vegas Lessons, Part II

Pete Saunders — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 01:33:38 -0400

A couple weeks ago I wrote some thoughts after a recent visit to Las Vegas. Most of what I wrote about concerned the Strip and downtown areas of the city, without question the two most recognizable and most frequently visited parts of the region. But in a rapidly growing region of nearly 2.2 million people (the Las Vegas Valley held only 273,000 residents in 1970, meaning it has increased its population by 8 times since then), clearly there's much more to the region than its most iconic and visible parts. Here I'll offer some thoughts on the broader region, its built environment, its economy, and thoughts on its future.

First, for those tl;dr readers who won't click through to read Part I, here's a quick summary of it:

• The Strip and Las Vegas are two entirely different entities.
• Strip is a great pedestrian experience.
• The Strip is an exclusively private space.
• Downtown Las Vegas is quite different from the Strip.
• There are poor linkages between Downtown Las Vegas and the Strip.
• The north end of the Strip is plagued with high-profile failed projects.

Again, as someone who's "part urbanist, part sociologist, and part economist," I offer some observations and thoughts on the rest of the city and region.

The balance of the city and region consists of unremarkable suburbia. This is probably evident to anyone who puts any amount of thought into it, but it does bear repeating. Step away from the Strip and downtown, and Las Vegas's built environment is amazingly consistent: according to the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey in 2015, the metro area is about 60% single family detached homes, with about 4,000-6,000 people per square mile throughout. There's no sudden or even slight gradation in density as one commonly finds in many eastern cities; the city quickly establishes its suburban character and spits it out relentlessly. And, I've been struck on this visit and previous ones at how similar Vegas looks to suburbia in other places. Yes, there are newer, upscale areas that stand out (Summerlin comes to mind), but if you replace Vegas's palm trees with oaks and elms, it looks a lot like suburbia anywhere else in America, except with Spanish tile roofs. Similarly...

Nothing in the region is old; the region will have to learn the art and skills of redevelopment. Fifteen years ago when I did some consulting work in Las Vegas, I thought it was weird when city officials referred to West Las Vegas, just northwest of downtown, as "historic". Most of the homes and businesses there were built in the '50s and through the '70s, and in my mind they were the kind of structures that were just beginning to establish some character. But when the median year of structure built in the region is 1995 (the same for Chicago's metro is 1967), you simply won't find the pre-WWII type of development that is called historic in other places. There will come a time when the structures of the Las Vegas Valley will be viewed as obsolete and inconsistent with modern living (whatever that is), and the region will have to undergo one of the more difficult transitions for municipalities -- shifting from easy greenfield development to complex redevelopment.

Low wage and low skill jobs proliferate in the region. Like the unremarkable nature of the suburban pattern, here's another conventional observation that bears repeating. As one would expect, the accommodations/food services employment sector dominates in Las Vegas -- nearly one-third of all Las Vegas workers work in hospitality. Those have traditionally been low-paying jobs, and that's true of the region today. Overall, 44% of Vegas workers earn less than $40,000 a year. Contrast that with Austin, a similarly-sized and similarly-fast-growth metro, where only 9% of workers are employed in accommodations/food services, and just 34% of workers earn less than $40,000 a year (and consider that Austin is a college town that has many recent grads, possibly pushing incomes downward). My concern for Vegas in this regard is that there is growing research that suggests that the kind of work automation that decimated much of the Rust Belt's manufacturing jobs may now enter a phase that targets food services, administration and office support, sales and even retail jobs -- precisely the kinds of jobs that many new Las Vegas residents moved there to occupy. Las Vegas workers could be quite vulnerable to the kinds of challenges that reshaped the Rust Belt.

The Las Vegas Valley is nearing its physical limits. According to Wikipedia, the Las Vegas Valley is a 600 sq. mi. basin surrounded on all sides by mountains. I don't know the precise delineations between flat and inclined topography, but a look at Google Earth tells me the region is near its limit:

I could be wrong, but it looks as if Vegas has available land to the north and southwest, and the Valley might be approaching 90% developed. It could be that the region hits the wall (literally) within the next 10 years. What will that mean for a region that is as low-density suburban as this one? Will the Valley's communities have the ability to shift their focus inward? Time will tell.

What happens to the region if tourism... changes? Wikipedia's Atlantic City page has a good explanation for the decline of tourism there after World War II. It connects its decline with the car; prior to the war, people generally traveled to Atlantic City by train and stayed for a week or two. Cars made people more mobile and they made shorter visits. Suburbanization and its creature comforts, like backyards and air conditioning, also took visitors away from AC. The final nail in the coffin was affordable jet service, opening up vacation spots like Miami, Havana, and the Bahamas (and Vegas) in the 50's and onward. I don't know what challenge is out there for Vegas now, but what will be crucial to the region's survival is how it responds.

What impact will climate change have on a desert resort city? When flying into Las Vegas I couldn't help but notice the low level of Lake Mead, just southeast of the city. It was clear from the air; bleached rock that had once been under water now exposed. Las Vegas is blessed to have one of the largest reservoirs in the nation at its back door, but could continued drought and increased demand for water undermine everything? The Strip's casinos tout themselves as leaders in water conservation, but whether their efforts will be enough as conditions worsen is an open question.

