Welcome to Citiwire.net! Is there really a ‘grand’ inversion — city and suburb — occurring in America? Answer: In many ways, yes. In other ways, a very mixed bag. Based on Alan Ehrenahlt’s new book, my column takes on that theme. … And from Ed McMahon, Citistates Associate and a fellow at the Urban Land [...]

For Release Friday, May 11, 2012 Citiwire.net When it comes to land development, Americans famously dislike two things: too much sprawl and too much density. Over the past 50 years, the pendulum swung sharply in the direction of spread-out, single use, drive everywhere for everything, low density development. Now the pendulum is swinging back. High [...]

For Release Sunday, May 13, 2012 © 2012 Washington Post Writers Group How fast are our downtowns, neighborhoods and regions truly changing? Are cities on a clear comeback path? What’s the future of suburbia? Opinions abound. Some analysts predict spirited and expanding revival of once-neglected center cities, even while far-out, “drive ’til you qualify” suburbia [...]

Welcome to Citiwire.net! The idea of ‘crowdsourcing’ to help cities, on every front from checking for potholes to designing exciting new projects, is an exciting — but complex — one. Time to look over the field, I decided. With quality input from Storm Cunningham, who’s writing a book on the topic, this week’s column emerged. [...]

Chairman and CEO, Collaborative Economics For Release Thursday, May 3, 2012 Citiwire.net As Mark Twain once said “the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” With unemployment soaring to over 12 percent and a loss of over 1 million jobs during the Great Recession contributing to a 20 billion dollar state budget deficit, many commentators [...]

For Release Sunday, May 6, 2012 © 2012 Washington Post Writers Group Defining “crowdsourcing” consumes close to 4,000 words on the Wikipedia website — fitting enough for an electronic encyclopedia that’s being updated 24/7 by some 50,000 registered users scattered across the globe. But how about the communities where we live? How broadly are we [...]

For Release Sunday, April 29, 2012 Citiwire.net Ask why nations succeed or fail and a group of likely suspects are offered. Natural resources are too scarce, human capital isn’t developed, the geography is unfavorable (there’s a long list of possible explanations). But there’s another perhaps more critical factor, highlighted by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson [...]

Welcome to Citiwire.net! ‘America’s Metro Regions Take Center Stage’ — that’s the bold assertion of a just-released report by our Citistates Group, featured in my column this week, offering eight reasons why. We’ve spent over a year analyzing the issue, assembling a quality panel of experts to debate it, and then preparing the report. Please [...]

For Release Sunday, April 29, 2012 © 2012 Washington Post Writers Group “America’s Metro Regions Take Center Stage.” That’s the title of a new report I’ve been working on with colleagues. And we know that some people will immediately retort: “Metros? You can’t be serious. How about Obama, Romney, congressional stalemate, the Tea Party, states [...]

Welcome to Citiwire.net! What a surprise — Burned by its close ties to the NRA-backed gun law that’s associated with Treyvor Martin’s killing, ALEC has disbanded its task force responsible for the measure’s propagation, almost word for word, to multiple other states. But ALEC pressure to emasculate state budgets, often in the guise of supply-side [...]