Joel Kotkin
American writer on cities and demography; Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University. Executive editor of NewGeography.com until it closed at the end of 2025; author of The Human City (2016) and The Coming of Neo-Feudalism (2020); argues for suburbs and dispersed growth.
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Their wordsAt a time when many Europeans decry America's mass consumption culture, the artisans of Amelia - stone masons, farming entrepreneurs, construction specialists - may provide a surprising window to an emerging future.
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Our reading
The artisanal economy fits with a rebellion against capitalism's machine-driven sameness.
Their wordsYet viewed in a wider lens, this artisanal economy fits well with a rebellion directed against capitalism that produces the machine-driven sameness that could be amplified by the rise of Artificial Intelligence.
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Their wordsEven as the current economy creates unprecedented wealth, it has not created an economy which retains a more human character.
- 2 days earlier
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Their wordsThe problem is not the people of the neighborhoods, but rather the incompetence of our large governments.
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Their wordsFocusing on basics, and on developing a sense of community, is far more effective than emphasizing partisan politics.
- 7 days earlier
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Their wordsThese elite tech companies are far more powerful than Trump or any state apart from China.
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Their wordsOur era is marked by a shift in geopolitical influence from governments towards a handful of elite tech firms which, as National Affairs notes, constitute 'new superpowers' on the global stage.
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Their wordsWhen the stock bubble inevitably bursts, the established big players, with their already guaranteed income streams, are most likely to stay at the top.
- 12 days earlier
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Their wordsToday's big shift is the movement of companies and people to business-friendly regions in the suburbs and exurbs.
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Our reading
Technology is enabling worker dispersion and may reduce the necessity of dense urban centers.
Their wordsHowever, technology such as remote work, video conferencing, and instantaneous communication is enabling worker dispersion, bearing out Frank Lloyd Wright's prediction that in the future "the city should be everywhere and nowhere."
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Our reading
Migration patterns out of dense, blue states are likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
Their wordsMeanwhile it seems likely that migration patterns out of the dense, blue states will continue for the foreseeable future.
- 7 days earlier
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Their wordsRather than bursting at the seams, we are experiencing a demographic implosion that will shape our political and economic life for decades to come.
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Our reading
Low fertility rates may increase dependence on the welfare state as informal social networks weaken.
Their wordsLow fertility rates may boost dependence on the welfare state, particularly as informal networks - children, grandchildren, extended families, churches, and community organizations - weaken.
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Our reading
Raising the retirement age could reduce the need for mass migration and fill market niches.
Their wordsChanges such as raising the retirement age could encourage people to work longer, reducing the need for mass migration and filling critical market niches.
- 12 days earlier
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EuropeAmericasoftware performancehousing
Their wordsEven if a politician like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez captures the White House, Congress may be reluctant to raise the trillions needed to finance the DSA program of massive new public housing, more mass transit and a 32-hour working week with no reductions in pay. This would not merely be a repeat of Europe's bloated welfare states but would eat up virtually the whole of the United States's GDP.
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Their wordsUnless paid for by Washington, it is clear that urban socialists will not be able to afford the promises made to their core constituencies - poor recent immigrants and the mass of underpaid, overeducated professionals.
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Their wordsWhoever wins in the LA mayor's race - incumbent Bass or challenger Raman - their shared perspective assures the city's decline will remain inexorable.
- 2 days earlier
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Their wordsThe common denominator that sets these communities apart from the city is good governance that starts by paying attention to little things that locals care about - like parks, urban space, and landscaping, even subsidizing flower beds and white picket fences.
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Their wordsThe success of South L.A.'s independent cities - and similar communities across the country - offers a counterpoint to influential urban activists who draw their views from academic thinkers and regional political as well as business elites.