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  • The Evolution of Red and Blue America 1988-2012

    David Jarman of Daily Kos Elections provides an excellent analysis of the absolute change in the Democratic and Republican vote for president from the 1988 through the 2012 elections, together with valuable tables and maps. The maps, tables, and narrative clearly demonstrate that, while the map looks mostly red as if Republicans were the big winners, the reality is that the Democrats were the beneficiaries of vastly more added votes, because of Democrats’ stupendous domination of the denser, bigger, metropolitan territory. For example, Los Angeles County by itself provided a Democratic gain of 1.2 MILLION, while the largest Republican gain was Utah county, Utah (Provo) with a paltry 90,000 gain. Republicans dominate the vast non-metropolitan expanses, Democrats the urban cores.

    But the title of the piece, “Democrats are from cities, Republicans from exurbs”, is not quite right. Density is only one factor in elections; Democrats did quite well in much of exurbia as well as much of suburbia, relegating Republicans to rural, small city, non-metropolitan America. But the story is as much one of social change as of city versus country. Not only the big central cities, but their suburbs and even exurbs have evolved to house the more socially liberal population, with issues of race, women’s rights, and sexuality converting many middle and upper class to the Democratic side, even while rural small town America and much of the South remain socially conservative and supportive of Republicans.

    This analysis extends Jarman’s findings by disaggregating the net change in the D and R vote by first looking at the degree of change in the Democratic share of the presidential vote from 1988 to 2012 and second by classifying by the change by such categories as:

    • increased R vote shares, 1,
    • declining R votes, 2,
    • shift to Democratic to Republican,3,
    • increased D vote shares, 4,
    • decreased D vote shares, 5,  and
    • 6, a shift from Republican to a Democratic majority

    This permits a more subtle geographic evaluation of the evolution of Red and Blue America. I want to thank the Daily Kos Elections which generously provided the necessary data files. This analysis considers only the vote for president, as the story of votes for congress is complicated by gerrymandering and other issues.

    Change in the Democratic vote by type of change (see Table 1)

    Table 1: Net Change by Type of Change
    Number of Counties 2012 %D 1988 %D Change in D% 88-12 net change County Type (Code)
    1411 30.8 39.8 -9 -4,605,125 1 Total
    448 40.3 55.1 -14.5 -1,517,300 3 Total
    108 55.8 57.2 -1.4 -62,214 5 Total
    -6,184,639 R gain
    274 71.1 58 12.8 8,835,866 4 Total
    313 59.7 42.9 16.4 8,917,699 6 Total
    572 42.4 35.3 7.1 463,743 2 Total
    18,217,308 D gain
    12,032,669 Net D Gain

    Almost half of all counties, 1411, experienced Democratic declines and net Republican gains, totaling  a  net change of 4,605,000, with the Democratic share dropping nine points from 39.8% to 30.8%.  Next in importance for Republicans was the gain of 1,517,000 votes in 448 counties taken from the Democratic column in 1988, with a decline in the Democratic share from 55.1% to 40.3%, a big drop of 14.8 points.  Finally a smaller number of counties, 108, remained Democratic but with a declining share (type 5), giving Republicans a small net gain of 62,000. These Republican gains totaled 6,184,000 and look impressive on a US map.

    But what the Democrats lose in vast America, they make up in the crowded parts. Although their increased shares took place in only 274 counties, the gains were populous enough to provide the Democrats with a massive gain of 8,836,000 total votes. The D share rose an impressive 12.5 points from 58.8% to 71.1%. (This exceeds even the R share in the R gaining counties). But even this big number was exceeded by the gain of 8,918,000 in the again fairly small number of counties which switched from Republican to Democratic, with a change in share up 16.4 points from 46.1% D to 59.3%. Finally the Democrats gained a net 464,000 votes in 572 counties carried by Republicans but by a lesser margin than in 1988, with the D share rising from 35.3% to 42.4%.  Overall the net Republican gains of 6,184,000 were surpassed by Democratic gains of 18,717,000 for a net D growth of 12,032,000, a rise in the D share of 5.9 points from 46.1% in 1988 to 52.6% in 2012.

    Change By State

    A short look at the state level is interesting (Table 2).  Sixteen states became even more Republican, with a net gain of 2,681,000.  Most important in total numbers is the southwestern set of  TX, OK, LA, and AR (1,143,000), then the northern mountain states of UT,ID, WY, and MT (477,000), followed by the Great Plains states of ND,SD, NE, KS, and MO (376,000), and the Appalachian set of TN  and KY (488,000). To the latter should be added West Virginia, 210,000, the only state which switched from Democratic to Republican and an apt example of the non-big-metropolitan and ideological shift in the US electorate.  Only one state, Iowa, experienced a small Democratic decline.

    Nine states became even more Democratic, but sixteen switched from Republican to Democratic, and thus spurring the major numeric and geographic manifestation of the 1988-2012 realignment, a total of 15,342,000.  Combining the Democratic states into subregions reveals the overwhelming importance of greater northeastern Megalopolis, yielding a net vote gain of 5,660,000 and of the “Left Coast” with 4,115,000, both dwarfing the total Republican gains. And the gains in the Great Lakes of 2,740,000, northern New England of 443,000, and the southern Mountain states of 431,000 were significant. Finally the major change in the South Atlantic region is notable, with a gain of 1,383,000 in SC, NC, GA, and FL, even though all but Florida remained Republican. At the individual state level California is dominant, 3,367,000, followed by NY-NJ. For Republicans Texas dominated with 578,000 followed by much smaller Utah with 268,000.

    County level

    The first two maps are the traditional red and blue (sort  of) choropleth maps, showing in Map 1 change in the share voting Democratic and in Map 2, the type of change. Map 3 depicts via graduated circles the absolute net change by counties, like the similar map in the Jarman article.

    Percent change in the Democratic and Republican shares, 1988-2012, Map 1

    Somewhat over half the territory of the US experienced Republican gains, in red shadings, but on average, the populations of the counties are smaller than for the Democratic counties in the blue shades. The dominant swath of red in the center third of the country from TX and LA north through the Dakotas and MN is impressive, but also prominent is the extension across the border south from MO and southern IL to KY, WV and into western PA, and then the northwestern extension to the mountain west, as far as the Cascade range. The most extreme Republican gains were in the two cores of southern Appalachia and eastern TX and OK into LA, plus UT. Most are non-metropolitan. A few most extreme R gains were in Knott, KY, 50%, Cameron, LA, 45, Mingo and Logan, WV, 44 and 43, and Kent, TX, 43%.

    Democratic gains were far more concentrated: in the northeast, in the urban Great Lakes, in much of FL, in the Black Belt of the south, in the metropolitan Left Coast, and in the southern mountain states. The highest gains were in central and suburban-exurban counties in the northeast, the west coast, and Great Lakes, and also in non-metropolitan northern New England. Lower Democratic gains were common beyond the big metropolitan cores or on the edges of the Black Belt in the south.  A few of the more extreme Democratic increases were in Clayton, GA, 51%, Rockdale, GA, 33, both suburban Atlanta, Osceola, FL, 31, Prince George, MD, 30, and Hinds, MS (Jackson), 28%. 

    Kind of change, 1988-2012, Map 2

    The 1411 counties becoming even more Republican (type 1) certainly dominate the interior Plains from Canada to the Gulf and the interior, mainly non-metropolitan far northwest. There are a few counties (typically university counties) in this heartland with counties still red, but less so in 2012. The dominant areas for Republican decline (type 2) are found in the Great Lakes states, in the non-metropolitan, often exurban edges of Megalopolis (NY, PA, NJ, MD, VA). Other areas of Republican decline include rural areas in the interior west, especially areas with environmental attractions and/or increasing Latino populations, and even in parts of the traditional south, such as MS, FL, SC,NC, and VA.

    Most notable are such long term Republican strongholds as Orange, CA, Duval (Jacksonville), FL, and Maricopa, (Phoenix).  Counties which switched from Democratic to Republican (type 3) are first and most impressively in Appalachia from western PA, then including most of WV, and into western VA, central TN into northern AL, second in the TX-OK-AR-LA zone, almost totally non-metropolitan.

