Report: Building the New America

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This new report examines the housing trends that are driving today’s migration of people and jobs, and suggests a urban strategy that better fits the aspirations of most Americans. Below is a summary of the report and a link to download the full report:

For generations Americans have voted with their feet—and their dollars—to achieve what has long been called “the dream,” namely, a home of their own, usually in a low- to mid-density community. This preference has existed for decades, and despite media assertions of a generational shift back to dense, urban living, the statistical evidence shows quite the opposite.

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Housing Report: Blame Ourselves, Not Our Stars

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No issue plagues Californians more than the high cost of housing. By almost every metric—from rents to home prices—Golden State residents suffer the highest burden for shelter of any state in the continental U.S. Its housing prices are, adjusted for income, as much as two to three times higher than those in key competitive states, such as Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, and neighbors like Arizona and Nevada.

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California Jobs: A Multi-Dimensional Problem

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“From the Beginning, California promised much. While yet barely a name on the map, it entered American awareness as a symbol of renewal. It was a final frontier: of geography and of expectation.”
— Kevin Starr, “Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915” (1973)

On the surface, California’s job story seems positive. The “headline” unemployment number for December 2022 is low (4.1%). Payroll jobs continue to bounce back to close to pre-pandemic levels. https://edd.ca.gov/en/about_edd/news_releases_and_announcements/unemployment-november-2022/. As Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Newman would say, “What? Me worry?”

But a closer look at the longer-term, 20-year statistics shows a state with some very worrisome issues related to jobs, some of which are unique to California’s set of past policy choices. Read more

The Emergence of the Global Heartland

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Report: Emergence of the Global Heartland

A major shift in the demographic evolution of America is occurring, largely out of sight in the national media, but profoundly affecting communities throughout the Heartland.

The 20 state region, which extends between the Appalachians and the Rockies, has for generations been largely unaffected by the massive movement of people from abroad that has so dramatically transformed the great metropolitan regions of coastal America.

In the national media, the Heartland represented a region, as the New York Times described it, as ’not far from forsaken,’ a depopulating place where the American dream has come and gone. Others have seen the region as an unreconstructed mecca for intolerance, one that had few immigrants and poor race relations and seems destined to suffer for it. As one professor at Vanderbilt suggested recently, the region was “dying from whiteness” and that its “politics of racial resentment is killing America’s heartland.”

Perhaps it is time to change that narrative. Over the past decade, the Heartland’s share of the foreign-born population has risen from 23.5 percent in 2010 to 31.1 percent in 2019. This shift can be seen in many Heartland communities, some such as Louisville, Columbus and Nashville Read more

Ownership and Opportunity: A New Report from Urban Reform Institute

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In a new report from Urban Reform Institute, edited by Joel Kotkin, J.H. Cullum Clark and Anne Snyder explore what happens when opportunity stalls. Pete Saunders and Karla Lopez del Rio tell the story of how homeownership enabled upward mobility for their respective families. Wendell Cox quantifies the connection between urban containment policies and housing affordabilty. Read more

Beyond Feudalism: A Strategy to Restore California’s Middle Class

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Beyond Feudalism: a Strategy to Restore California's Middle ClassIn this new report, Beyond Feudalism: A Strategy to Restore California’s Middle Class, Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky examine how California has drifted toward feudalism, and how it can restore upward mobility for middle and working-class citizens. An excerpt from the report follows below:

“We are the modern equivalent of the ancient city-states of Athens and Sparta. California has the ideas of Athens and the power of Sparta. Not only can we lead California into the future, we can show the nation and the world how to get there.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger, January 2007

California Preening: A State Of Delusion

California has always been a state where excess flourished, conscious of its trend-setting role as a world-leading innovator in technology, economics and the arts. For much of the past century, it also helped create a new model for middle and working-class upward mobility while addressing racial, gender and environmental issues well in advance of the rest of the country. Read more

California Becoming More Feudal, With Ultra-Rich Lording Over Declining Middle Class

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In the imaginations of its boosters, and for many outside the state, California is often seen as the role model for the future. But, sadly, California is also moving backward toward a more feudal society.

Feudalism was about the concentration of wealth and power in a relative handful of people. Historically, California created fortunes for a few, but remained a society with enormous opportunity for outsiders, whether from other states or countries. One of Pat Brown’s biographers, Ethan Rarick, described his leadership as having made the 20th century into “The California Century,” with our state providing “the template of American life.” There was an American Dream across the nation, he noted, but here we had the California Dream. Read more

Orange County Focus: Forging Our Common Future

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How can Orange County become a better place to live for all of its residents? Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky explore the challenges and solutions in Orange County Focus: Forging Our Common Future, a research brief from Chapman University’s Center for Demographics and Policy. Read an excerpt from the report below: Read more