Aaron M. Renn

All Things Aaron

The Plight of the Midsized Midwest Industrial City

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Bloomberg's Justin Fox tweeted out a link to this piece from a professor in Peoria, Illinois who left a coveted tenure-track position because he couldn't bear the thought of living there.  Here's an excerpt: What this all boiled down to is that it was massively detrimental to my health and well-being to live in a dying Rust Belt city by myself. And my “solution” to that problem – moving to Chicago and driving seven hours round-trip to work – was never anything but a stopgap that negatively affected me in different ways. … People have … [Read more...]

The Quest for Human Flourishing

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I recently sat down with Tyler VanderWeele, John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology in the Harvard School of Public Health. He's also the director of the Human Flourishing Program, which was the subject of our recording. What is human flourishing? What is the state of it in society today? What can we do to improve our own personal flourishing? We discuss these and other questions in our podcast. If the audio player doesn't display for you, click over to listen on … [Read more...]

A New Mayor for Chicago and Congestion Pricing for New York

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My colleague Nicole Gelinas and I recorded a podcast for City Journal recently about recent developments in New York and Chicago. She talked about New York's approval of congestion pricing and I covered the Chicago mayoral election. If the audio player doesn't display for you, click over to listen on Soundcloud. https://soundcloud.com/aaronrenn/updates-on-chicago-new-mayor-and-new-york-congestion-pricing Subscribe to podcast via iTunes | Soundcloud. Cover image credit: Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 4.0 … [Read more...]

New Census Estimates Reveal Continuing American Divergence

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The Census Bureau today released new county and metro area level estimates for population. In my latest article for City Journal, I take a look at some of the trends. Here's an excerpt: Ninety-four metro areas, representing about a quarter of the nation’s total, lost population last year on a region-wide basis. This includes nine major metros of more than 1 million people. Among them were the three biggest: New York (down 19,474 people, or 0.10 percent), Los Angeles (down 7,223, or 0.05 percent), and Chicago (down 22,068, or 0.23 … [Read more...]

The Philadelphia Revival Story

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My latest piece will be in this Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer but is already available online now. It's about the nascent revival in Philadelphia over the past decade, and its relevance, or rather lack of relevance, to many other struggling cities in Pennsylvania. Here's an excerpt: In many ways the city has been ideally positioned for new economy success. The Philadelphia metro area is a very large region of 6.1 million people in an era in which larger cities have been growing faster. Philadelphia has a highly educated population, … [Read more...]

Chicago: Past, Present, Future

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I gave a talk recently at the Chicago Booth School of Business about Chicago and while I was not able to record it, I decided to reprise my talk as a podcast. I give a very brief narrative overview of the city's history, it's present day strengths, the challenges it faces, and ideas for the future. If the podcast doesn't display for you, click over to listen on Soundcloud. https://soundcloud.com/aaronrenn/chicago-past-present-future Subscribe to podcast via iTunes | Soundcloud. Featured image credit: Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 4.0 … [Read more...]

What Can We Do For America’s Most Challenged Cities?

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My latest Manhattan Institute study was just released, discussing the particular difficulties facing America's most distressed cities. Post-industrial metro areas with less than one million people that have experience significant decline are in a different category than other places. In addition to demographic and employment challenges, they tend to have low end economies, low levels of educational attainment, and very few elite caliber assets such as an R1 research university around which to rebuild. I suggest that speculative economic … [Read more...]

The Tech Campus Moves Downtown

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My latest City Journal article from the Winter issue is now online. It's called "The Tech Campus Moves Downtown" and is about states and universities making geographic moves to better position themselves for the 21st century. It talks a lot about the University of Illinois and its Discovery Partners Institute plan, as well as Cornell Tech.  Some excerpts: Much of today’s technology economy is located where a critical mass of talent and capital converge: on the campuses of elite research universities, in settings with strong entrepreneurial … [Read more...]

Smarter Cities and Community Engagement

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As a follow-up to Monday's post, the two top finishers in the Chicago mayoral election were Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle. They will meet in an April runoff. During the election I was down in Miami speaking at the Knight Foundation's annual Media Forum. I was honored to be invited to participate and was on a panel devoted to smarter cities. Here's the video of our session. If the video player doesn't display for you, click over to watch on You Tube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1_tITUf9wQ … [Read more...]

Don’t Fall in the Branding Trap

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My latest piece is online in City Lab. It's another look at urban branding. Here's an excerpt. The problem with the typical approach extends beyond just marketing. It has tangible consequences. A brand is really a city’s conception of itself. By selling itself as a facsimile of something its not, a city ends up turning that into reality. Thus, so many urban places today seem vaguely the same—a blur of Edison-bulbed eateries and mid-rise “one plus five” apartment buildings (in which up to five stories of wood frame construction are built atop a … [Read more...]