    Areas of Democratic gains, type 4, darkest blue, require a close look at the map, as they are mainly the metropolitan cores, most notably Los Angeles, Cook, King (Seattle), much of the New York SMSA, San Francisco-Oakland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. However there are also many majority-minority counties: in the Black Belt across the south, in a few Hispanic areas along the Rio Grande, and Native American areas across the west. Highest Democratic share gains were in metropolitan CA,  FL, in exurban New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Chicago, northern New England and select amenity areas, popular with metropolitan migrants, even in WY and ID!

    Democratic voter share declined (type 5) in  some urban cores, like Allegheny (Pittsburgh), but the most prominent areas are in farming and forestry  areas in the upper Midwest (IA, WI, MN, often adjacent to counties which switched from D to R), and traditionally D forest industry counties in OR and WA. Especially interesting are the counties switching from Republican to Democratic, type 6, most critical to understanding the connection to social liberalism. The most prominent area is northern New England and NY, and extending through Megalopolis snatching a large number of very populous suburban and EXURBAN counties (MA, CT, NY, NJ, MD, VA, PA).

    A second large swath in territory and population is in CA, switching major metropolitan-suburban counties, and also increasingly Hispanic counties to the D column. This switching of suburban and exurban counties was also prevalent in CO, OR, WA, IL, and MI, as well as in parts of the south, e.g., FL and NC. Less visible is the shift of many university counties in most parts of the country. Last and increasingly important is the shift of rural environmentally attractive areas, mostly across the west, but also in the south Atlantic, upper New England and the upper Great Lakes, in part due to retirement of urban professionals. Some of the most important switches were Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Sacramento in CA; Miami and Orlando, FL; Oakland, MI; Suffolk, Bergen and Westchester (all exurban New York); Mecklenburg (Charlotte); and Marion, IN (Indianapolis).

    Absolute change in the D and R vote, 1988-2012, Map 3

    Map 3 plots the absolute size variation in the Democratic versus Republican change, via a simple blue versus red, to assist the reader in properly interpreting Maps 1 and 2. The map highlights the tremendous concentration of Democratic gains in the northeastern Megalopolis, metropolitan California, the big cities of the Great Lakes, and Florida, versus the much more widespread pattern  of Republican gains, extensive in area but small in voter magnitude across the Plains, Mountain states, and most notably, Appalachia .

    Overall, what emerges is a picture far more subtle than simply cities versus exurbs. The bad news for Republicans is that most of their gains occur in rural areas with little population while the Democrats have consolidated their increases in more populous urban, suburban, and in some places exurban areas. Whether these trends spell the death knell for the GOP in the post-Obama period may turn on how they learn to appeal to the next generation of suburban and exurban voters – many of them Hispanic or Asian – as they enter their 30s, buy houses and start businesses. Economic issues could help here, but an emphasis on social issues, or simple anti-tax dogmatism could spell the GOP’s descent into permanent minority status.

    Table 2: Greatest Changes by State
    State 2012% 1988% % Change Code Net change (000)
    TX 42 43.7 -1.7 1 -578
    UT 25.4 32.6 -7.2 1 -268
    KY 36 44.7 -8.7 1 -254
    OK 33.3 41.6 -8.3 1 -253
    TN 39.5 41.8 -2.3 1 -234
    WV 36.3 52.4 -16.1 3 -210
    WY 28.6 39.5 -10.9 1 -62
    DE 59.6 43.5 16.1 4 114
    VT 68.2 48.3 19.9 6 115
    NV 53.3 39.2 14.1 6 141
    NH 52.9 37.7 15.2 6 157
    ME 57.8 44.3 13.5 6 171
    WA 58.2 50.8 7.4 4 435
    MA 61.7 54 7.7 4 516
    VA 51.9 39.7 12.2 6 598
    OH 51.5 43.9 7.6 6 643
    MI 54.8 46 8.8 6 739
    MD 62.6 48.5 14.1 6 756
    IL 58.6 49 9.6 6 979
    FL 50.4 38.8 11.6 6 1,036
    NJ 59 43.1 15.9 6 1,068
    NY 66.2 52.1 14.1 4 1,720
    CA 61.9 45.2 16.7 4 3,367

    Richard Morrill is Professor Emeritus of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Washington. His research interests include: political geography (voting behavior, redistricting, local governance), population/demography/settlement/migration, urban geography and planning, urban transportation (i.e., old fashioned generalist).

  • The Limits of Portland’s Craft Economy

    Charles Heying, the author of Brews to Bikes: Portland’s Artisan Economy, covers Portland’s indie fashion, book and music sector, its recycling/reuse businesses, craft businesses, bike sector, technology businesses and non-profits.

    His thesis is that Portland represents a return to the craftsmanship that defined the pre-industrial age. Heying mostly denies that the artisan economy produces high-end goods for a limited market, and sees it as a broader shift in our society away from mass production. A critic of Richard Florida’s theories, he denies that cities should make cosmetic changes to attract well educated professionals. Instead, he sees the artisan economy as something that emerges from below, rather than imposed from above by local officials.

    But there are some problems with this thesis. Portland has many coffee roasters, but it also has many Starbucks. Silicon Forest, Portland’s tech hub, includes IBM, Intel and Techtronics. None of these firms are small, artisan firms. There are indie designers in Portland but Nike and Columbia Sportswear and Adidas also call Portland home. Sure, twelve percent of people in Portland bike, but that means a lot rely on the car as a primary mode of transportation. And only twelve percent of the beer consumed in Portland is craft beer. If ‘small is beautiful’ really defines this city, then why are there so many big companies lurking around?

    Artisanal enterprises come along with the advancement of information technology, but will in no way replace mass production. I don’t think there will be many small-scale train, airline or automobile companies. The mini-economy represents a side of us that doesn’t want the creative impulse to die, and wants a more socially responsible model, but it won’t shove aside the big model anytime soon.

  • Energy Running Out of California

    The recent decision by Occidental Petroleum to move its headquarters to Houston from Los Angeles, where it was founded over a half-century ago, confirms the futility and delusion embodied in California’s ultragreen energy policies. By embracing solar and wind as preferred sources of generating power, the state promotes an ever-widening gap between its declining middle- and working-class populations and a smaller, self-satisfied group of environmental campaigners and their corporate backers.

    Talk to people who work in the fossil-fuel industry, and they tell you they feel ostracized and even hated; to be an oil firm in California is like being a pork producer in an ultra-Orthodox section of Jerusalem. One top industry executive told me that many of his colleagues in California cringe at the prospect of being attacked by politicians and activists as something akin to war criminals. “I wouldn’t subject my kids to that environment,” the Gulf Coast-based oilman suggested.

    What matters here is not the hurt feelings of energy executives, but a massive lost opportunity to create loads of desperately needed jobs, particularly for blue-collar workers. The nation may be undergoing a massive “energy revolution,” based largely on new supplies of oil and, particularly, cleaner natural gas, but California so far has decided not to play.

    In all but forcing out fossil-fuel firms, California is shedding one of its historic core industries. Not long ago, California was home to a host of top 10 energy firms – ARCO, Getty Oil, Union Oil, Oxy and Chevron; in 1970, oil firms constituted the five largest industrial companies in the state. Now, only Chevron, which has been reducing its headcount in Northern California and is clearly shifting its emphasis to Texas, will remain.

    These are losses that California can not easily absorb. Despite all the hype about the ill-defined “green jobs” sector, the real growth engine remains fossil fuels, which have added a half-million jobs in the past five years. If you don’t believe it, just take a trip to Houston, where Occidental is moving. Houston now has more new office construction, some 9 million square feet, than any region in the country outside New York; Los Angeles barely has 1 million. Indeed, most of the office markets that have performed best in reducing vacancies since 2009 – Pittsburgh, Denver, Houston and Dallas – are all, to some degree, driven by energy.

    Everywhere you drive in Houston, now leading the nation in corporate expansions, one sees new office buildings. Last time I checked, I didn’t see much in the way of a Solyndra, Fisker or other green-business headquarters being constructed anywhere in our Golden State. Energy is driving Houston’s surge of some 50 new office buildings, led by ExxonMobil’s campus, the second-largest office complex under construction in the U.S. (after New York’s Freedom Tower).

