Aaron M. Renn

All Things Aaron

Joel Kotkin on the Future of the Heartland

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Joel Kotkin is an unpopular figure in many urbanist circles. I suspect that doesn't bother him too much. His writing suggests he even delights in it at times, as he seeks out perhaps the most provocative contrarian examples he can find to challenge urbanist conventional wisdom. He champions Houston as a paragon of urban success, for example. And he's been known to extol the popularity and virtues of the suburbs. A typical piece is his 2005 "Rule, Suburbia: The Verdict's In, We Love It There." Among his various ventures, Kotkin is the … [Read more...]

Preserving Our Mid-Century Heritage

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We walk around the hollowed out remnants of our old downtowns and wonder, “How did this happen? How could generations past have done this? How did they tear down all those wonderful 19th century buildings? Didn’t they know?” Yet I also wonder, will we ourselves bring the same thing into being? It’s common for us to note the moral failings of the past. It’s less easy for us to imagine how future generations might find us wanting. Leslie Poles Hartley famously wrote, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” This … [Read more...]

The Giant Sucking Sound

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"Nearly all rich and powerful people are not notably talented, educated, charming, or good-looking. They became rich and powerful by wanting to be rich and powerful." - Paul Arden"But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." -I Corinthians 1:27   This is the latest installment in what has become a trilogy of sorts on talent and migration. (See also "Out-Migration Devastates Michigan" and "The Outsiders"). When I … [Read more...]

Building Suburbs That Last #4 – Supporting Home Based Businesses

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This is another installment in my periodic series "Buildings Suburbs That Last". Rather than restate the intro yet again, I'll just encourage you to read the setup to this series, as well any any earlier installments you care to. The Setup: Review: Retrofitting Suburbia Part One: Strategy Part Two: New Urbanism and Parcelization Part Three: The Mother of All Impact Fees Extra: End Property Tax Collection in Arrears A lot of the discussion of sustainability in the suburbs revolves around New Urbanism. I think this can have a role … [Read more...]

A Midwest Megaregion?

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This is the last installment in my series on megaregions. The first was Mega-Skepticism, an earlier take I had the was down on the concept. The second was a review of the book "Megaregions", edited by Catherine L. Ross. In this piece I am going to look for potential applications of megaregional geography to the Midwest. Since my blog is about cities, I'll primarily focus on the large urban aspects. While there is not a truly hierarchical relationship between cities in the Midwest, it is useful to think of it like a solar system. Chicago … [Read more...]

Review: Megaregions, Edited by Catherine L. Ross

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"The long-term utility of the megaregion as a distinct planning scale is still unproven. Does the megaregional approach confront or evade the core planning issues of equity, democracy, livability, economic vitality, and design excellence? If Jane Jacobs old quip about a region being 'an area safely larger than the last one to whose problems we found no solution' remains cogent, then the current interest in megaregions represents either a logical territorial scaling up to match the rapid expansion of regions, or another attempt by stalwart … [Read more...]

Back From Barcelona

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I just got back from spending a week in Barcelona. It's a great city, the weather was perfect, and the crowds weren't too bad. A very enjoyable trip all around. As usual, I have a few observations that struck me while there. Urban Culture I used to have a team I supervised in Madrid, so I had been to that city many times, but never made it to Barcelona apart from one brief in and out trip. I was eager to compare and contrast the two. One thing that struck me was an analogy to the Midwest. Spain was once a mighty empire, but became a sort … [Read more...]

Mega-Skepticism

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[ This post inaugurates a three part series on "megaregions" and the applicability of this concept to the Midwest. It is a repeat of something I wrote on the subject a bit over a year ago. That should lay the ground work. Part two of the series will be a review of the book "Megaregions", edited by Catherine L. Ross. The third part will be some thinking on ways the Midwest might be able to apply megaregional thinking to its problems. As you will see, I come to this subject as a skeptic. This post originally ran on July 11, 2008] There … [Read more...]

Principles of Privatization – Part 4: Guidelines for Action

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I'll conclude my series on privatization with a series of guidelines for action or best practices you should look at to determine if privatization is right. I take a pragmatic view on this. The private sector and government are always going to work together. We just need to make sure we do it right. I had a list of considerations I had developed it, and supplemented it some insights from Indianapolis blogger Paul Ogden. Ogden is a strident populist Republican who used to favor privatization but is now mostly skeptical. Even if you don't go for … [Read more...]

Pro Sports As Naming Rights Deal

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"The real question is what these expensive, publicly bankrolled behemoths add to their local economies. The consensus across every, single serious study ever done of the economic impact of sports stadia is 'absolutely nothing." As the old song goes, 'say it again.'" - Richard Florida  Over at Columbus Underground they are discussing a report commissioned by the Columbus Blue Jackets NHL team claiming the team and its arena had a $2 billion economic impact in the region. I've no doubt that a lot of money was spent around the team, but if … [Read more...]