Articles - Joel Kotkin

The Growth Dilemma

January 13, 2020/in Politics, The Economy /by Joel Kotkin

Until just a few years ago, the need for economic growth to sustain societies was almost universally acknowledged. But today, political leaders and influential economists increasingly believe that economic growth should be supplanted by environmental or social equity concerns.

Gage Skidmore

Is America About to Suffer its Weimar Moment?

January 2, 2020/in Politics /by Joel Kotkin

Is America about to suffer its Weimar moment, culminating in the collapse of its republican institutions? Our democracy may be more rooted than that of Germany’s first republic, which fell in 1933 to Adolf Hitler, but there are disturbing similarities.

Trump with supporters in Panama City Beach

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How Trump Can Win Again

December 30, 2019/in Politics, The Economy /by Joel Kotkin

By all rights, Donald Trump should be packing his bags and headed to the golf links and his favorite fast food restaurant. Never popular, he has done little to expand his base over the past three years. Yet Trump appears further along the road to re-election than might have seemed possible just a short time ago.

California’s Low-wage Jobs Crisis

December 24, 2019/in California, The Economy /by Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky

by Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — Media, the political class and policy wonks have identified the “housing crisis” as California’s existential challenge. Yet, in reality, more critical may be a “jobs crisis” that is condemning ever more Californians to permanent low-wage purgatory.

California Preening: Golden State on Path to High-Tech Feudalism

December 23, 2019/in California, Demographics, Politics, The Economy /by Joel Kotkin

“We are the modern equivalent of the ancient city-states of Athens and Sparta….” declared then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2007. In truth, the Golden State is becoming a semi-feudal kingdom, with the nation’s widest gap between middle and upper incomes—72 percent, compared with the U.S. average of 57 percent—and its highest poverty rate.

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The Jewish Dilemma

December 10, 2019/in Urban Affairs /by Joel Kotkin

When Britain’s Jews go to the polls next week, they do so at an uncomfortable moment. For the first time in at least a half century, their community—roughly 330,000 citizens—has become a major, if unwelcome, political issue.

The Middle Class Rebellion

December 9, 2019/in Politics, The Economy, Urban Affairs /by Joel Kotkin

We usually associate rebellions with the rise of the desperate. But increasingly we are seeing large protests in comparatively wealthy countries that are led not by working class sans-culottes or starving peasants, but what was once the stable middle class.

RECEPTION: CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA-CHINA TIES, THURSDAY 1 AUGUST 2019

Australia’s China Syndrome

December 7, 2019/in Demographics, Politics, The Economy /by Joel Kotkin

Australia continues to benefit from China’s rise, though few countries are more threatened by its expanding power. Once closely tied to the British Commonwealth, and later to the United States, the Australian subcontinent, with only 24 million people, now relies on China…

Mayors Won’t Rule the World

December 2, 2019/in Politics /by Joel Kotkin

Earlier in this decade, cities—the bigger and denser the better—appeared as the planet’s geographic stars. According to the 2013 book If Mayors Ruled the World, everyone would be better off if state rule were replaced by rule from the most evolved urban areas.