    Chevron, once Standard Oil of California, has announced plans to construct a second tower for its downtown Houston campus, yet another signal of how that company is shifting emphasis from its roots in the Golden State to the Lone Star State. Relocating employees will have many people with whom to reminisce about old times; both Fluor and Calpine, major energy-related firms, have already made the Texas two-step.

    California clearly is squandering an opportunity to restart a large part of its economy. Texas energy has created some 200,000 new jobs over the past decade, while California has barely mustered 20,000. These energy jobs pay well, roughly $20,000 a year more than those in the information sector, according to EMSI. In 2011, this sector accounted for nearly 10 percent of all new jobs created in the nation. This has transformed much of the vast energy zone, from the Gulf to North Dakota. Houston, despite strong in-migration, now boasts an unemployment rate of 5.5 percent, almost four points below the jobless rate in Los Angeles.

    What about “green jobs”? Overall, California leads in green jobs, simply by dint of size; but on a per-capita basis, notes a recent Brookings study, California is about average. In wind energy, in fact, California is not even in first place; that honor goes to, of all places, Texas, which boasts twice California’s level of production.

    Ironically, one reason for this mediocre performance lies in environmental regulationsthat make California a tough place even for renewables. Even the New York Times has described Gov. Jerry Brown’s promise about creating a half-million new jobs as something of a “pipe dream.” Even though surviving solar firms are busy, in part to meet the state’s strict renewable mandates, solar firms acknowledge that they won’t be doing much of the manufacturing here, anyway.

    The would-be visionaries who manage the state are selling Californians a lot of pixie dust. Barely 700,000 Americans work in green energy, including building retrofits, compared with 9 million in fossil fuels. Nationwide employment in solar and wind, meanwhile, is well under 200,000. Overall, officials with fossil-fuel-related companies predict 1.4 million jobs in the sector by 2030.

    This predicament can’t be blamed on California running out of oil and gas; some estimates of the state’s oil and gas reserves as considerably larger than those of Texas. The Monterey Shale, located under the state’s economically struggling midsection, holds, according to federal Energy Department estimates, almost two-thirds of the nation’s total supply of shale oil. Tapping this source, notes a recent USC study, could bring as many as 500,000 new jobs to the state over the balance of this decade.

    Despite a bounty of fossil fuels, including along the coast, California’s oil production has continued to drop, and now ranks third among the states, behind No. 1 Texas, which has doubled its oil output in less than three years, and once-insignificant North Dakota. Californians have made a decision, based on green theology, that we don’t want to produce much of the stuff.

    Ordinary Californians bear the brunt of these policies, paying almost 40 percent above the national average for electricity. Rather than produce energy here, we appear set to import much of the oil and gas that, according to the state, still feeds well over 90 percent of California’s energy consumption.

    Particularly hard-hit has been California’s once-vibrant manufacturing sector, which has not mounted anything like the recovery being experienced in other parts of the country. From 2010-13, the country added 510,000 jobs, while California produced fewer than 8,000. Electricity prices are particularly uncompetitive, roughly twice as high in California, as those in prime competitors such Texas, Nevada, Arizona – as well as the hydro-powered Pacific Northwest.

    This has – discouraged manufacturers, such as Intel, from locating or expanding in the state. No surprise, then, that, just last week, it was revealed that the Lone Star State had also surpassed California in exports of high-tech goods.

    The worst impact of this deindustrialization is felt by blue-collar California. Even San Jose, the Central Valley’s traditional manufacturing hub, looks, as analyst Jim Russell suggests, more and more like a “rust-belt town.” Worse off still are the venerable agricultural and manufacturing regions, from the Central Valley to Los Angeles, where one person in five now lives in poverty. California’s green energy fixations, notes economist John Husing, are widening an ever-growing chasm based on “geography, class and race.”

    Despite these conditions, it’s hard to imagine a reversal of our current energy costs. The grip of green interests and their corporate allies in places like Silicon Valley suggests Californians will continue to endure ever-higher energy prices, lagging construction and manufacturing as a regular feature of the economy. This may make the green clerisy in the state happy, but is likely to have the opposite effect on the rest of us and on our economy as it becomes ever more narrowly based and fragile.

    This story originally appeared at The Orange County Register.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. His most recent study, The Rise of Postfamilialism, has been widely discussed and distributed internationally. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

    Oil well photo by BigStockPhoto.com.

  • Internet Marketer

  • Forget What the Pundits Tell You, Coastal Cities are Old News – it’s the Sunbelt that’s Booming

    Ever since the Great Recession ripped through the economies of the Sunbelt, America’s coastal pundit class has been giddily predicting its demise. Strangled by high-energy prices, cooked by global warming, rejected by a new generation of urban-centric millennials, this vast southern region was doomed to become, in the words of the Atlantic, where the “American dream” has gone to die. If the doomsayers are right, Americans must be the ultimate masochists. After a brief hiatus, people seem to, once again, be streaming towards the expanse of warm-weather states extending from the southeastern seaboard to Phoenix.

    Since 2010, according to an American Community Survey by demographer Wendell Cox, over one million people have moved to the Sunbelt, mostly from the Northeast and Midwest.

    Any guesses for the states that have gained the most domestic migrants since 2010? The Sunbelt dominates the top three: Texas, Florida and Arizona. And who’s losing the most people? Generally the states dearest to the current ruling class: New York, Illinois, California and New Jersey.  Some assert this reflects the loss of poorer, working class folks to these areas while the “smart” types continue to move to the big cities of Northeast and California. Yet, according to American Community Survey Data for 2007 to 2011, the biggest gainers of college graduates, according to Cox, have been Texas, Arizona and Floria; the biggest losers are in the Northeast  (New York), the Midwest (Illinois and Michigan).

    For the most part, notes demographer Cox, this is not a movement to Tombstone or Mayberry, although many small towns in the south are doing well, this is a movement to Sunbelt cities. Indeed, of the ten fastest growing big metros areas in America in 2012, nine were in the Sunbelt. These included not only the big four Texas cities—Austin, Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, San Antonio—but also Orlando, Raleigh, Phoenix, and Charlotte.

    Perhaps the biggest sign of a Sunbelt turnaround is the resurgence of Phoenix, a region devastated by the housing bust and widely regarded by contemporary urbanists as the “least sustainable” of American cities. The recovery of Phoenix, appropriately named the Valley of the Sun, is strong evidence that even the most impacted Sunbelt regions are on the way back. 

    A look at the numbers on domestic migration undermines the claim that most Americans prefer, like the pundit class, to live in and near the dense Northeastern urban cores. People simply continue to vote with their feet. Since 2000, more than 300,000 people have moved to Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Charlotte; in contrast a net over two million left New York and 1.4 million have deserted the LA area while over 600,000 net departed Chicago and almost as many left the San Francisco Bay region. These trends were slowed, but not reversed, by the Great Recession.

    The Sunbelt’s recovery seems likely to continue in the future. Immigrants, who account for a rising proportion of our population growth, are increasingly heading there. New York remains the immigrant leader, with the foreign-born population increasing by 600,000 since 2000 but second place Houston, a relative newcomer for immigrants, gained 400,000, more than Chicago and the Bay Area combined. The regions experiencing the highest rate of newcomers were largely in the south; Charlotte and Nashville saw their foreign-born populations double as immigrants increasingly beat a path to the Sunbelt cities.

    The final demographic coup for the Sunbelt lies in its attraction for families. Eight of the eleven top fastest growing populations under 14, notes Cox, are found in the Sunbelt with New Orleans leading the pack. Generally speaking, roughly twenty percent or more of the population of Sunbelt metros are under 14, far above the levels seen in the rustbelt, the Left Coast, or in the Northeast.

    This all suggests that the Sunbelt is cementing, not losing, its grip on America’s demographic future. By 2012 and 2017, according to a survey by the manufacturing company Pitney Bowes nine of the ten leading regions in terms of household growth will be in the Sunbelt.

    If the population growth rates predicted by the US Conference of Mayors continue, Dallas-Ft. Worth will push Chicago out of third place among American metropolitan areas in 2043, with Houston passing the Windy City eight years later. Now seventh place Atlanta would move up to sixth place and Phoenix to 8th. Of America’s largest cities then, five would be located in the Sunbelt, and all are expected to grow much faster than New York, Los Angeles or the San Francisco area. Overall, the South would account for over half the growth in our major metropolitan areas in 2042, compared to barely 3.6 percent for the Northeast and 8.7 percent in the Midwest.

