You are hereplains cities seize on new wave of prosperity
Kotkin’s research found that younger families are moving away from “mega cities” to small and mid-sized cities in the Great Plains. Commutes are shorter, the cost of living lower and the quality of life better.
Joel's new book, THE NEXT HUNDRED MILLION: America in 2050 is now available at booksellers everywhere.
“My gut feel is that the opportunities are going to be in technology connected to something real,” said Joel Kotkin, a California-based expert on economic trends.
“Most social media firms will go out of business, get merged or become oligarchies.… It would seem to me, if you had something embedded in your basic strengths it would be a lot more persuasive.
Joel recently appeared on KPCC's Take Two show to talk about the impact of the concentration of political power and influence in the tech industry and the impact of these companies on the economy and middle class workers.
Visit the KPCC website to listen to the 7 minute segment.
Joel was recently featured in this short video piece about central planning in Los Angeles and its impact on local neighborhoods. Watch the video below.
Have a problem with Houston's notorious suburban sprawl? Better get used to it — this is type of urban development is the future.
So says demographer Joel Kotkin in a recent piece on The Daily Beast, in which he explains that "low-density, car-dominated, heavily suburbanized areas with small central cores likely represent the next wave of great American cities" — pointing to Houston as a prime example.
A piece this week by Joel Kotkin, long a critic of the "hip city" phenomenon and a defender of suburbs and blue collar jobs, on the "Daily Beast" web site assembles some of the evidence, anecdotal and factual.
"Investments in 'cool' districts may well appeal to some young professionals, particularly before they get married and have children," he writes. "But overall ... it has done little overall for the urban middle class, much less the working class or the poor."
Watch the full sized video at Reason.com.
Watch Joel in this feature on the role of central planning in Los Angeles. View large version.
"Greenurbia is the suburbs of the future. The suburbs of the 1950s were bedroom communities for people who commuted into the city. Today, there’s much more employment in the suburbs, and the big change is the number of people working full-time or part-time at home. Having people commute from one computer screen to another doesn’t make sense."
Kotkin has a striking ability to envision how global forces will shape daily family life, and his conclusions can be thought-provoking as well as counterintuitive. It's amazing there isn't more public discussion about the enormous changes ahead, and reassuring to have this talented thinker on the case. — Jennifer Ludden, NPR national desk correspondent
