Aaron M. Renn

All Things Aaron

Pete Buttigieg and the Importance of Being in the Game

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Pete Buttigieg will not be the next President of the United States. That's not surprising. But what may be more surprising to you is how well he did in his campaign. He raised a ton of money, at points ran high in the polls, and essentially tied for first place in the Iowa caucuses. Question: If I'd told you when Buttigieg announced he was running that he would win the Iowa caucuses, would you have believed me? I've said multiple times over the years that one of the things that hurts the Midwest is its lack of ambition. Unlike people … [Read more...]

Cities, Culture and Dynamism

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If you haven't done so, please sign up for Heartland Intelligence, my monthly research briefing on this critical region of the country heading into the 2020 election. My latest report is now available from the American Enterprise Institute. It's a look at the role of the culture of cities in economic dynamism and resiliency. I examine a few case studies, and from these try to draw out some cultural traits that seem to be relevant to success, notably an open social structure, invested leadership and institution building by civic elites, and a … [Read more...]

The City of Tomorrow

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Last fall I moderated a panel on the city of tomorrow at Propmodo's Building the Future event that was part of NYC Real Estate Tech Week. Propmodo is a trade publication focused on the proptech industry. Proptech is heavily concentrated in a few cities like NYC. But if you are in the real estate business, following the proptech world in Propmodo or elsewhere helps give you a sense of the profound change in the real estate business being driven by technology. In the panel we talk about the disconnect between the radically different urban … [Read more...]

How Cities Lost Control of the Urban Revolution (or, Three Generations of Smart Cities)

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I was a columnist in the print edition of Governing magazine for about five years. Sadly, the publication closed last year. But the company who owned it has relaunched Governing as an online only publication focused on the intersection of technology and public policy. I'm delighted to be able to contribute to this new platform. My first column is online and is about how cities lost control of the urban tech movement. In I trace three generations of "smart cities," and how while the government was in the drivers seat in the first two, they … [Read more...]

The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side

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Sign up for Heartland Intelligence, my monthly research briefing on the greater American Midwest. Chicago is known as one of America's great cities for architecture. But other than the Illinois Institute of Technology campus, designed by Mies van der Rohe, very little of the architecture of the South Side is included in the public's mind when thinking about it. Lee Bey, former architecture critic of the Chicago Sun-Times and a South Side residents, aims to change this with his book Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago's … [Read more...]

The Vital Midwest

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Sign up for Heartland Intelligence, my monthly newsletter on what's happening in America's midsection. John Austin at the Michigan Economic Center is a long time commentator on Midwest economic issues, going back to at least his 2006 Brookings Institute report "The Vital Center." Austin is back with a new report, which could perhaps be seen as an update of sorts, called "A Vital Midwest: The Path to a New Prosperity," released by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. In a region with a lot of naysayers, Austin has been a consistently … [Read more...]

Scaling Superstar Cities

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My latest Manhattan Institute report is now available. It's called "Scaling Up: How Superstar Cities Can Grow to New Heights" and it examines the well-known problem of housing costs in coastal superstar cities. I argue that some of these cities simply forgot how to grow during the decades during which they suffered from external constraints (the Depression, World War II), followed by decades of decline. (Even the city of San Francisco lost population for three straight decades). I also explain why the average resident of these cities does … [Read more...]

Heartland Intelligence

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There have been some big changes for me. We relocated from New York to Indianapolis, where I'm doing consulting work for the Indy Chamber. I'm no longer full time with the Manhattan Institute but am still a contributing editor at City Journal and still have multiple projects in the works there. I'll continue to write for other publications too, as with my recent Atlantic piece on J. Irwin Miller and Columbus, Indiana. More on my move below. For several years I've published a monthly newsletters on cities that was mostly a roundup of the … [Read more...]

More on Columbus, Indiana

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I want to share a few additional thoughts on Columbus, looking at the question of whether things really could have been different in the Rust Belt with different policies. I believe the answer is Yes, with caveats. First, it's undeniable, as I've written many times before, that macroeconomic change drove much of the Rust Belt collapse. Rust Belt challenges spanned many different states, red vs. blue political environments, etc. It's also true that the Columbus model may not have been applicable or worked in the same way elsewhere, … [Read more...]