    What drives the change? Not just the sun, but the economy, stupidos!

    From the beginning of the Sunbelt ascendency, sunshine and warm weather have been important lures and this may even be more true in the near future. But the key forces driving people to the Sunbelt are largely economic—notably job creation, lower housing prices and lower costs relative to incomes.

    Until the housing bust, states like Arizona, Nevada and Florida were typically among the leaders in creating new jobs but their performance fell off with the decline of construction. But other Sunbelt locales, notably Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma have picked up much of the slack. This resurgence has been centered in Texas, which created nearly a million new jobs between 2007 and 2013. In contrast, arch-rival California has lost a half a million.

    Many other Sunbelt states have yet to recover jobs lost from the recession, but most of their big metros have shown strong signs of recovery. Since 2007 five of the seven fastest growing jobs markets among the twenty largest cities were in Sunbelt states. Looking forward, recent estimates of job growth between 2013 and 2017, according to Forbes and Moody’s project employment to grow fastest in Arizona, followed by Texas. Also among the top ten are several states hit hard by the Recession, notably Florida, Georgia and Nevada. No Northeastern state appeared anywhere on the list; nor did California.

    For all its shortcomings, including what some may consider the overuse of tax breaks and incentives, the much-dissed Sunbelt development model continues to reap some significant gains. The area’s history of lagging economically has long spurred Sunbelt economic developers to utilize a policy of light regulation, low taxes and lack of unions to lure businesses to their area. Sunbelt states—Texas, Florida, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Arizona—dominate the ranks of the most business friendly states in the union, notes Chief Executive magazine, findings they often cite when courting footloose businesses.

    The clear economic capital of the Sunbelt is now Houston, with some stiff competition from Dallas-Ft. Worth. Houston, the energy capital, now ranks second only to New York in new office construction and is the overall number one for corporate expansions. There are fifty new office buildings going up in the city, including Exxon Mobil’s campus, the country’s second largest office complex under construction (after New York’s Freedom Tower). Chevron, once Standard Oil of California, has announced plans to construct a second tower for its downtown Houston campus while Occidental Petroleum, founded more than fifty years ago in Los Angeles, is moving its headquarters to Houston.

    Houston’s ascendance epitomizes the shift in the geographic and economic center of the Sunbelt. The “original in the Xerox machine” for Sunbelt style growth, Los Angeles’ rise was powered by new industries like entertainment and aerospace and oil, ever expanding sprawl and a strong, tightly knit business elite. Pleasant weather and Hollywood glitz still inform the image of Los Angeles, but under a regime dominated by government employee unions, greens and developers of dense housing, it suffers unemployment almost four points higher than Houston . Nine million square feet of space is currently being built in Houston, compared to just over one million in Los Angeles-Orange which has more than twice the population. It is not in the rising Sunbelt but in places like Southern California, where jobs lag amidst high costs, that the American dream now seems most likely to die.

    Movin’ on Up

    In Houston particularly but throughout the Sunbelt, job growth critically is not tied to cheap labor, but to  industries like energy which pay roughly $20,000 more than those in the information sector. According to EMSI, a company that models labor market data, energy has  generated some 200,000 new jobs in Texas alone over the past decade. Although Houston is the primary beneficiary, the American energy boom is also sparking strong growth in other cities, notably Dallas-Ft. Worth, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City.

    Once dependent on low-wage industries such as textiles and furniture, the energy boom is pacing a  Sunbelt move towards generally better paying heavy manufacturing. Texas and Louisiana already lead the nation in large new projects, many of them in petrochemicals and other oil-related production. Of the biggest non-energy investments, three of the top four, according to the Ernst and Young Investment Monitor, are in Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina, which are becoming the new heartland of American heavy manufacturing, notably in automobiles and steel. Since 2010, Birmingham, Houston, Nashville and Oklahoma city all have enjoyed double digit growth in high paying industrial jobs that used to be the near exclusive province of the Great Lakes, California and the Northeast.

    The Sunbelt resurgence is important in part because it offers some hope to millions of Americans who may not have gone to Harvard or Stanford, but have work skills and ambition. The region’s growth in what might be called “middle skilled jobs” that pay $60,000 or above has been impressive.

    It may come as a surprise to some, but the Sunbelt is also pulling ahead in high tech jobs. In a recent analysis of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) job growth for Forbes we found that out of out of the 52 largest regions, the four most rapid growers over the past decade were Austin, Raleigh, Houston and Nashville, with Jacksonville, Phoenix and Dallas also in the top fifteen. In contrast New York ranked #36th out of 52 and Los Angeles, a long-time tech superpower, now a mediocre #38.

    In another example of how much things are changing, when college students in the South now graduate, noted a recent University of Alabama study, they do go to the “big city” but their top four choices outside the state are in the Sunbelt—Atlanta, Houston,  Nashville, Tenn., and Dallas—and followed then by New York. The biggest net gains in people with BAs and higher are primarily in the sunbelt, led by Phoenix,   Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Austin, Houston and San Antonio; the biggest losers, according to Cox’s calculations, have been New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and, surprisingly given its reputation, Boston.

    These trends may become more pronounced as the current millennial generation starts settling down into family life. Housing costs could prove a decisive factor. In terms of the median multiple, median housing cost as share of median household income, Sunbelt cities tend to be about half as expensive as New York, Boston or Los Angeles, and one third of the Bay Area.  

    To be sure, many of the “best and brightest” will continue to flock to New York, the Bay Area or Los Angeles, but many more—particularly those without Ivy degrees or wealthy parents—may migrate to those places where their paycheck stretches the furthest. The Sunbelt, with its job growth, strong middle class wages and lows housing costs, is a good bet for the future.  

    What will the future bring?

    Prosperity, Herodotus reminded us, “never abides long in one place.” Certainly the Sunbelt economy could lose its current momentum but fortunately, having been schooled by the housing bust, many Sunbelt communities are increasingly focused on improving their basic economy—jobs, income growth, and skills-based education. Tennessee and Louisiana, for example, have led the way on expanding working training, and some of most ambitious education reform is taking place in New Orleans and Houston.

    Yet, there are many threats to continued growth, both internal and external. Given his penchant for executive orders and his close ties to wealthy green donors, President Obama could take steps—for example clamping down on fossil fuel development—that could reverse the steady growth along the Gulf Coast. Any draconian shift on climate change policies would be most detrimental to the energy sector Sunbelt states.

    But President Obama will not be in office forever. In the long run, the biggest threat to the Sunbelt ascendency is internal. Some fear that as more easterners and Californians flock to the area, they will bring with them a taste for the very regulatory and tax policies that have stifled growth in the states they left behind . Most worryingly, so called “smart growth” regulations could drive housing costs up, as occurred in Florida and several other states in the last decade, and erode some of the Sunbelt’s competitive advantage.

    Perhaps the most immediate threat comes from the angry, reactionary elements on the right, who tend to be more powerful in the sunbelt than elsewhere. These groups, sometimes including the Tea Party, have taken   positions on issues like immigration and gay rights that local business leaders fear could deprive their regions of energetic and often entrepreneurial newcomers. Equally important, the right’s anti-tax orthodoxy, although perhaps not as devastating as the huge burdens placed on middle class individuals in the North and California, could delay critical outlays in transportation, parks and other essential infrastructure in regions that are growing rapidly. This is particularly true of education, a field in which most Sunbelt cities, while gaining ground, remain below the national average.

    Whatever one thinks of the motivations of the green clerisy, there are clearly environmental measures, particularly in the Sunbelt’s western regions, that these cities need to enact to protect future growth. This includes reducing the amount of concrete that creates “heat islands,” expanding parks, and shifting to more drought resistant plants.

    Fortunately, many leaders throughout the Sunbelt, particularly in its cities, are aware of these challenges, and are looking for ways to tackle them. This is driven not by the doomsday environmentalism common in California and Northeast, but grows instead out of a practical concern with stewarding critical resources and creating the right amenities to foster continued growth.

