Aaron M. Renn

All Things Aaron

Chicago and the Epicenter

By

Crain's Chicago Business ran a major story assessing the Daley administration's track record in Chicago last week. The title, "Mayor Daley runs up big debts building his global city; what about the rest of Chicago?," implies a negative piece, but it has a lot of positive things to say too. The piece includes a quote from a previous major post of mine on the city, talking about how I want Chicago to be less of a generic world city, and find more of its own niche in the world. I want to expand on that notion today. Some of these thoughts are … [Read more...]

The Great Reset

By

Richard Florida takes a lot of heat in certain quarters. As one of the most widely known economics writers, that makes some sense. Pretty much anyone who achieves a certain level of popularity acquires haters along the way. But most of the criticisms of Florida seem wide of the mark to me. Consider the one that he's in it for the fame and rock star lifestyle. Well, let's assume so. What's your point? Who doesn't want to be famous, or at least at some level well known in their field? I'll admit I'd like to be much more widely recognized that … [Read more...]

The New Look of the American Suburb

By

This article is about the intersection of two trends I've written about before: suburban redevelopment and immigration. If you want an easy demonstration of the unsustainability of the classic American suburb, just take a drive around the inner ring suburbs of almost any city, starting with the ones that have a classic branching, winding streets, not traditional grids or those that grew up along transit lines. It is easy to find untold miles of decay, of "dead malls", "grayboxes", and subdivisions that have seen better days. If most of … [Read more...]

True Cities and Shadow Cities

By

As many cities, particularly smaller industrial ones, continue to struggle with the loss of manufacturing jobs, people wonder how or if these places will come back and again become economically prosperous. I think the potential for economic renewal at least partly depends on whether or not a place is a true city or a shadow city. What do I mean by that? Here is one way I categorize the economic life of cities. One can divide companies into three types: Local goods and services. These are things like banks, grocery stores, dry cleaners, … [Read more...]

The Other Side of Detroit

By

That picture is of a house in the city of Detroit. Surprised? Don't be. Detroit actually contains numerous intact neighborhoods ranging from working class to upscale. These are seldom shown in the voluminous photo tours of the city that tend to focus exclusively on decay, and too often on the same handful of sites such as Michigan Central Station, a practice Vice Magazine dubbed "ruin porn." The decay is there. The collapse is real. That is the story. But it's not the whole story. Amid the truly legitimate and titanic struggles of Detroit … [Read more...]

The Outsiders

By

What does it take in a city to bring about change? I believe that one key prerequisite for change is a critical mass of outsiders; that is, a large enough of group of people who moved there without a background or personal connection to a place. Why? Outsiders are willing to imagine things being different in the first place since they already experienced and indeed grew up in an environment that is different. It's sort of like visiting a foreign country for the first time. We notice how all sorts of little things are different, prompting … [Read more...]

Joel Kotkin on the Future of the Heartland

By

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...]

The Giant Sucking Sound

By

"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

By

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?

By

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...]