New Geography

Author: Joel Kotkin

  • Calling Out the High-Tech Hypocrites

    The recent brouhaha over Indiana’s religious freedom law revealed two basic things: the utter stupidity of the Republican Party and the rising power of the emerging tech oligarchy. As the Republicans were once again demonstrating their incomprehension of new social dynamics, the tech elite showed a fine hand by leading the opposition to the Indiana law.

    This positioning gained the tech industry an embarrassingly laudatory piece in the   New York Times, portraying its support for gay rights as symbolic of a “new social activism” that proves their commitment to progressive ideals.

    “So many tech companies have embraced a mission that they say is larger than profits,” Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, the online real estate firm, told the Times. “Once you wrap yourself up in a moral flag, you have to carry it to the top of other hills.”

    Yet beneath the veneer of good intentions, the world being created by the tech oligarchs   both within and outside of Silicon Valley fails in virtually every area dear to traditional liberals. On a host of issues—from the right to privacy to ethnic and feminine empowerment and social justice—the effects of the tech industry are increasingly regressive.

    The valley elite may have won its gender discrimination lawsuit against Ellen Pao, but this does not dispel the notion that it runs largely on testosterone. The share of women in the tech industry is barely half of their 47 percent share in the total workforce.  Stanford researcher Vivek Wadhwa describes Silicon Valley as still “a boys’ club that regarded women as less capable than men and subjected them to negative stereotypes and abuse.”

    Race is another hot spot for progressives, but outside of Asians, the valley’s record is nothing short of miserable. Some of this reflects the rapid de-industrialization of the industry—the valley has lost 80,000 manufacturing jobs alone since 2000—as companies shift their industrial facilities either to China or to states like Utah and Texas, where they can escape the tax and regulatory regime that they so avidly support back in California.

    So good blue-collar jobs go elsewhere, and the valley’s  own  African-Americans and Hispanics (who  make up roughly one-third of the population) now occupy  barely 5 percent of jobs in the top Silicon Valley firms.  They have not done well in the current tech “boom”: Between  2009 and 2011,  earnings dropped  18 percent for blacks and 5 percent for Latinos, according to a 2013 Joint Venture Silicon Valley eport. 

    Nor can we expect tech firms to go out of their way to train or develop too many American-born workers, of whatever race, for their jobs. Instead the industry’s elites seek to get their employees through H-1B immigrants, largely from Asia. These workers are likely to be more docile, and more limited in their job options than native born or naturalized citizens. Given that there is a surplus of American IT workers, this brings to mind not global consciousness but instead the importation of the original coolie labor force brought to California to build the railroads.

    Similarly, despite claims of a commitment to personal freedom, valley firms like Google are  renowned for their calculated violations of privacy. Support the free movement of labor? Others, notably Apple, are also leaders in seeking to restrain employees  from changing jobs.

    And what about the sensible liberal idea that the rich and corporations should pay their “fair share” of taxes?  That’s a progressive ideal paid for by your Main Street businessman or your local dentists, but don’t expect your tech oligarchs to play by the same rules.  True, Bill Gates has voiced public support for higher taxes on the rich but tech companies, including Microsoft, have bargained to evade paying their own taxes. Facebook paid no taxes in 2012, despite profits in excess of $1 billion.  Apple, which even the New York Times described as “a pioneer in tactics to avoid taxes,” has kept much of its cash hoard abroad to keep away from Uncle Sam.

    If these actions were taken by oil companies or suburban developers, the mainstream media would be up in arms. Yet by embracing “progressive” values on issues like gay rights, the tech oligarchs are trying to secure a politically correct “get out of jail free” card. Monopolistic behavior, tax avoidance, misogyny, and privacy violations are OK, as long as you mouth the right words about gay rights and climate change—and have the money and  the channels to broadcast your message.

    Like other plutocrats, the tech oligarchs seek to buy political protection, usually from the Democrats. In 2012, tech firms gave Democrats roughly twice as much  campaign money to Democrats than to Republicans.

    If anything, grassroots techies are even more left-oriented, with 91 percent  of the contributions of Apple employees in the 2012 presidential race going to President Obama.

    Yet despite these leanings, the tech oligarchs manage to get a pass from conservatives. Perhaps some have over-imbibed Ayn Rand, becoming prisoners of an ideology that suggests the valley elites reflect a  “meritocratic” ideal driven by profits. That’s an interesting take since so many leading tech firms, from Amazon to Twitter, actually earn little or no profit. They benefit instead from easy access to capital markets, from which they can extract enormous earnings through stock inflation.

    Other conservatives also seem to share the views of the most prominent tech libertarian, Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel, who claims that non-conformist business is now “increasingly rare outside of Silicon Valley.” Yet given the “me too” nature of much of what passes for tech today, and the huge advantages to those who can access venture capital,  perhaps American farmers, wildcat oil drillers and even cutting edge restaurateurs take bigger risks, and provide better bigger social rewards to the overall economy.

    Commentators on the right and much of the left  seem to have forgotten that the valley is no longer dominated by scraggly outsiders creating amazing innovative products. In most cases now they are essentially extending the power of the Internet—developed by the U.S. military and paid for by American taxpayers—into a host of fields from transportation to renting out rooms. In many cases they are simply redistributing to themselves money that once went to publishing companies, taxi drivers and hotels. That’s capitalism, but not inherently moral, or compassionate.

    In reality the valley elite is increasingly nothing more than the latest iteration of   oligopolistic crony capitalism. Firms like Google, Apple and Microsoft hold market shares in their fields upwards of 80 percent. In some cases, they do it without improving their products, as anyone using Microsoft products can certainly attest. Their control of their markets is far greater than those of  the  largest oil, automobile or home-building firms.  Tech firms, particularly in California, have also been primary beneficiaries of crony capitalism, particularly in terms of “green energy” schemes that are far from market-worthy. Despite this, Google and their ilk get subsidies to reap profits while forcing California’s middle and working classes to pay higher bills.

