Localism In America

Edited by Joel Kotkin and Ryan Streeter, a new report on “Localism in America” is a collection of essays from AEI and the Center for Opportunity for Urbanism.

The report highlights ideas and proposals from writers of diverse ideological backgrounds about the promise and limits of taking on big challenges at the local level.

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Fading Promise of Millennial Prospects in California

Many of California’s problems are self-inflicted, the result of misguided policies that have tended to inflate land prices and drive up the cost of all kinds of housing. Since housing is the largest household expenditure, this pushes up the cost of living. California still has the landmass and the appeal to power opportunity for the next generation. It is up to us to reverse the course, and
restore The California Dream for the next generation.
This report presents detailed data about the state of the economy, population base, and employment picture of California. The implications of the data are inescapable: California, despite its great natural blessings, needs a new strategy and a focused commitment to execute it

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The New American Heartland

The greatest test America faces is whether it can foster the kind of growth that benefits and expands the middle class. To do so, the United States will need to meet three challenges: recover from the Great Recession, rebalance the American and international economies, and gain access to the global middle class for the future of American goods and services.

The fulcrum for meeting these challenges is the combination of industries and resources concentrated in the New American Heartland, the center of the country’s productive economy.

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America’s Emerging Housing Crisis

A Special Report by Joel Kotkin with Wendell Cox.
Today, more than any time, arguably, since the Great Depression, the prospects for improved housing outcomes are dimming for both the American middle and working classes. Not only is ownership dropping to twenty-year lows, there is a growing gap between the amount of new housing being built and the growth of demand.

The groups most likely to be hurt by the shortfall in housing include young families, the poor and renters. These groups include a disproportionate share of minorities, who are more likely to have lower incomes than the population in general.

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Housing the Future: Inland Empire

Do the middle class and working class have a future in the Southland? If they do, that future will be largely determined in the Inland Empire, the one corner of Southern California that seems able to accommodate large-scale growth in population and jobs. If Southern California’s economy is going to grow, it will need a strong Inland Empire.

The calculation starts with the basics of the labor market. Simply put, Los Angeles and Orange counties mostly have become too expensive for many middle-skilled workers. The Riverside-San Bernardino area has emerged as a key labor supplier to the coastal counties, with upward of 15 percent to 25 percent of workers commuting to the coastal counties.

In a new report recently released by National Core, a Rancho Cucamonga nonprofit that develops low-income housing, I and my colleagues, demographer Wendell Cox and analyst Mark Schill, explored the challenges facing the region. Although we found many reasons for concern, the region’s overall condition and its long-term prospects may be better than many might suspect.

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The Emergence of Opportunity Urbanism

Over the past decade, we have witnessed the emergence of a new urban paradigm that both maximizes growth and provides greater upward mobility. We call this opportunity urbanism, an approach that focuses largely on providing the best policy environment for both businesses and individuals to pursue their aspirations.

This is the introduction to a new report commissioned by the Greater Houston Parnership and HRG and authored by Joel Kotkin with help from Tory Gattis, Wendell Cox, and Mark Schill.

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Housing in the 21st Century

In recent years a powerful current of academic, business, and political opinion has suggested the demise of the classic American dream of home ownership. The basis for this conclusion rests upon a series of demographic, economic and environmental assumptions that, it is widely suggested, make the single-family house and homeownership increasingly irrelevant for most Americans.

These opinions — which we refer to as ‘retro-urbanist’ — gained public credence with the collapse of the housing bubble in 2007. The widespread media reports of foreclosed housing in suburban tracts, particularly in the exurban reaches of major metropolitan areas, led to widespread reports of the “death of suburbia” and the imminent rise of a new, urban-centric “generation rent.”

Yet despite this growing “consensus” about the future of housing and home ownership, our analysis of longer-term demographic trends and consumer preferences suggests that the “dream,” although often deferred, remains relevant.

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What is a city for?

In this urban age, it’s a question of crucial importance but one not often asked. Long ago, Aristotle reminded us that the city was a place where people came to live, and they remained there in order to live better, “a city comes into being for the sake of life, but exists for the sake of living well” (Mawr, 2013).

However, what does “living well” mean? Is it about working 24/7? Is it about consuming amenities and collecting the most unique experiences? Is the city a way to reduce the impact of human beings on the environment? Is it to position the polis — the city — as an engine in the world economy, even if at the expense of the quality of life, most particularly for families?
I start at a different place. I view “living well” as addressing the needs of future generations, as sustainability advocates rightfully state. This starts with focusing on those areas where new generations are likely to be raised rather than the current almost exclusive fixation on the individual. We must not forget that without families, children, and the neighborhoods that sustain them, it would be impossible to imagine how we, as a society, would “live well.” This is the essence of what my colleague, Ali Modarres and I call the ‘Human City’.
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The Rise of Post Familialism

Is the rise of childlessness humanity’s future? The research presented in the report was undertaken to look into the causes, economic and social implications of childlessness, especially in high income nations. The research made extensive use of both primary and secondary data, including the landmark work of Wolfgang Lutz, as well as extensive reading on the history and trajectory of the family around the world. This was conducted primarily by Joel Kotkin and Zina Klapper. We also relied on extensive interviews of residents of Singapore, and arranged discussions with experts working in this field.

The most obvious impact from post-familialism lies with demographic decline. It is already having a profound impact on fiscal stability in, for example, Japan and across southern Europe. With fewer workers contributing to cover pension
costs, even successful places like Singapore face this same crisis in the forseeable future.

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