Las Vegas is truly a unique place. It's a place that seems to serve a certain time and space, and is concerned about now more than its future. But I'm sure if the region squints its eyes and looks, it will see the future is getting closer. It will need to figure out how it will be sustainable as that future approaches.

This piece originally appeared on The Corner Side Yard.

Pete Saunders is a Detroit native who has worked as a public and private sector urban planner in the Chicago area for more than twenty years. He is also the author of "The Corner Side Yard," an urban planning blog that focuses on the redevelopment and revitalization of Rust Belt cities.

Photo by Stan Shebs [GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0 or CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

Las Vegas: The Once and Future Downtown Project

Aaron M. Renn — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 00:38:17 -0500

There’s been a lot in the news lately about the troubles plaguing Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project in Las Vegas. The latest is a longish report in the Guardian, which notes:

Yet by late September of this year, the press – especially the technology press – had begun asking some serious questions, as the Downtown Project suddenly laid off 30 people – 10% of the total it then directly employed. Alongside portentous headlines announcing this “bloodletting” appeared claims that Hsieh had “stepped down” from his position of leadership of the project. A damning open letter from the Downtown Project’s former “director of imagination”, David Gould, called the operation from which he had just resigned “a collage of decadence, greed and missing leadership … There were heroes among us,” he added, “and it is for them that my soul weeps.”

Technology web site Re/code also ran a seven part series on the Downtown Project, some of it unflattering, including a part focused on a spate of suicides there, and other on about a prominent failed startup.

I made the obligatory pilgrimage to the Downtown Project in 2013 and wrote up my observations in a three part series, of which you can read part one, part two and part three.

I noted at the time the audacity of one project trying to completely transform a place like downtown Las Vegas:

Las Vegas has the single most savagely bleak downtown of any major city I’ve ever visited. The Downtown Project is almost literally starting at zero. There are practically no assets. So anything that the Downtown Project accomplishes needs to be seen against that backdrop. Most of these other cities have been at the downtown redevelopment game for 30+ years, have massive architectural and institutional assets, and have already been the recipients of untold billions in investment, much of it public money.

I also mentioned that the accolades the project had received in the press were disproportionate to the actual accomplishments to date:

Honestly, it’s a bit infuriating as a guy who lived in Indy, Louisville, and Providence to see a place where so little has happened garner such massive press and accolades when most other regions the size of Vegas have done more while getting far less attention.

Indeed, it’s hard to think of a single downtown redevelopment effort that received as much glowing coverage as the Downtown Project. Not even Dan Gilbert’s Detroit efforts received such fawning attention. This is an accomplishment I’m not sure most people fully appreciate. Tony Hsieh was very savvy in using his status as a tier one entrepreneurial superstar, along with a bank of free “crash pad” apartments for visitors, to create buzz and publicity. Other cities should definitely stand up and take notice.

However, the very success of the project on the PR front primed it for inevitable blowback when problems arose. As the Guardian piece notes, “The story fairly demands an apocalyptic ending.” The higher a star soars in the celebrity firmament, the more knives get drawn when anything disturbs the pristine image. The Guardian reporter also said, based on a very recent trip, that reports of the project’s demise are premature.

So the Downtown Project has run into turbulence? Film at 11. Startups are hard, risky, trouble fraught endeavors. Tony went through multiple meat grinders in the past, and if you’ve read his book it’s by no means certain that Zappos would even survive. There were many times it could have gone under. Clearly the man has a massive appetite for risk, and the Downtown Project was certainly a risky and ambitious undertaking.

The initial puffery was overblown. Time will tell if the blowback is as well. Success was always going to be difficult. I noted last year that the project was going against the grain of the DNA of Vegas as a city, was very reliant on “best practices” type solutions vs. the innovative cultural approach of Zappos, and that “curating” a city was inherently dubious. Yet I admire the ambition and believe they’ve done a lot of things right.

I doubt that the project will ever realize the full, audacious vision that was laid out at the beginning. The commitment of Zappos to its downtown HQ probably prevents a complete flameout. But it may turn out that Tony was unwise to have so heavily promoted the project up front. That has more or less ensured that anything less than perfection will be judged as a failure. He set the bar so high, it is almost impossible to clear. Had there been more modest ambitions, then probably even incremental progress against the backdrop of the disaster zone that was downtown Las Vegas would have been seen as a win. But perhaps in one example of how the Downtown Project did match perfectly with the Vegas DNA, Tony Hsieh elected to pile all his chips on Red 14.

Full Disclosure: I had previous financial relationships with Downtown Project related entities and stayed for free in one of their crash pads during my stay.

Aaron M. Renn is an independent writer on urban affairs and the founder of Telestrian, a data analysis and mapping tool. He writes at The Urbanophile, where this piece originally appeared.

Downtown Project photo by Eddie Codel.

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Learning From Las Vegas: Tony Hsieh’s Big Gamble

Learning From Las Vegas: Academic Taxonomy

Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO and Founder of Las Vegas Downtown Project, Dies Aged 46

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Las Vegas Lessons, Part II

Las Vegas: The Once and Future Downtown Project