    As a country, it is time to understand that the tech oligarchs are not much different from, and no better than, previous business elites. Like oil companies under the Bushes, they relish their ties to the powerful, as evidenced by Google’s weekly confabs with Obama administration officials. No surprise that a host of former top  Obama aides—including former campaign manager David Plouffe (Uber) and White House press secretary Jay Carney (Amazon)—have signed up to work for tech giants.  

    None of this is to say that the tech elites need to be broken up like Standard Oil or stigmatized like the tobacco industry. But it’s certainly well past the time for people both left and right to understand that this oligarchy’s rise similarly poses a danger to our society’s future. By their very financial power, plutocratic elites — whether their names are Rockefeller, Carnegie, Page, Bezos or Zuckerberg —  need  to be closely watched for potential abuses instead of being the subjects of mindless celebration from both ends of the political spectrum.

    This piece first appeared at Real Clear Politics.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is also executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is also author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050.  He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

    Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.

  • Can Singapore Thrive After Lee Kuan Yew?

    On Sunday, Singapore cremates its greatest leader, the late Lee Kuan Yew, architect of its good fortunes. Yet the flames also could extinguish the era of relentless social and economic progress that Lee ushered in during his long, amazingly productive life.

    World leaders, corporate hegemons, and much of the foreign policy establishment tend to worship Lee’s achievements. But the view from on high, not to mention across the seas, can be quite different from the reality on the ground, as I have learned over many trips to this most remarkable city-state.

    Lee is rightly celebrated for his remarkable success in transforming a poor, southeast Asian metropolis into one of the wealthiest and most productive places on the planet. At the time of its independence in the mid-’60s, Singapore was a corrupt, dirty, and divided Asian metropolis, with a GDP of roughly $2,600 per capita, which put it ahead of China and most of its southeast Asian neighbors but below such countries as the Philippines, Brazil, Yugoslavia, Bolivia, and Argentina, and several times lower than Greece, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

    Uncontestable: A Record of Economic Achievement

    Under Lee and his cadre of well-educated, thoughtful civil servants, the tiny 225 square mile island republic has created arguably the best run and most successful dense urban place on the planet. Today the city-state has a per capita GDP estimated at $55,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, above the U.S. level and well ahead of Japan, Germany, and France, as well as its old colonial master, Great Britain.

    Lee got there by having goals but being pragmatic about how to achieve them. He was what one observer called “a patient revolutionary,” a Fabian socialist whose underlying ideology can be boiled down to “what works.” This pragmatism was evident in economic policy, as the country focused first on trade and manufacturing and then towards a greater orientation to technology and high-end services.

    Education was a critical component, and from the start it was seen as the primary way to build both the state and the economy. This policy has resulted in a high proportion of technically trained professionals, leading the Center on International Education Benchmarking Education to call Singapore’s workforce “among the most technically competent in the world. Unlike many places in the developing world, Singapore knows it must compete primarily on quality, not price.”

    Perhaps the most critical aspect of Lee’s success, and that of his successors, was the ability to meet the requirements of multinational companies. Designating English as the national language  was a primary advantage. Due largely to Lee, Singapore is a primarily English-speaking country, and global business tends to go where it is understood, and where its nationals can most easily function.   

    As a result, efficient, globally focused Singapore now boasts more than twice as many regional headquarters of foreign firms than far-larger Tokyo, not to mention Asia’s less affluent megacities. They provide expats working for multinationals with sanitation, parks, trees, clean housing, an educated workforce, and low corruption not readily available in the rest of south Asia. Anyone who has spent time in India, or even Vietnam, marvels at the relative ease of life in Singapore.

    The Limits of Globalization

    Yet with wealth have come new problems that are not widely acknowledged outside the city-state. The influx of foreigners has made property owners wealthier, but many feel it also has eroded local culture. Its benefits to ordinary Singaporeans are increasingly dubious. Even as GDP growth continues to chug at somewhat close to 5 percent per annum,   real wages for ordinary Singaporeans have stagnated. From 1998 to 2008, the income of the bottom 20 percent of households dropped an average of 2.7 percent, while the salaries of the richest 20 percent rose by more than half. 

    For many Singaporeans, discontent has led them to consider a move elsewhere. Already some 300,000 citizens now live abroad, almost one of ten. As many as half of Singaporeans, according to a recent survey, would leave if they could.

    The Shrinking Family

    Arguably the biggest threat to Singapore’s future is occurring in the country’s bedrooms.     As Lee was himself aware, Chinese civilization was built around a large extended family, often with several generations under the same roof. In the Chinese tradition, “regulating the family” was seen as critical to both “ordering the state” and pacifying the world.

    As the Chinese began to spread to Southeast Asia and beyond, they carried elements of this family-centric culture with them. Kinship ties, according to the sociologist Peter Berger, constituted “the absolutely central institution” of overseas Chinese businesses in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Australia. In Singapore this familial situation propped up the hierarchy of the state; Lee, in a sense, was the father of all Singaporeans while the bureaucracy played the role of “tiger moms,” cajoling, instructing, demanding ever better results from their charges.

    Yet this familial-based system is clearly breaking down. This is reflected by the decision of   more Singaporeans not to have offspring. Indeed today Singapore has one of the world’s lowest fertility rates; and more young people are postponing or completely avoiding marriage (children out of wedlock remain very rare). The fertility rates in Singapore have fallen almost 50 percent below the replacement rate of 2.1. Overall, Singapore-based demographer Gavin Jones estimates that up to a quarter of all East Asian women now entering their 20s—including those in Singapore—will still be single by age 50, and up to a third will remain childless. 

    “People increasingly see marriage and children as very risky, so they avoid it,” notes Singapore based demographer Gavin Jones. “Even though there’s a strong ideology in Asia to have a family, it is fading.”

    The Spiritual Crisis

    Jones and others see this trend as something of a spiritual crisis, coupled with high housing prices and an overemphasis on work. In the old Chinese world, children were seen as essential to economic stability and social status. Now those values have drowned in a tsunami of materialism and global culture.

    “My father was from the old generation,” says Singapore pastor Andrew Ong. “He came from a family of 16. Now people’s priorities have changed. They don’t really believe in sacrifice and family. They want the enjoyment of life, and children would impinge on that … they don’t value family and children the way we used to.”