    Combined with basics like lower housing costs and taxes, it’s a common optimism about the future that really underlies the resurgence now occurring from Phoenix to Tampa. The long-term shifts in American power and influence that have been underway since the 1950s have not been halted by the housing bust. Disdained by urban aesthetes, hated by much of the punditry, and largely ignored except for their failings in the media, the Sunbelt seems likely to enjoy the last laugh when it comes to shaping the American future.

    This story originally appeared at The Daily Beast.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. His most recent study, The Rise of Postfamilialism, has been widely discussed and distributed internationally. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

    Houston skyline photo by Bigstock.

  • Switzerland: Why EU Immigrants Were Headed Off at the Pass

    The only time the Swiss make US headlines, other than with the occasional Olympic biathlon medal, is when a majority of the voters exercise their franchise by voting down minarets or, as happened this month, banning free immigration from the European Union.

    As the most democratic country on earth — major political questions are submitted to a popular vote — Switzerland allows what are called popular initiatives on any issue that can muster 100,000 signatures on a petition. It’s the only country in Europe that operates like “The Gong Show”.

    Popular initiatives on the ballot arise from signed petitions. Referendums, on the other hand, although voted on in the same manner, sometimes give citizens the right to approve or disapprove legislation that has already passed.

    In a country of almost eight million people, getting one percent of the population to sign off for a ballot initiative on the outrage of the day isn’t very challenging. Then, when the vote is scheduled, the Swiss, including me, say yes or no to all sorts of questions.

    My favorite initiative, a while back, was whether the animals in each canton (county is the closest English word) needed a lawyer to handle their days in court. A cat man, I voted yes. My neighbors, in the majority, said no, implying that the laws of the jungle were all the animals needed.

    In the case of European Union (EU) immigration, the Swiss People’s Party — called the UDC locally and dominated by right-wingers, Swiss Germans, and farmers in rural cantons — asked for a vote to restrict EU immigrants from entering Switzerland, and to restore an earlier edict that Swiss job applicants have precedent over foreigners.

    While Switzerland is not a member of the EU, during the last twelve years it has agreed to a number of bilateral treaties that give Europeans unfettered access to Swiss job markets and to establishing local residency here.

    With the European economy flat-lining since 2008, many in the EU have drifted across the border into Switzerland to work in a variety of skilled and unskilled jobs. With paychecks in Swiss francs, the work offers better returns than, say, looking to catch on as a hedge fund manager on the Greek island of Mykonos.

    Now that the Swiss have voted to put quota limits on EU immigrants, what exactly will happen?

    The way the initiative system works is this: just because a question is accepted by popular acclaim doesn’t make it law. It does, however, give the government — in this case the federal parliament in Bern — three years to draft and pass a law that complies with the spirit of the resolution.

    The way the law is written over the following three years, however, doesn’t necessarily conform exactly to what has been voted up or down in the popular initiative.

    In the case of the immigration vote, I would imagine that many caveats will be written into the deportation orders so that foreigners holding down jobs in Switzerland will not be driven to the border, and that future immigrants will continue to find Swiss places to live and work (although the needed paperwork will increase).

    When I moved from the US to Switzerland in 1991, it was before the existing open immigration policies were in place. To hire me, my employer had to write the job posting in such a way that only one person on earth, me, had those requisite skills. It took me six months to get a work permit and begin my job.

    In much news reporting about the current immigration vote, the subtext is that the Swiss are racist in wanting to boot out foreigners and that the country suffers from “too much democracy” by allowing citizens to vote on questions as though everyone were a parliamentarian.

    I’d answer the racism charge by saying that the Swiss are about average in terms of tolerance for immigration. Unlike the US, for example, Switzerland does not have a fence along its southern border. Nor does it fingerprint foreign tourists at the airports.

    To my mind, the immigration vote was less about racial intolerance, and more an expression of Swiss anger at Brussels and even Washington for routinely beating up the country over such issues as Libya, banking secrecy, minarets, the strong Swiss franc, and bilateral trade agreements.

    Swiss critics — and there are many around Europe and the world — argue that Switzerland wants all the benefits of the adjacent EU, such as access to its rich markets, but without incurring any of the costs, for example, those run up in bailing out the insolvent Greeks.

    There may be some truth to this, but, nevertheless, there are also both historical and modern reasons that Switzerland refuses to join the EU. The 1815 Congress of Vienna, at the end of the Napoleonic wars, and a subsequent Treaty of Turin enshrined the idea of Swiss neutrality as one of the cornerstones of the European peace.

    No single major power, it was argued, should hold sway over the Swiss alpine passes and the trade flows of Europe. Two-hundred-year-old political traditions die slowly.

    The recent reasons that Switzerland has not joined the EU have to do with its federalism, rooted in its communal and cantonal governments, including things like initiative and referendum voting. All political power in Switzerland is local; everyone is a communard.

    Many Swiss feel that if the country were an EU member, their communes (really villages) would become hostage to German edicts or French heavy-handedness, not to mention bureaucrats in Brussels.

    In practice, Swiss democracy most closely resembles Thomas Jefferson’s constitutional theories, in which well-educated farmers and small business operators (not career politicians) run the villages and the towns, and all abhor centralized power, be it in Bern, London, Paris, Brussels or Washington.

    By contrast, the US likes to boast that it is the greatest democracy on earth, even though the Senate is a millionaire’s club, Congress is a gerrymandered closed shop of incumbents, and the presidency is a legalized monarchy. (If in doubt, compare the court of Louis XIV with the 700 people in President Obama’s traveling entourage, which includes speechwriters, chefs, and food tasters.)

    Between incumbency and the Electoral College, many US votes “don’t matter,” and they only happen every two or four years.

    For sure, letting every Swiss over age 18 play the role of parliamentarian every six weeks has its risks (I still think we should have voted in those animal-rights lawyers). But the major reason I became Swiss in 2009 was so that I could vote every six weeks on the issues of the day.

    My family is composed of six voters, and what’s amazing is how we have completely different views on each ballot question. I vote for business and bike lanes and against taxes, while I suspect my wife of either syndicalism or maybe what the French delightfully call gauche caviar, (the local equivalent of ‘limousine liberalism’).

    The children spread their votes around between the greens and fiscal no-nonsense, so that a dinner during an initiative vote reminds me of the last scenes in Lawrence of Arabia, when various tribes swarm the pan-Arab Congress, all waving large flags.

    Yes, referendum democracy makes mistakes. The vote to prohibit minarets, to give just one example, was a lose-lose proposition, and it only went on the ballot to humiliate the government. But without these ballots — even those that propose marching immigrants to the border — our dinners would be sadly quieter, and our politics would be, too.

    Matthew Stevenson, a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine, is the author of Remembering the Twentieth Century Limited, a collection of historical travel essays. His new book, Whistle-Stopping America, was recently published.

    Flickr photo by tomgeens

  • Automobile

  • ‘Lone Eagle’ Cities: Where The Most People Work From Home

    In an era of high unemployment and limited opportunity, more Americans are taking matters into their own hands and going to work for themselves out of their homes.

    Normally small businesses have led the way during economic recoveries, but this time around they’re not creating many jobs. Instead much of the growth we are now seeing is in “lone eagle” businesses, to borrow a phrase from Phil Burgess, often operating out of the worker’s residence. This reverses the trend from 1960 to 1980, when there were steady reductions in the number of people who worked at home. Indeed, despite all the talk of increased mass transit usage, the percentage of Americans working at home has grown 1.5 times faster over the past decade; there are now more telecommuters than people who take mass transit to work in 38 out of the 52 U.S. metropolitan areas with more than 1,000,000 residents.

    One clear driver of this trend is technology, particularly the growing ubiquity of high-speed Internet. A consultant in New York can now serve customers in Fargo, and vice versa, greatly expanding the range of places where people can live. This is particularly true for aging boomers, as well as younger workers having problems finding a full-time job in this tough economy.

    Not surprisingly, of America’s 52 largest metro areas, the ones with the highest proportions of home-based workers are generally those with high-tech, information-based economies. Tops is San Diego, a major center for digital and biomedical businesses, where 6.6% of workers are based at home.

    The next five metro areas, which have home worker concentrations ranging from 6.1% to 6.4%, all boast a high number of STEM workers and tech firms: Austin, Portland, Denver, Raleigh and San Francisco-Oakland. They all also have another thing in common: They tend to be popular destinations for millennials, who seem far more comfortable with unconventional work arrangements than older generations.

