
New Geography
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NewGeography.com is a site devoted to analyzing and discussing the places where we live and work. We want to know not only what is happening, but also how you, your company and your community can best adapt to rapidly changing conditions. We welcome your writing, your thoughts on the site, and your insights on economic development, metropolitan demographics, and community leadership.
New Geography
9h ago
The Palisades and Eaton fires represent thousands of personal tragedies, but they also constitute a collective disaster, adding new housing shortages to California’s already massive shortfall — a catastrophe that stems not from acts of nature but from human policy blunders.
Gov. Gavin Newsom bought a new $9-million house in November, but too many of his fellow Californians may never own a home or find an affordable rental. Under Newsom, the state has tried reforms designed to increase building and affordability, but precious little has changed.
Home prices in coastal California are nearly 400 ..read more
New Geography
1d ago
California is home to 9 International airports, 41 Military airports, 3 of the largest shipping ports in America, as well as more than 30 million registered vehicles, all of which cannot operate without imported foreign oil from other nations like Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Iraq, Columbia, and Russia. Thus, California is a serious national security risk for America.
In his nearly six years in office, Governor Newsom has aggressively moved to shut down oil production in California. Statewide production has fallen by more than one-third under his watch.
Because California is an isolated energy ..read more
New Geography
2d ago
Since 2020, the Rocky Mountain Institute has been hyping bogus claims about the alleged danger of natural gas stoves. That year, the Colorado-based group claimed that gas stoves “release toxic pollutants that can damage human health, but governments have done little to educate the public or accelerate the transition to all-electric cooking.”
In early 2023, RMI published a report that claimed that 12.7% of childhood asthma cases in the US “can be linked to gas stove use. In some cases, that number is much higher.” That report got widespread news coverage. But just a day or two after those stori ..read more
New Geography
4d ago
I had the privilege of seeing the gorgeous photography show Out on the Street: The Dining Sheds & Empty Streets of New York, 2020-2024, in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. The show showcased the work of Dutch photographer Wijnanda Deroo, who wandered New York City for four years, taking close to 400 vibrant photographs of dining sheds built during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sheds were ubiquitous across the city; they were unique and often reflected both the culture of the restaurants and the communities in which they were embedded. Some structures were “simple lean-tos banged to ..read more
New Geography
5d ago
Jewish history has long been defined by migratory movements away from trouble and towards safer places. Over the past half millennia, the safest harbours for ‘the world’s foster children’, as David Mamet put it, have generally been English-speaking countries, first Britain, then especially the US, Canada and Australia.
This is increasingly no longer the case. The British Jewish community is being battered by a rising tide of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish agitation from both the left and segments of the UK’s much larger Muslim population. In Australia, Jewish childcare centres and an MP’s office ..read more
New Geography
6d ago
One of the executive orders President Trump signed on Monday calls for ending federal subsidies to and preferences for electric vehicles. With numerous media reports that EV sales were already tanking, some think that Trump’s order will kill the market for electric vehicles. It won’t, but it will shift things around.
Curiously, Trump’s order is supported by Elon Musk. He claims he simply opposes all subsidies, but some think that he hopes an end to subsidies will benefit Tesla by discouraging other automakers from developing new electric vehicles. But there is a hidden cost to this order that ..read more
New Geography
1w ago
For generations, the ultra-rich in big American cities have been willing to go along with progressives and their policies. But now, as urban areas across the country depopulate and lose jobs, some of those oligarchs – from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Boston – appear to be increasingly willing to take on the Left. And in some places, they have already had considerable and surprising success.
These efforts contradict the prevailing Democratic trend, as evidenced by the recent choices for the leadership of the party. The Democratic National Committee’s obsessions with race and gender seemed ..read more
New Geography
1w ago
American ingenuity advanced nuclear technology to a world-class innovation to benefit all. Interestingly, the methods used in the rest of the world are copies of the American innovations.
Now, America seems to be fading into the wallpaper of greed and propaganda. It slinks to massive subsidies to support ancient power generated from breezes and sunshine, like wind and solar. America needs to reestablish its world-leading manifestation of this technology through our secret weapon called free enterprise.
To meet increasing demands for electricity, China, Russia, Japan, and Poland are building ad ..read more
New Geography
1w ago
There’s a question I get every so often in social media – “why do you use the term “Rust Belt”?“ Usually it comes from people who live in the region, who dislike the term and wish for some kind of rebranding. I agree. But what’s better?
Before I discuss options, let’s talk about the term “Rust Belt” itself. There are many thoughts on the origin of the term. Many people cite the term gaining popularity in the 1970’s and 1980’s as manufacturing plants closed in the Northeastern and Midwestern cities. It was at that time when factories began their relocation to the South or Southwest (which would ..read more
New Geography
1w ago
With a great deal of success, urban development elites have been able to sustain the illusion that Central Business Districts or downtowns are still the functional metropolitan centres they were five decades ago. In The New City’s new feature report, Rise of Luxury Urbanity as a System: Sydney CBD, we set out to explain how the truth is different. Opinion leaders seem content for people to assume CBDs have changed in only cosmetic ways, essentially the same but with taller skylines. But since at least the 1980s, they have drifted far from the standard functional definition proposed by geograph ..read more