    In interviews, young Singaporeans often express the decision not to have children in very pragmatic  terms. “Having kids was important to our parents,” noted one 30-something civil servant in Singapore, “but now we tend to have a cost and benefit analysis about family. The cost is tangible but the benefits are not knowable or tangible.”

    The links among housing prices, work competition, and the decision not to have families was repeatedly mention by young people in Singapore. As one young civil servant told me, “I feel Singapore is becoming more stressful—people are living in smaller spaces. There’s no room for a child. The costs are tremendous. A generation ago, it was different. My father was a bus driver and could get a big HDB [Housing Development Board] flat. For my generation, it will be harder.”

    Demographer Jones also links the low marriage and birth rates in part to extreme competition that forces people to work long hours. Despite successes over the past few decades, the degree of economic uncertainty has grown considerably in successful Asian countries, all of them faced with increased competition from the behemoths of India and China. Faced with these challenges, Singapore employers, Jones reports, remain “generally unforgiving of the divided loyalties inherent in the effort to combine child-raising with working.”

    Such pressures were repeatedly reported in interviews with younger Singaporeans. “People are consumed by their work,” one young Singaporean told me. “There’s a lack of time. You would expect nature will take care of this but it doesn’t.”

    These same phenomena can be seen in all the densest cities of Asia, from Tokyo and Seoul to Shanghai. The very work culture that is so impressive to foreign companies has had a very direct impact on family and society. “The focus in Singapore is not to enjoy life, but to keep score: in school, in jobs, in income,” noted one 30-year-old scholar at the NUS Institute for Policy Studies. “Many see getting attached as an impediment to this.”       

    The biggest impact on these change has been among  women, who are playing an increasingly critical role in the local economy. Although most senior executives in the government and outside are male, the middle ranks, and many of the fastest up and comers, are female. Demographer Wolfgang Lutz notes that while Singapore may have strong pro-natalist policies, it still operates an economic system that encourages, even insists on, long hours for employees, many of whom are women. Singapore’s labor force participation rate for women is almost 60 percent. “In Singapore,” Lutz points out, “women work an average of 53 hours a week. Of course they are not going to have children. They don’t have the time.”

    The danger of a ‘now’ society

    The tendency to put off marriage and child-bearing, as well as the focus on material gain,     works against the fundamental values of patience and persistence that animated Lee Kuan Yew’s career, and also shaped Chinese civilization. A society that is increasingly single and childless is likely to be more concerned with serving current needs than addressing the future. Like other societies, Singapore can tilt more into a “now” society, geared towards consuming or recreating today, as opposed to nurturing and sacrificing for tomorrow.

    These problems, of course, exist across the high-income world, but in Singapore, given its small space and its unfriendly neighborhood, the stakes are higher. After all, there is no suburbia for families to flee to, and there is no Texas to balance off the problems of an over-expensive New York or San Francisco. Singapore’s miracle, as Lee knew, was always a fragile one, and may become more so in the years after his passing.

    This piece first appeared at The Daily Beast.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is also executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is also author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050.  He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

    Photo: “Lee Kuan Yew” by Robert D. Ward – Cropped by Ranveig from defenselink.mil. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

  • California Should Make Regular People More of a Priority

    California in 1970 was the American Dream writ large. Its economy was diversified, from aerospace and tech to agriculture, construction and manufacturing, and allowed for millions to achieve a level of prosperity and well-being rarely seen in the world.

    Forty-five years later, California still is a land of dreams, but, increasingly, for a smaller group in the society. Silicon Valley, notes a recent Forbes article, is particularly productive in making billionaires’ lists and minting megafortunes faster than anywhere in the country. California’s billionaires, for the most part, epitomize American mythology – largely self-made, young and more than a little arrogant. Many older Californians, those who have held onto their houses, are mining gold of their own, as an ever-more environmentally stringent and density-mad planning regime turns even modest homes into million-dollar-plus properties.

    What about California society as a whole? The Chapman University Center for Demographics and Policy released a report this month, by attorneys David Friedman and Jennifer Hernandez, on “California’s social priorities.” It painstakingly lays out our trajectory over the past 40 years. For the most part, it’s not a pretty picture and – to use the most overused word in the planning prayer book – far from sustainable from a societal point of view.

    Read the full article at The Orange County Register.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is also executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is also author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050.  He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

    Photo by Thomas Pintaric (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

  • Singapore After Lee Kuan Yew: Future Is Uncertain For The Utilitarian Paradise He Created

    In this age of political Lilliputians, we must acknowledge the passing of giants. Although he ran only a small city-state, Lee Kuan Yew, along with late Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping, ranks among Asia’s most pivotal figures of the past 50 years.

    These two men — a tall, aristocratic scion of a Hakka trading family and the diminutive Chinese revolutionary — came from very different perspectives, but shared a pragmatic streak, and ultimately strategies that came to be widely copied. You can see their legacy today across the continent, in rapid urbanization and growing economic power.

    But it was Lee who first formulated the essentials of the new Asian economic approach, blending capitalistic modernity with a state-directed economy and authoritarianism. Although repression of dissidents in both countries rightfully offends Westerners, particularly journalists, it has not deterred foreign capital, technology and capital from seeking to cash in on Asia’s growth.

    American and British capital may have fueled global capitalism’s 20th century triumph, but Lee and Deng shaped its expansion in the 21st.

    Lee’s Achievement

    This is not merely a testament to Lee’s tenure as prime minister from 1959 to 1990, the longest of any in world history, but the singularity and durability of his accomplishment. From Singapore’s independence to the present day, Lee helped fashion what is arguably the most successful and best run city in the world.

    In 1965, after Singapore’s acrimonious exit from Malaysia, its outlook was far from promising. Unemployment was high and the fledgling city-state was wracked by internal dissension between its ethnic mix of Chinese, Indians and Malays, and between conservatives and communists, who seemed in political ascendancy as elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The then rough-edged Asian metropolis, an important trading center, boasted a per capita GDP of$2,667 in 1990 dollars, more than double the average for East Asian countries and trailing only Japan in the region, but well behind European countries and North America.