    High real estate costs may be accelerating the trend in San Francisco, San Diego and Portland —  if office space isn’t affordable, why not stay at home? All are also plagued by traffic congestion, most notably the Bay Area, which has among the longest commute times in the country. Rather than drive down snarled freeways, or take slow mass transit, individuals may do better working from home and heading into the traffic maelstrom only when absolutely necessary.

    College Towns, Suburbs And Exurbs

    Many metro areas, of course, are huge, and have many different kinds of geographies. But when we looked at the percentage of home-based workers in all municipalities with populations above 25,000, two types dominated the top of the table: college towns and tech-oriented exurbs. Boulder, Colo., for example, has the third highest proportion of people who work at home, at 11.6%, almost three times the national average. Other college towns with large proportions of telecommuters and one-person businesses include Berkeley, Calf. (tied for fifth, 10.6%), and Columbia, S.C. (12th, 9.9%), home to the University of South Carolina.

    But the bulk of our leading work-at-home locales are tech-oriented suburbs or exurbs. These include several communities around the often traffic-clogged greater Atlanta area, including No. 2 John’s Creek (13.1%) and No. 6 Alpharetta (10.6%).

    There are even more in the sprawl of Southern California. As many  longtime Southland residents can attest, the best workday is one that does not involve either driving or taking transit. The top municipalities on our list in the region tend to be more affluent communities, including two suburbs of our top-ranked metro area, San Diego: Carlsbad (16th, 9.4%) and Encinitas (fourth, 10.7%).

    The Codger Economy

    Yet it would be a mistake to think cities with large home-based workforces are necessarily youthful ones. Nor are they all in large metropolitan areas. Although still slightly below the average for metropolitan areas, the pace of new telecommuter growth is now much faster outside the major metro areas.

    More than 5 million Americans aged 55 or older run their own businesses or are otherwise self-employed, according to the Small Business Administration, and their numbers soared 52% from 2000 to 2007. As research from the Kauffmann Foundation suggests, many of these aging workers are not ready to hang up their workboots.

    This entrepreneurial push could correlate with  the movement of aging boomers to more rural communities, and sleepier outer suburbs. Contrary to the much-hyped notion of a “back to the city” movement among boomers, Census research suggests that if they move at all, most head further to the periphery. At the top of our list of communities over 25,000 is the coastal North Carolina city of Jacksonville, home to the Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune and a good number of military retirees. A remarkable 13.8% of the people in this highly affordable, scenic community of 70,000 work out of their homes, roughly three times the national average. The median home price in Jacksonville: $141,000.

    Other retirement hot spots with high telecommuter shares include Boca Raton, Fla. (9.8%), Scottsdale, Ariz. (9.8%), and Bend, Ore. (9.0%). These communities tend to attract well-educated boomers, many of whom have kept their business connections and work as consultants. In many cases, telecommuting allows people to continue their careers, but in an atmosphere of comfort, without the burden of commuting and, in many cases, sans the high income taxes of places like California and New York.

    We can expect the wired economy to expand to other smaller communities. Already numerous smaller towns in the Midwest, such as Albert Lea, an hour and a half from Minneapolis, Brainerd, Minn., and Hastings Neb., all have home worker shares well above the national average. Many of the areas with the fastest growth in the number of self-employed people, notes EMSI is in small, somewhat isolated communities.

    Many analysts who follow these trends expect stay-at-home workers to become more common in the future. According to research by Kate Lister and Tom Harnish of the Telework Research Network, the typical teleworker is a 49-year-old, college-educated, salaried, non-union employee in a management or professional role, earning $58,000 a year at a company with more than 100 employees.

    This suggests that, as more workers enter their 50s, the telework population will expand further.  These numbers will continue to be buttressed by both economic and social factors. The shift towards outsourcing by companies seems unlikely to slow in the years ahead, with more work going to subcontractors who can often work at home. At the same time more boomers, particularly those with skills and connections, will continue to move to places that offer more attractive lifestyles — a process that Joel Garreau has labeled “the Santa Fe-ization of the world,” which he links to people with enough money to have choices.

    In the future, however, less well-heeled workers can also be expected to increasingly shift to affordable locales that appeal to them. This can be almost anywhere — a beach community, a rural hamlet, an exurb or even a dense urban location, as we can see by the geographic diversity in these rankings. As USC grad student Jeff Khau writes, this should encourage the development of wired coffee shops and casual restaurants in smaller communities and exurbs.

    Finally, there are both familial and environmental reasons for this trend to expand. With more two-worker households, it has become more attractive to have at least one person working from home, part-time or full-time. And then there is the environmental desire to reduce carbon admissions. Compared to being forced to live in dense cities, or taking mass transit, the best way by far to reduce energy use – not to mention stress – is to not leave home at all.

    Top Places Where Residents Work at Home

    No. 1: Jacksonville, NC – 13.8%

    No. 2. Johns Creek, GA – 13.1%

    No. 3: Boulder, CO – 11.6%

    No. 4: Encinitas, CA – 10.7%

    No. 5 (tie): Berkeley, CA – 10.6%

    No. 5 (tie): Alpharetta, GA -10.6%

    No. 5 (tie): Santa Monica, CA -10.6%

    No. 8: Frisco, TX – 10.2%

    No. 9 (tie): San Clemente, CA – 10.1%

    No. 9 (tie): Columbus, GA – 10.1%

    No. 11: Bethesda CDP, MD – 10.0%

    No. 12: Columbia, SC – 9.9%

    No. 13 (tie): Boca Raton, FL – 9.8%

    No. 13 (tie): Scottsdale, AZ – 9.8%

    No. 15: Newport Beach, CA – 9.5%

    Journey to Work Market Share by Mode (2012 ACS.1 & Year)
      Total Drive Alone Car Pool Transit Cycle Walk Other  @ Home
    United States 100% 76.3% 9.7% 5.0% 0.6% 2.8% 1.2% 4.4%
    Outside Major Metropolitan Areas 100% 79.9% 10.2% 1.2% 0.6% 2.8% 1.2% 4.1%
    Major Metropolitan Areas (52) 100% 73.5% 9.3% 7.9% 0.7% 2.8% 1.2% 4.6%
                     
