Years ago Aaron Renn coined an urban paradigm that he labeled “the new donut.” The old donut, of course, is one that many of you will know well: poor downtown (hole in the donut) and wealthy suburbs (ring around the hole in the donut). This is… Read More
All posts tagged “city center”
Below the surface
Later this month the new 9.7 km North-South metro line in Amsterdam will start service. Like most large scale infrastructure projects, its opening has been delayed many times. 8 times according to this source. But this post is not about that. It’s about a byproduct of… Read More
Has there been a “great inversion?”
Urbanist Richard Florida has spoken a lot about a “great inversion.” This is about poverty moving to the suburbs and the core of cities becoming a kind of “gated suburb.” (i.e. wealthy) In response to this narrative, City Observatory recently published a post where they call this… Read More
The urban wealth pendulum
Jeffrey Lin, who is an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, recently published the following chart: I found it in this Washington Post article. And it’s packed full of fascinating information. The chart compares the socioeconomic status in US cities (y-axis) against “distance… Read More
The suburbs, they are a changing
Earlier today, a good friend of mine shared this New York Times article on my Facebook wall. It talks about how some suburbs are taking action to try and curb the exodus of young people to cities. They’re doing things like making themselves more walkable… Read More