    Faced with imminent disaster, Lee’s response was to create a new political system that blended a mildly socialist program with a development strategy aimed at attracting foreign capital and building up the manufacturing sector. Lee and his People’s Action Party (PAP) focused on developing a modern infrastructure — from the port and roads to education — that is second to none.

    Perhaps PAP’s most remarkable achievement was the creation of the Housing Development Board, which turned the vast majority of Singaporeans from slum-dwellers to owners of apartments that were small but clean and modern. As Asian real estate markets have heated up, HDB has helped keep Singaporean housing costs far more reasonable than in China’s primary cities, or Hong Kong or Tokyo.

    Lee believed widespread homeownership would make Singapore more stable, but it was not enough to make it rich. Under his guidance, everything — from cleaning the streets to developing arguably the best primary education system in the world — was calculated to attract foreign companies and skilled individuals; this at a time when China, India and much of Southeast Asia was either closed to investment, embroiled in lethal civic conflict or primarily dominated by crony capitalists.

    And the world did come, making Singapore among the favored destinations for international corporations. In 1968 Texas Instruments TXN +1.26% established a chip-making plant there, the break Lee later credited with helping transform the city into a technology hotspot.

    A 2011 Roland Berger study named Singapore as the leading location for European companies to establish headquarters in the Asia-Pacific region.Companies with regional headquarters include Microsoft MSFT +1.12%, Google GOOGL +0.16%, Exxon Mobil XOM +0.15%, and Kellogg’s. Singapore now has more than twice as many regional headquarters as far-larger Tokyo, not to mention Asia’s less affluent megacities.

    Lee’s Chinese Legacy

    Cambridge-educated, and with the demeanor of a British aristocrat, Lee promoted English as the country’s primary language, a decision that made the city particularly attractive to foreign investors and workers. But in many ways he remained very Chinese. Lee’s People’s Action Party blended British parliamentary forms with a highly authoritarian, centrally directed system. Author Alex Josey compared Lee’s role in the PAP to Mao Zedong’s suzerainty over the Chinese Communist Party.

    When Deng visited the city-state in 1978, he saw it as an appealing model for his poor country: a top-down, mandarin-led system that could appeal to global capitalists. Deng, Lee would later recall, was most captivated by Singapore’s modern prosperity: “What he saw in Singapore in 1978,” he recalled in his book Third World to First, “had become the point of reference as the minimum the Chinese people should achieve.”

    Anyone visiting China today can see the results of Deng’s insight: gleaming cities, massive expansion of educational institutions, modern roads and transit systems, and most of a general prosperity that has lifted the mother country of most Singaporeans to almost unimagined heights.

    The story is not so positive for those who believe in liberal democracy. Although Singapore is generally less repressive than China, it did show the Chinese communists that being “free” was not necessary for becoming rich. It’s a lesson that many developing countries around the world — in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America — have taken to heart.

    Singapore After Lee

    Lee bequeathed to Singapore prosperity and order, but the durability of his legacy is in question. To some extent, this reflects the technocratic cast of the Republic; Lee may have been a “founding father” of his country, but he did not leave behind a system of beliefs that can tie people together in the manner of George Washington & co. in the United States. Lee is revered simply for being effective.

    Indeed despite massive government efforts to promote a sense of identity, a recent survey found half of all Singaporeans indifferent to their citizenship as long as their wealth could be maintained. Stabilizing forces like religion and family, have also been weakened by the rush to embrace what former foreign minister S. Rajaratnam labeled “moneytheism.” The emptiness of this religion can be seen in the fact that residents of this highly successful city-state are now among the most pessimistic of peoples, alongside understandably dour residents of Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Slovenia and Haiti.

    So even as the Republic prospers, there is growing disaffection, with the PAP’s support dwindling to the lowest level since independence. Fed up with government controls and the increasingly high cost of living, many Singaporeans are considering a move elsewhere. Already some 300,000 now live abroad, almost one in 10. As many as half of Singaporeans, according to a recent survey, would leave if they could

    The utilitarian paradise created by Lee will also have to face competition from Chinese cities like Shanghai and Beijing, notes Ravi Menon, the former head of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Companies that might once have located operations in Singapore now feel pressure to locate in Asia’s dominant economy. Once Asia had few places where advanced technology and services could be developed; now it has many. China alone has 13 cities larger than Singapore, many of them with breathtakingly modern infrastructure and far less expensive workforces.

    There is also widespread dissent about PAP’s policy prescription. One particularlyunpopular proposal has been to boost the city-state’s population from 5 million to roughly 7 million by 2030, largely through immigration. To help accommodate this growth, planners have suggested building a vast underground city with shopping malls, public spaces, pedestrian links and cycling lanes. Even normally docile and sociable Singaporeans may recoil from spending their lives like Morlocks in H.G. Wells’ Time Machine.

    The city also has become more dependent on imported labor, not surprising in a county that has one of the world’s lowest birth rates. Many Singaporeans feel the foreign influx is turning them into strangers in their own city. In 1980, over 90% of residents were citizens. Today the percentage is 63% and, by 2030, if the government’s plans hold up, foreigners will outnumber the natives.

    Yet despite these problems, Lee Kwan Yew’s accomplishments are undeniable. He took a struggling, ununified city and left it an urban jewel. That history has moved on is inevitable, but one has to wonder, among all the current chiefs of state, whether any will leave behind anything approaching Yew’s legacy when they pass from this world.

    Percentage Change In Asian Population Since 2000: +23.5%

    This piece first appeared at Forbes.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is also executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is also author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050.  He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

    Singapore skyline photo by Bigstockphoto.com.

  • As Nonwhites Grow Their Majority in Southern California, How Can they Find More Success?

    California teachers, politicians and media types like to extoll the benefits of ethnic diversity. Certainly, the state’s racial makeup has changed markedly since 1970, with the white non-Hispanic population now a minority. Some, like state Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Salinas, and some education activists now insist that multicultural studies be mandated for the public school curriculum. This is in addition to materials that, as most California parents with kids can tell you, already go out of their way to foster appreciation of different cultures and strongly focus on such issues as slavery, racism and discrimination.