    Atlanta, GA 100% 78.0% 10.5% 2.9% 0.1% 1.4% 1.1% 5.9%
    Austin, TX 100% 76.0% 11.0% 2.3% 0.9% 2.0% 1.4% 6.4%
    Baltimore, MD 100% 76.5% 8.9% 6.5% 0.3% 2.7% 1.0% 4.1%
    Birmingham, AL 100% 85.7% 9.1% 0.6% 0.1% 1.0% 0.5% 2.9%
    Boston, MA-NH 100% 68.6% 7.5% 12.2% 1.0% 5.4% 1.0% 4.4%
    Buffalo, NY 100% 82.9% 7.5% 3.0% 0.5% 2.9% 0.8% 2.3%
    Charlotte, NC-SC 100% 78.8% 10.3% 2.1% 0.2% 1.6% 1.2% 5.9%
    Chicago, IL-IN-WI 100% 70.9% 8.8% 11.1% 0.7% 3.2% 1.1% 4.2%
    Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN 100% 83.5% 8.3% 1.8% 0.1% 2.0% 0.7% 3.5%
    Cleveland, OH 100% 82.3% 7.4% 3.2% 0.3% 2.3% 0.9% 3.6%
    Columbus, OH 100% 82.1% 8.4% 1.6% 0.5% 2.0% 1.1% 4.3%
    Dallas-Fort Worth, TX 100% 80.9% 10.2% 1.5% 0.2% 1.2% 1.5% 4.6%
    Denver, CO 100% 75.6% 9.1% 4.4% 1.1% 2.4% 1.1% 6.3%
    Detroit,  MI 100% 83.7% 8.9% 1.6% 0.3% 1.3% 0.8% 3.4%
    Grand Rapids, MI 100% 82.7% 9.2% 1.2% 0.5% 1.8% 0.6% 4.0%
    Hartford, CT 100% 81.4% 7.6% 3.4% 0.2% 2.7% 0.9% 3.7%
    Houston, TX 100% 79.6% 11.1% 2.6% 0.3% 1.4% 1.5% 3.5%
    Indianapolis. IN 100% 82.6% 9.4% 1.2% 0.3% 1.6% 0.9% 4.0%
    Jacksonville, FL 100% 80.7% 9.9% 1.3% 0.7% 1.3% 1.3% 4.7%
    Kansas City, MO-KS 100% 83.2% 8.9% 1.1% 0.2% 1.3% 1.1% 4.2%
    Las Vegas, NV 100% 78.5% 10.7% 3.8% 0.3% 2.0% 1.6% 2.9%
    Los Angeles, CA 100% 74.1% 10.1% 6.0% 0.9% 2.6% 1.2% 5.1%
    Louisville, KY-IN 100% 82.9% 9.3% 1.8% 0.2% 1.8% 0.8% 3.2%
    Memphis, TN-MS-AR 100% 83.0% 10.5% 1.2% 0.1% 1.2% 0.9% 3.0%
    Miami, FL 100% 77.6% 9.5% 4.2% 0.6% 1.8% 1.3% 5.0%
    Milwaukee,WI 100% 80.2% 8.6% 3.7% 0.6% 2.9% 0.7% 3.2%
    Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI 100% 78.2% 8.6% 4.3% 1.0% 2.2% 0.7% 5.0%
    Nashville, TN 100% 82.4% 9.6% 1.1% 0.1% 1.2% 1.0% 4.7%
    New Orleans. LA 100% 79.2% 10.4% 2.7% 1.0% 2.5% 1.6% 2.6%
    New York, NY-NJ-PA 100% 49.8% 6.7% 31.0% 0.6% 6.1% 1.6% 4.1%
    Oklahoma City, OK 100% 82.9% 10.2% 0.4% 0.3% 1.7% 1.2% 3.3%
    Orlando, FL 100% 80.8% 9.2% 2.0% 0.6% 1.2% 1.7% 4.6%
    Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD 100% 73.3% 7.9% 9.4% 0.7% 3.8% 0.7% 4.2%
    Phoenix, AZ 100% 77.3% 11.0% 2.1% 0.8% 1.4% 1.8% 5.6%
    Pittsburgh, PA 100% 77.3% 9.0% 5.5% 0.3% 3.4% 0.9% 3.6%
    Portland, OR-WA 100% 70.8% 9.7% 6.0% 2.3% 3.8% 1.0% 6.4%
    Providence, RI-MA 100% 80.4% 8.8% 2.9% 0.3% 3.2% 1.1% 3.2%
    Raleigh, NC 100% 80.3% 9.8% 1.0% 0.4% 1.1% 1.2% 6.2%
    Richmond, VA 100% 81.5% 9.3% 1.6% 0.5% 1.5% 0.9% 4.7%
    Riverside-San Bernardino, CA 100% 77.7% 13.4% 1.5% 0.4% 1.6% 1.0% 4.4%
    Rochester, NY 100% 82.4% 7.9% 1.9% 0.3% 3.6% 0.7% 3.2%
    Sacramento, CA 100% 75.5% 11.2% 2.3% 1.9% 2.2% 0.9% 6.0%
    Salt Lake City, UT 100% 75.0% 12.1% 3.9% 0.9% 2.0% 1.3% 4.7%
    San Antonio, TX 100% 79.7% 11.1% 2.3% 0.1% 1.7% 1.0% 4.1%
    San Diego, CA 100% 76.2% 9.9% 2.8% 0.7% 2.7% 1.2% 6.6%
    San Francisco-Oakland, CA 100% 60.4% 10.1% 15.6% 1.8% 4.3% 1.6% 6.1%
    San Jose, CA 100% 76.5% 10.6% 3.4% 1.9% 1.6% 1.4% 4.6%
    Seattle, WA 100% 69.6% 10.5% 8.5% 1.2% 3.6% 1.1% 5.5%
    St. Louis,, MO-IL 100% 82.4% 8.1% 2.3% 0.3% 1.7% 0.9% 4.2%
    Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL 100% 80.0% 9.6% 1.2% 0.8% 1.7% 1.3% 5.4%
    Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC 100% 80.9% 8.9% 1.9% 0.4% 2.7% 0.9% 4.3%
    Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV 100% 65.8% 10.2% 14.1% 0.8% 3.2% 0.9% 5.0%

    This story originally appeared at Forbes.com.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. His most recent study, The Rise of Postfamilialism, has been widely discussed and distributed internationally. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

    Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.

    Photo by By Rae Allen, “My portable home office on the back deck”

  • What America’s Fastest-Growing Economies Have in Common

    Midland and Odessa in West Texas. Pascagoula, a port town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Fargo and Bismarck, the two largest cities in North Dakota. These were among the USA’s 10 fastest-growing metro economies in 2013, as ranked by growth in real gross metropolitan product (GMP), and they have a few things in common.

    For one thing, none are huge population magnets. They’re also either at the center of the energy boom or indirectly benefiting from the advances in fracking technology. And they share another common trait, too: along with Columbus, Ind., also in the top 10, most of these metro areas depend on one major, export-oriented industry sector to bring in outside income and drive growth.

    In Columbus’ case, it’s manufacturing. In Odessa and Midland’s, it’s oil and gas extraction. Fargo and Bismarck have diversified economies, but they’ve a seen surge in economic activity because of North Dakota’s oil and gas boom. And in Pascagoula, it’s shipbuilding (and shipments of liquefied natural gas through the Port of Pascagoula).

    USA TODAY had a good rundown from 24/7 Wall St. of the top 10 (and bottom 10) economies, which were based on a Conference of Mayors report released in January. The authors of the piece touched on the reliance most of these metros have on one industry, and the ups and downs that can come with that. In the case of Columbus, they pointed to EMSI’s recent analysis:

    The area is highly dependent on manufacturing, and according to a 2012 report from Economic Modeling Specialists Intl., it highly “exemplifies the intriguing potential, and inherent risks, that come with relying on the manufacturing sector.” Engine and motor vehicle parts makers are a huge part of the area’s economy, where manufacturing jobs accounted for nearly 20,000 of the 53,000 total jobs as of November.

    Columbus, Ind., which was No. 9 on the fastest-growing economy list, is home to engine-maker Cummins. The central Indiana metro has a remarkable concentration of manufacturing jobs — more than a third of jobs in Columbus are manufacturing-based, and it has the highest share of mechanical engineers in the U.S. (just ahead of Peoria and Bloomington-Normal, Ill.). In recent years, employment growth in Columbus has sizzled, while Cummins continues to prosper.

    When a regional economy relies on a single basic industry like manufacturing or energy for much of its employment and exports, it can mean lots of prosperity — and a big jump in gross metro product, as USA TODAY’s list indicates. But it’s also a risky proposition. For every spike in manufacturing production, there are pullbacks and plant shutdowns. Energy booms don’t (usually) last for decades.

    “If you’re a small metro area depending on a vulnerable export sector, once that industry goes, you’re in big trouble,” Alec Friedhoff of the Brookings Institution told 24/7 Wall St.

    For metros like Midland and Odessa, the natural multiplier effects that come with energy booms will lead to more jobs in business services, retail, and especially transportation. Public-sector infrastructure jobs also usually follow. But the end goal is to spur innovation and sustainable job creation elsewhere in the economy.

    With that in mind, which of these 10 fastest-growing metros based on GMP growth is the most diversified already? The following table shows the largest contributor to gross regional product (as shown EMSI’s Analyst), as well as the sector with the largest share of jobs in each metro. The table is ranked by how the 10 metros fared in 2010-2013 job growth.

