Aaron M. Renn

All Things Aaron

How Demographics Explain the World

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Demographics may not be destiny, but they do play a huge role in driving the fortunes of society and the economy. Sami Karam of Populyst joined me for a podcast on demographic trends around the world. The conversation ranged from the rise of China to the fall of Japan - and even why Occupy Wall Street failed to achieve lift-off. Topics include: 0:00 Introduction and overview of Sami Karam’s work 2:20 Why Occupy Wall Street didn't take off 3:15 Demographics on the problems of the Japanese economy 3:50 What does demographics tell … [Read more...]

What Happens When There’s Nobody Left to Move to the City?

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Following up on the Pew study that found many states will face declining work age populations in the future, I want to highlight a recent Atlantic article called "The Graying of Rural America." It's a profile of the small Oregon town of Fossil, which is slowly dying as the young people leave and a rump population of older people - median age 56 - begin to pass on. Like the Pew study, this one has implications that weren't fully traced out. There's a lot of urban triumphalism these days, as cities crow about Millennials wanting to live … [Read more...]

The End of Job Growth

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Pew Charitable Trusts recently posted an analysis of population projections that show several states with stagnant to declining workforces. This means that for nearly 20 states, it's basically impossible to add jobs in the future. How can you add more jobs with fewer workers? That doesn't mean there won't be cyclical ups or downs or that some slack in the system might be taken up with some growth, but overall, stagnation to decline in jobs is going to follow. Pew's article mentions states fighting to retain a high skill labor force, … [Read more...]

How Newcastle Went From Post-Industrial Wasteland to Top 10 Global Travel Destination

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Creating Cities by Marcus Westbury I'll make it easy for you: buy this book. Creating Cities is an engaging, well-written overview of the Renew Newcastle effort in Australia that helped turn the moribund downtown of a fading steel city into one of Lonely Planet's top ten global travel destinations in 2011. But not only a breezy read and a feel good case study, this book is also a celebration of bottom-up urbanism, and citizens taking the revitalization of their city into their own hands. In contrast to the typical top down planning, … [Read more...]

Chicago Is Winning the Battle for the Executive Headquarters

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The corporate headquarters used to be the primary measure of a city's economic clout. Saskia Sassen, while not ignoring headquarters, documented how in the age of globalization, the resurgence of the global city was driven by demand for financial and producer services, not more and bigger HQs. As she pointed out in her seminal book The Global City, "Major cities such as London, New York, and Chicago have been losing top ranked headquarters for at least three decades." Yet despite this they were coming back strong. Back in 2008, I started … [Read more...]

Mayor Byron Brown on Buffalo’s “Green Code”, Architecture, Economy, and More

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I was privileged to get to record a podcast with Mayor Byron Brown while researching my article on Buffalo for City Journal this spring. Coming after a very tough 2007 Ed Glaeser article in City Journal on the city, it was very gracious of the mayor to agree to talk with me. I want to personally thank and honor him for that. If you do nothing else, listen to the section of the interview about the Buffalo Green Code. This is one of the most important developments ongoing in major American cities right now. Buffalo is completely re-writing … [Read more...]

What Will It Take to Bring Back Struggling Rust Belt Cities?

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America is replete with struggling post-industrial cities.   Massive efforts have been made, and huge amounts of money spent, to try to bring them back. Yet these have basically all failed. What will it take to bring these cities back? Let's look at the case studies of cities that actually have come back, including many of the largest ones like New York, London, and Boston. In the 1970s, the future looked very bleak for them. New York nearly went bankrupt. Today their problem is that they are so in demand that housing prices have … [Read more...]

Mayor Mick Cornett Explains Oklahoma City’s Transformation

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In addition to my article about Oklahoma City's transformation, I also sat down with Mayor Mick Cornett to have him describe it in his own words. If the audio embed doesn't display for you, click over to listen on Soundcloud. We covered a number of topics during the talk, including. 0:00 - Introduction and the effect of the federal building bombing 4:20 - The Metropolitan Area Projects (MAPS) program 5:33 - Is Oklahoma City's economy just oil and gas? 7:32 - Securing water supplies for a city in an arid region 8:51 - OKC has had … [Read more...]

12 Ways to Map the Midwest

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What is the Midwest? There's been a lot of debate about this question among folks passionate about such thing. But it defies easy definition. Here are eleven ways various people have taken a crack at drawing the map. Traditional Maps 1. The Northwest Territory Start with the original Northwest Territory, now sometimes referred to as the Great Lakes region. This is the historic core of what we now think of as the Midwest. 2. Midwest Census Division The Census Bureau has an official definition of the Midwest, which is one of four … [Read more...]