    Yet, if we look at how minorities are faring in the state, and particularly in the Southland, we need a greater sense of reality about how this new demography is working out. Students in Salinas might soon learn more about ethnic history, but it’s not likely to help rescue their schools, which are rated poorly – even in comparison with the state’s overall mediocre standards.

    As California continues to become less white – largely because of both foreign immigration and outmigration of native-born – we have to understand that diversity alone does not assure a prosperous society; that takes greater attention to issues like education and broad-based economic growth than to the politically correct approach of ethnic pandering or curricula manipulations.

    Read the entire piece at The Orange County Register.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is also executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is also author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050.  He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

  • The Changing Geography Of Education, Income Growth And Poverty In America

    In this column, we often rate metropolitan areas for their performance over one year, five or at most 10. But measuring economic and social progress often requires a longer lens, spanning decades.

    Nowhere is this clearer than in education, which many claim is the key to higher-wage economic growth. Yet there are two sets of numbers that need to be distinguished: those states with the highest percentage of educated workers and the states that have increased their numbers most rapidly.

    On one side, the share of the population that is educated, states’ relative standings remain fairly similar to the way they were in 1970. Colorado, California, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia are all still above the national average for the percentage of the population over 25 with a bachelor’s degree, which has risen from 10.7% in 1970 to 29.6% in 2013. Massachusetts leads the nation with a remarkable 40.3% of its adult population having graduated from a four-year college. Overall, the “brainiest states” remain well ahead of their competitors in percentage terms.

    But in terms of growth in the raw numbers of educated people, most of these states have lagged. Indeed their high concentrations of college graduates may reflect their slow population growth, or the lack of opportunities for people without a bachelor’s degree.

    Educating The Sun Belt

    The states whose populations of college grads have grown the most are almost all in the South and the Sun Belt, led by Nevada with a 1,292% increase from 1970 to 2012 in the number of residents with four years of college or more, followed by Arizona (861%), Florida (743%) and Georgia (699%).

    Although they mostly still lag the best educated states, their large additions of educated workers appears to be transforming these former backwaters into centers of advanced industry and commerce. Since 1970, Texas has increased its population of college graduates by 555% while North Carolina’s surged 659%; in contrast, New York’s educated workforce expanded by 247% and Massachusetts’ by 341%, lagging the national average of 397% growth. California, whose economy grew rapidly through this period, was a shade above that with a 402% expansion in its population of college grads.

    The dichotomy is also pronounced when looking at the growth in the population of those with three years of college or more, including community college and certificate programs. Since 1970, for example, South Carolina expanded its population of such people by 746% and Texas by 592%; in contrast Massachusetts’ ranks of “some college” grew by 213% and California’s by 304%. Much of the growth among the leading states was tied to rapid overall population growth due to in-migration, particularly in states like Arizona and Nevada, which was accompanied by relatively rapid job growth.

    Brain Centers And Slower Growth

    The most educated states by percentage of college graduates are on the East Coast — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey — with the exception of Colorado. Many of these states also boasted among of the highest concentrations of college grads in 1970 (Colorado ranked first then with a 14.9% concentration). But with the exception of Virginia, since then the growth in the raw number of educated workers in these states has come at a slower rate than the Sun Belt states, amid their rapid population expansion. For example, since 1970 Connecticut’s population of college grads grew 282%, the fourth lowest rate in the nation and roughly half that of Texas’.

    Some might think that states with a higher proportion of educated workers would do better at creating new jobs. But since 1991, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in both Massachusetts and New York has grown at 0.4% annual rate, and 0.8% in California. In contrast, Arizona’s annual job growth averaged 2.4% and Texas 2%.

    This suggests that having a high percentage of educated people is not enough to grow a jobs-rich economy, particularly if, as Robert Reich suggests, the demand for educated workers in the U.S. has dropped since 2000. It might seem tautological, but expanding economies  attract new educated workers.

    The Changing Face Of Poverty

    In 1959, the South was the poorest region in the country, with a poverty rate of 35.6%. By 1979, in the wake of the federal War on Poverty and strong economic growth, the poverty rate in the South had fallen by more than half, to 15.3%; by then, New York and Texas had roughly comparable poverty rates. (Note that I am not suggesting a linkage to the education trends discussed above, which mostly cover a later period.)

    The shift in the geography of poverty was underlined a few years ago when the Census released a new estimation of how to track it, the Supplemental Poverty Measure. (It takes into account the cost of a broader range of necessities than the standard measure, which is limited to food. It factors in geographic differences in housing costs, adds noncash benefits like nutrition assistance and housing subsidies to families’ incomes and subtracts taxes, child support payments and out of pocket medical expenses). The SPM placed 2 million more Americans below the poverty line as of 2012 than the standard measure; it dropped the poverty rate for those living in rural areas and raised it for those in metro areas and heavily urbanized states like California and New York. For the years 2010-12, California’s poverty rate jumps from slightly above average by the standard measure (16.5%) to the highest in the nation under the SPM (23.8%), followed by the District of Columbia (22.7%). Longtime laggard Mississippi, which ranks second worst in the country under the standard measure at 20.7%, falls back to the national average of 16% under the SPM, better than New York at 18.1%.

    Long-term income growth statistics over the same timespan as our education data also tell an interesting story. U.S. per capita incomes have risen 77% in inflation adjusted dollars from 1970 to 2013, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The leader has been North Dakota, with a 160.4% jump to $53,182. Much of it seems tied to the energy boom – incomes have jumped 51% alone since 2000 — but it’s more than that. Its neighbor South Dakota, where oil production is much less important, ranks third in per capita growth over that span at 125.9%, as it built up a powerhouse financial services industry by loosening regulations. 