    Fastest-Growing MSAs (Based on 2013 GMP Growth) 2013 Jobs 2010-2013 % Job Growth Largest Sector Largest Contributor to 2012 GRP (Private)
    Source: QCEW Employees, Non-QCEW Employees & Self-Employed – EMSI 2013.4 Class of Worker; EMSI Social Accounting Matrix model (2012)
    Midland, TX 92,857 23% Mining/Oil & Gas Extraction (22% of jobs) Mining/Oil & Gas Extraction (55% of total)
    Odessa, TX 80,360 23% Mining/Oil & Gas Extraction (15% of jobs) Mining/Oil & Gas Extraction (28% of total)
    Columbus, IN 52,014 18% Manufacturing (36% of jobs) Manufacturing (50% of total)
    Bismarck, ND 75,090 10% Government (19% of jobs) Health Care (13% of total)
    Fargo, ND-MN 143,563 9% Health Care (13% of jobs) Manufacturing, Wholesale Trade, Finance/Insurance, and Health Care (each 10% of total)
    Sioux Falls, SD 153,358 6% Health Care (17% of jobs) Finance/Insurance (18% of total)
    Cheyenne, WY 53,917 6% Government (32% of jobs) Manufacturing and Real Estate (each 10% of total)
    Trenton-Ewing, NJ 253,751 4% Government (27% of jobs) Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (13% of total)
    St. Joseph, MO-KS 60,643 2% Manufacturing (17% of jobs) Manufacturing (25% of total)
    Pascagoula, MS 60,214 -3% Manufacturing (22% of jobs) Manufacturing (46% of total)

    Manufacturing in Columbus makes up the highest percentage of jobs (36%), and mining and oil and gas extraction in Midland is the most dominant GRP force (55% of the total in 2012). Fargo and Bismarck, despite getting lumped in with other North Dakota oil hubs, are fairly spread out in both employment and contributors to GRP. And Pascagoula, where manufacturing accounted for 46% of GRP in 2012, is the only one of the fastest-growing metros to see an employment decline (-3% since 2010).

    Sioux Falls, however, stands out in terms of industry mix and GRP — finance and health care are strong industries, and the metro has seen seen steady job growth.

    SiouxFalls_2003-2013

    Employment has increased 17% since 2003, and the gains have been broad-based. Nine major sectors, including health care, retail trade, finance, government, and professional, scientific, and technical services, have added at least 1,000 jobs in the last decade.

    That’s a diversified economy, all right. But most of the other less-diversified economies on this list are doing just fine, too.

    Joshua Wright is an editor at EMSI, an Idaho-based economics firm that provides data and analysis to workforce boards, economic development agencies, higher education institutions, and the private sector. He manages the EMSI blog and is a freelance journalist. Contact him here.

  • We Had To Destroy the City In Order to Save It

    As housing prices and rents soar out of control in tightly regulated cities like San Francisco and New York, many people have called for a significant loosening of zoning rules to permit greater densification. Many policies contribute to unaffordable housing, including rent control, historic districts, eminent domain abuse, and building codes, but zoning puts an absolute cap on dwelling units per acre thus is generally part of any solution to the supply problem. What’s more, as recent commentators have started to notice, even many of America’s most dense cities are predominantly zoned for single family homes, calling into question the need to dedicate so much space to a single housing typology.

    For example, a web site called Better Institutions posted this map of Seattle, in which all of the yellow districts are zoned exclusively for single family homes:

    The poster lets his feelings be known by using scare quotes to denote single family “character” and blaming the zoning for Seattle’s high rents.

    And Daniel Hertz posted a similar map of Chicago in which the red is single family homes only and yellow is industrial space unavailable for any residential use:

    Some go beyond affordability, saying that we also need to significantly increase densities in central cities in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Harvard professor Ed Glaeser wrote an article advocating this subtitled, “To save the planet, build more skyscrapers—especially in California.”  He says, “A better path would be to ease restrictions in the urban cores of San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego. More building there would reduce average commute lengths and improve per-capita emissions” and “Similarly, limiting the height or growth of New York City skyscrapers incurs environmental costs. Building more apartments in Gotham will not only make the city more affordable; it will also reduce global warming.” He claims that, “The best thing that we can do for the planet is build more skyscrapers.”

    These complaints and the proposed solution of more dense multi-family development may be true in a technical sense, but what would carrying that out mean for people who actually live in our cities?

    Some critics may disdain the character of single family districts but few of these pundits ask the question of what eliminating lower-density housing actually means to the survival of the urban middle class.  Districts, like the Portage Park example Daniel Hertz gave in Chicago, are some of the last bastions of middle class family life in the city.  It’s clear that some densification can be implemented without radically changing the appearance or functioning of the built environment. Allowing 2-flats and coach houses, or even the corner apartment building or townhouse development, wouldn’t ruin Portage Park. There’s no reason such things should not be allowed. But nor would they make a major dent in affordability in places where a tidal wave of global demand is washing over the city such as in San Francisco.

    To materially boost the number of units in an era in a manner that moderates prices in a highly desirable place like San Francisco would require massive changes in the built environment of its neighborhoods.  This would radically transform the character and nature of the city in question.  If San Francisco were really covered in skyscrapers, it would cease to be San Francisco— a city of low-rise buildings framed by hills that would be obscured by high rises. There may well be the same geography on the map labeled as such, but it would be a completely different place. We would have to destroy the city in order to save it.

    One person who gets that is Alex Steffan. He’s angry about prices, saying that the “criminal lack of housing is a global scandal.”  He’s also honest enough to forthrightly acknowledge that a sufficient scale of new homes to bend the cost curve would fundamentally change many of our cities:

    We can build some housing incrementally, without changing the skyline or cityscape, but not anything like enough. To produce enough homes to matter, fast enough, we’re going to have to fundamentally alter parts of our cities. That, of course, demands a local government willing and able to plan and permit such widespread change. It also takes an array of homebuilders doing the actual work, often in more innovative and low-cost ways, like more collaborative housing, manufactured buildings and flexible living spaces. Most of all, it takes broader public insight into how large-scale development can improve our cities.

    In other words, it’s a major change in communities that requires selling the public on the idea. He believes that young people will be the agents of change here. This shows perhaps one of the signature affects such changes would have. They would displace families by eliminating their preferred housing typologies in favor of forms more amenable to predominantly younger singles or the childless for  whom living in an apartment with no backyard is more likely a relief than an imposition. But it’s hard to imagine cities as places for solving the problem of climate change if they are, like San Francisco, increasingly places devoid of families with children.

    Steffan also says affordable housing is a social justice issue. Yet is it really social justice to require everyone to have equal access to San Francisco, population 825,000?  I think not. Especially not when America is replete with urban centers whose biggest problems are depopulation and worthless houses that you can’t give away. There are plenty of options of places for people to live; we should look at making our now failing cities more attractive to people who may like the housing and neighborhood, if not for issues such as crime and poor schools. There’s no guarantee in America that you can afford to live in the place you might most want to choose. That’s long been true of suburbanites and city dwellers alike.

    Also, the willingness to fundamentally reshape cities is odd in light of the fact that such previous attempts are uniformly viewed in the urbanist community as disasters. The idea of Manhattanizing San Francisco brings to mind nothing so much as Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin for Paris, in which the historical cityscape is replaced with towers in the park.

    Of course no one is actually saying to take it this far, although Glaeser’s vision gets close it. But once we enshrine the rule that a certain threshold of unaffordability means more density and building regardless of neighborhood character, it’s hard to see what the limiting principle would be. Also, high rises or even buildings above 4-5 stories in height usually require expensive construction techniques, and thus are inherently costly.

    It’s true, however, that cities are not static entities. Every downtown skyscraper in America is built on a site that was once used for something else. Yet we see this densification overall as a good thing. Had Manhattan been preserved as of its pre-skyscraper era, it’s not clear the city would have benefitted.

    Clearly the zoning and building regulations in our cities are often too strict. Yet the disasters of previous generations’ radical change suggests that incrementalism is a better course.  By all means allow two-unit houses, corner stores with upper story apartments, etc. into currently all-single family zones. Add areas where high rises are allowed the peripheries of districts currently zoned for such; warehouse districts as well as office buildings that are not well occupied.  But don’t bring out the bulldozer wholesale.  Additionally, a healthy city should make sure to embrace the entire palette of housing types – including single family homes. There’s more to making cities attractive to middle class families than just cost, and things like the prospect of a backyard for the kids to play in are among them.

    And given the relatively few intact and attractive urban cores in America, prices are going to continue to go up. That’s true even with radical new building. As mentioned, San Francisco only has a bit over 800,000 people. Boston and DC have only about 600,000 each. How many people can you plausibly put into these places? Realistically, not all of us who would like to live in San Francisco or lower Manhattan are going to be able to do so.  That’s true no matter how many skyscrapers we build.

    Aaron M. Renn is an independent writer on urban affairs and the founder of Telestrian, a data analysis and mapping tool. He writes at The Urbanophile.

    Lead Photo: More density in Los Angeles