    Many of the regions where growth exceeded the national average have historically had low incomes. The former Confederacy accounts for eight of the top 20: Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, Texas and North Carolina. (All still lag the national average income of $44,765, though, with the exception of Virginia). The Plains and Intermountain states account for another six (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota, Oklahoma). The other big regional winner has been New England, with five of the top 20: New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachussetts and Maine. Washington, D.C., ranks 2nd, with growth of 129.4% to a nation-leading $75,329, showing us once again that our rulers treat themselves well.

    Among the laggards is California, where per capita income grew 62.4%, well below the national average. Several other Sun Belt “boom states” that rank highly on our list of states that have expanded their educated populations the fastest have done poorly in terms of income growth, including, Florida (41st), Arizona (48th), and in last place, Nevada. One complicating factor is that these states have a large proportion of people who earned their income in other, colder parts of the country. Not surprisingly, several of the laggards are in the Rust Belt, including Indiana (40th), Ohio (42nd), and Michigan (47th).

    The Future

    Clearly the economic and educational map of America is changing. There’s a movement of educated people — critical to many industries — to formerly backwater states. Over time jobs, too, are following this path.

    In the years ahead we can expect these trends to continue, or even accelerate. There is little reason to believe that states like California or New York are going to re-industrialize or reform their planning systems to help reduce housing prices. They will remain increasingly bifurcated between a very well-educated, affluent population clustered around the most elite industries and an underclass of poor, undereducated people. California, for example, ranks 14th in percentage of college graduates, down from 7th in 1970 but in terms of high school non-graduates it has soared from 44th to 2nd.

    This bifurcation doesn’t bode well for these places. People will continue to move to those places where young educated people are now going, notably in the South, the Great Plains, the Intermountain West, and, to some extent, parts of the Pacific Northwest.

    Forty years from now America will have many more centers of educational and economic excellence spread across the continent. This may involve a decline in the relative power of some regions, notably California, the Rust Belt and the Middle Atlantic States, but the rise of educated workers and employment elsewhere could help the country retain its competitiveness on an increasingly continental scale.

    The Biggest Brain Gain States Since 1970

    No. 1: Nevada

    Increase In Population Of College Grads, 1970-2013: 1,292%
    Pct. Of Adult Population With College Degree, 1970: 10.8%
    Pct. Of Adult Population With College Degree, 2013: 22.5%

    No. 2: Arizona

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 861% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 12.6% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 27.4%

    No. 3: Florida

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 743% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 10.3% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 27.2%

    No. 4: Georgia

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 699%
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 9.2%
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 28.3%

    No. 5: North Carolina

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 659% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 8.5% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 28.4%

    No. 6: Colorado

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 617% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 14.9% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 37.8%

    No. 7: New Hampshire

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 603% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 10.9% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 34.6%

    No. 8: Utah

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 585% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 31.3% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 14.0%

    No. 9: Idaho

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 563% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 10.0% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 26.2%

    No. 10: South Carolina

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 556% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 9.0%
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 26.1%

    No. 11: Texas

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 555% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 10.9%
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 27.5%

    No. 12: Alaska

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 544% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 14.1%
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 28.0%

    No. 13: Virgina

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 517% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 12.3%
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 36.1%

    No. 14: Washington

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 513% 
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 12.7%
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 32.7%

    No. 15: Tennessee

    Increase In Population Of College Grads: 495%
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 1970: 7.9%
    Pct. Of Population With College Degree, 2013: 24.8%

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is also executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is also author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050.  He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

    Photo: 1980s-era Reno, Nevada. Public domain.

  • Misunderstanding the Millennials

    The millennial generation has had much to endure – a still-poor job market, high housing prices and a generally sour political atmosphere. But perhaps the final indignity has been the tendency for millennials to be spoken for by older generations, notably, well-placed boomers, who often seem to impose their own ideological fantasies, without actually finding out what the younger cohort really wants. The reality, in this case, turns out far different than what is bespoken by others.

    Nowhere is this tendency clearer than in the perception of what kind of life – and what places – will millennials find attractive. Generally, the narrative goes like this: Millennials are different, they don’t care about owning homes, detest the suburbs and would prefer to spend their lives in dense apartment blocks, riding the rails or buses to whatever work they might be able to find.

    Urban theorists, such as Peter Katz, insist that millennials (the generation born after 1983) have little interest in “returning to the cul-de-sacs of their teenage years.” Manhattanite Leigh Gallagher, author of “The Death of Suburbs,” asserts with certitude that “millennials hate the suburbs” and prefer more eco-friendly, singleton-dominated urban environments.

    Such assessments thrill the likes of real estate speculators, such as Sam Zell, who welcomes “reurbanization” as an opportunity to cash in by housing a generation of Peter Pans in high-cost, tiny spaces unfit for couples and unthinkable for families. Others of a less-capitalistic mindset see in millennials a post-material generation, not buying homes and cars and, perhaps, not establishing families. Millennials, for example, are portrayed by the green magazine Gris as “a hero generation” – one that will march, willingly, even enthusiastically, to a downscaled and, theoretically, greener future.

    Read the entire piece at The Orange County Register.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is also executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is also author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050.  He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

    New home photo by BigStockPhoto.com.

  • The Three Faces of Populism

    More than at any other time in recent memory, American politics now are centered on class and the declining prospects of the middle class. This is no longer just an issue for longtime leftists or Democratic or right-wing propagandists. It’s a reality so large that even the most detached and self-satisfied Republicans must acknowledge it.

    The Left’s new superstar, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, identifies inequality as “the dominant issue in our public discourse” but similar assessments have recently been coming from such unlikely sources as GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Jeb Bush and even Mitt Romney.

    So, if populism will become a dominant theme in the next election, what form will it take? Populism itself is more a sentiment than a program; it reflects people’s deep-seated fears about the future and a festering resentment of the seemingly unassailable power of financial and other corporate elites.

    Read the entire piece at The Orange County Register.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is also executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is also author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050.  He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

  • Europe Is Still a Second-Rate Power

    In the years after the Cold War, much was written about Europe’s emergence as the third great force in the global political economy, alongside Asia and the United States. Some, such as former French President Francois Mitterand’s eminence grise Jacques Attali, went even further: in his 1991 book Millenium Attali predicted that in the 21st century, “Japan and Europe may supplant the United States as the chief superpowers.”

    This notion of a fading America has been embraced among some here as well, by authors such as Jeremy Rifkin who has written extensively about a “European dream” supplanting the American one on a global scale. In 2008, CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria predicted the rise of what he called “the post-American world,” with the U.S. still preeminent but losing ground, particularly to emerging countries in Asia. This view is widely held in American elite circles, including many people in or close to the Obama administration.

    Yet something funny happened on the road to a post-American era: it didn’t happen. Even under two of the most incompetent administrations in our country’s long history, we are headed not to a “post-American” world, but more likely a “post-European” one.

    The Fading of the “European Dream”

    Fifty years ago, when Europe’s economy was growing faster than America’s on a consistent basis, and Asia was just emerging, the case for the continent’s ascendency seemed much stronger. But for the past 30 years Europe’s economy has been generally performing worse than that of the U.S. , not to mention rising Asian powers, including China and India.

    The Great Recession hit all economies, but recently American growth rates have consistently outperformed those on the continent. By 2013 Europe was still experiencing 12 percent unemployment—a rate that exceeds ours at the height of the U.S. recession. European household debt, notes analyst Morgan Housel, has been increasing while that of American households has dropped.

    The roots of Europe’s poor economy lies in large part in the very welfare state so admired by some progressives. To be sure, generous benefits have helped make Europe somewhat less unequal than the United States. But in the process Europe has become a very expensive place to do business. High taxes and welfare costs, tolerable in an efficient economy like Germany’s, have caught up with weaker, less productive countries such as Italy, Greece, and even France.

    This weakness is most evident in two critical sectors—energy and technology—critical to modern economies. Europe’s much ballyhooed attempt to go “green” has raised energy costs throughout the continent. Ultimately, the effects of high energy prices tend to fall on the middle and working classes, as well as on manufacturing industries, which are are now scouring the world, including the southern United States, for lower cost alternatives.

    Europe is also vastly underrepresented among the rising players in the tech world . The continent still possesses some influential industrial companies—Siemens, BMW, Volkswagen, Bayer, Royal Dutch Shell, Daimler—but it has created no European equivalent to Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Intel, or even IBM. Not one of the world’s 14 largest tech companies by revenue is based in Europe. Five are in Asia, nine in the United States. European officials have tried to curb these often intrusive and arrogant companies, but the problem lies not in overstrong American competition but Europe’s inability to grow and nurture successful young companies.

    The Barrel of the Gun

    It’s understandable that a continent that almost destroyed itself twice with wars in the 20th century would shy away from the use of military force. This was reinforced by decades of reliance on U.S. military might for security. This situation in turn nurtured a strong anti-military, pacifistic streak that resulted in a region with a large economy but with little to offer on the battlefield. England is the only European country to possess one of the world’s top five military budgets. Besides the U.S., by far the largest military power, the top four include China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. The three largest economies using the Euro—France, Germany, and Italy—spend one third less on defense combined than the U.S. Increasingly the only counterweight to U.S. power will be the emerging Sino-Russian alliance, which matches Russia’s still prodigious arms production with China’s almost limitless bankroll.

    Demilitarization has its perils. As Chairman Mao once noted, “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Sure we should all prefer, like President Obama, to employ “soft power” rather than going in with guns blazing a la George Bush. Yet the world is still full of well-armed people who don’t play by such civilized rules. A hard-baller like Vladimir Putin knows a bluffer when he sees one and knows he can do what he wants, in the Ukraine or elsewhere, without fear of European intervention or even fear that the E.U. might help arm Kiev’s forces. Similarly, Jihadis have learned that you can do what you want to Europeans, knowing that some countries—notably France, Germany, Spain and Italy—will willingly pay ransoms to free their citizens. Kidnap a German and get rich; do it to an American, Brit or, god forbid, an Israeli, and there’s eventually hell to pay.

    The Demographic Disaster

    Europe’s biggest problem, however, happens inside the boudoir. Along with Japan, Europe has pioneered low fertility. European countries average a fertility rate of 1.5, well below the 2.1 children per family needed to replace their population.

    The problem is most acute in Italy, Spain, and, most important, Germany. The number of German babies born annually has dropped below the levels at the turn of the last century. Not surprisingly the U.N. expects Germany’s population to drop 9 percent by 2050. Germany may have fewer children than it did in 1900, but Spain’s total number of births has dropped well below the rates of 1858, and may match those of the 18th century.

    This reflects something of a hangover from the disasters inflicted by Europeans on themselves in the last century. After decades of war and conflict, notes historian Tony Judt, Europeans simply wanted peace and quiet. In post-war Europe, every subsequent generation has been a “me generation,” focusing less on family and religion and more on material goods and financial security. Today Europe is one of the most irreligious places on the planet; there are more atheists in Germany, by some counts, than in the entire United States, a country with nearly four times as many people.

    To maintain their workforces and create new consumers, European countries have by necessity made a priority of bringing in more immigrants. By 2025 Germany’s economy will need six million additional workers; this means 200,000 new migrants every year to keep its economic engine humming, according to government estimates . The situation gets worse from there, and by 2050 Germany’s overall workforce (PDF) is expected to drop 30 percent below 2010 levels, reducing it from 54 to 38 million. In the same time period the American workforce is expected grow by an additional 35 million workers.

    For years, Germany and other western European countries have depended on newcomers from Turkey and other Islamic countries to drive their economy. But Islamic migration is widely believed to have failed to deliver workers with enough skills, not to mention creating ever more dire cultural and social divisions. Concerned about Islamic immigration, Germans are now relying , as they did back in the ’60s, on the diminishing pool of skilled workers from rapidly aging states such as Spain and Italy, as well as from eastern Europe. These economically beleaguered countries have become a major source of new migrants to Germany, numbering roughly one million in 2011, a 20 percent increase from the previous year.

    In the process, much of southern and eastern Europe is gradually depopulating. By 2050, Bulgaria is expected to lose 27 percent of its population, while Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania are expected to lose more than 10 percent of theirs. By 2050 the populations of almost the all of Eastern Europe will fall, according to recent projections.

    Then there is Europe’s rapidly aging population, a natural product of low birth rates, which also imposes enormous burdens on the region’s economy. A proposal by German Chancellor Angela Merkel would impose a one percent income tax as a “demographic reserve” to make up for rising pension costs. “We have to consider the time after 2030, when the baby boomers of the ’50s and ’60s are retired and costing us more in health and care costs,” explained Gunter Krings, who drafted the new proposal for Germany’s ruling Christian Democrats.

    Ultimately the next generation will be the biggest losers in Europe’s decline. Even though birthrates are very low, those young people now entering the workforce face extraordinarily high levels of unemployment ranging 20 percent and higher in countries such as Spain, Greece and France. No surprise that Europe’s young are widely described as “the lost generation.”

    Political Chaos

    Europe’s current political crisis has spawned a new level of political uncertainty most clearly seen in the rise of radical new parties—such as Greece’s Syriza—on both right and left. Two forces driving this shift in political balance have been immigration and a growing grassroots rebellion, such as has emerged in Greece, over EU budget and regulatory policies. In Spain, for example, the fastest rising party, Podemos, borrows directly from Syriza’s brand of quasi-Marxist radicalism.

    But most of the thunder in other parts of Europe comes from the right. Many Europeans have come to see the EU not as a great unified superstate but instead as an oppressive, unelected, despotic power. The “common European home” dreamed of by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is becoming a ramshackle collection of apartments, with neighbors who increasingly don’t get along and look elsewhere for succor.

    Another key driver of opposition from the right is the EU’s generally lenient view about immigration. Despite their growing dependence on immigrants, Europeans are increasingly resentful of the newcomers, particularly those from Africa and the Middle East. Some two thirds of Spaniards, Italians, and British citizens, according to an Ipsos poll, believe there are already “too many immigrants,” while majorities in Germany, Russia, and Turkey also hold negative views about newcomers in their midst.

    In France the long-standing fear of losing control of national destiny has combined with growing fear over immigration, stoked by the recent terrorist incidents there. This has allowed the far right National Front’s Marine Le Pen to emerge as an unlikely front runner in the next race for president. The rise of the United Kingdom’s Independence Party stems from a similar concern about threats to Britain’s sovereignty as well as angst over immigration, particularly among working and middle class voters. Even countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands, once considered paragons of liberalism, have seen the rise of similarly minded rightist movements.

    Back to Bipolarity

    Buffeted by a weak economy and a welter of social ills, the aforementioned visions of Jacques Attali and American Europhiles now seem like wishful thinking, if not delusional. In reality in everything from culture and high tech to military prowess, the continent is rapidly becoming a peripheral global power at best. Only Russia, the most powerful military power and the continent’s primary source of energy, seems to have seen the light. President Putin has made this clear as he develops closer ties to China, with whom he shares an authoritarian philosophy.

    Other countries on the fringe of the continent, such as Greece and Serbia, also are looking increasingly at Russia, and its emergent Chinese alliance, rather than the E.U. Chinese plans for new bullet trains to Central Asia and eastern Europe could further enhance the Middle Kingdom’s linkage to Eurasia and central Asia.

    “So what about us?” Anglo-Americans (culturally if not ethnically) may ask. In a globalized world that speaks and writes in English, the Anglosphere—comprising both the U.K. and its various colonial offspring, including the United States—retains some natural advantages. This is where the most elite colleges and universities are located, and where the top financial, technology, and key business service firms are concentrated. Equally important, the Anglosphere also controls much of what the developing countries will most need in the future—food—through the unsurpassed fecundity of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

    Demographics and a unique ability to absorb a wide range of immigrants make the Anglosphere economically and demographically more vibrant than Europe. By 2050, the Anglosphere will be home to upwards of 550 million people, the largest population grouping outside China and India. English-speakers may not straddle the world like the 19th century empire-makers, but they are likely to remain first among equals well into the current century.

    Ultimately, the various countries of the world will have to choose between the Anglosphere and the Chinese-led authoritarian alliance. This will become something of a new version of the Cold War (but with China not Russia in the lead position), with each bloc seeking to win influence across the world. Anglophone India and Japan, for example, may choose the Anglosphere due to democratic traditions and a feeling of foreboding about a future forged by Chinese economic and, increasingly, military power.

    On the other hand, Latin American nations like Brazil and Argentina may consider “yankee imperialism” a greater threat to their autonomy and choose instead to embrace the Middle Kingdom and its Russian ally. This may also hold true for much of Africa, where China is making deep inroads. The Chinese-led New Development Bank and its $40 billion “Marshall Plan” for infrastructure in developing countries represents a bold move to secure ever more influence in the emerging world order.

    In this bipolar world forged in the context of U.S. vs China competition, Europe will likely be a bit player, wooed by both but essential to neither. In the 21st century, the road to power will not run through Paris or Berlin but through Beijing and Washington. Like the great leaders of the post-war era, American politicians and statesmen need to acknowledge the new reality of the post-European world and begin to address its implications.

    This piece first appeared at The Daily Beast.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is also executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is also author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050.  He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

  • The Jewish World is Contracting Toward U.S., Israel

    Recent anti-Semitic events – from France and Belgium to Argentina – are accelerating the relentless shrinking of the Jewish Diaspora. Once spread virtually throughout the world, the Diaspora – the scattering of Jews after the fall of ancient Israel – is retreating from many of its global redoubts as Jews increasingly cluster in two places: Israel and the United States.

    Seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz, Jewish communities throughout Europe are again on the decline. This time, the pressure mainly comes not from the traditional anti-Semitic Right but from Islamic fundamentalists, which include many European citizens.

    Not all this decline is attributable to attacks from Islamic militants. Demographic factors – intermarriage and low birth rates – afflict almost all Diaspora communities.

    Read the full article at The Orange County Register.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is also executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is also author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050.  He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

    Photo by Chamber of Fear (originally posted to Flickr as Jewish Family Night) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons