Capital Markets Urbanomics The Big Picture Study uncovers 'de-urbanization' of America Public release date: 23-Sep-2009 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Brendan M. Lynchblynch@ku.edu 785-864-8855University of Kansas LAWRENCE — More than any other populace on Earth, Americans are on the move. Now, one researcher at the University of Kansas has made a vital study of how a population in perpetual motion impacts local tax bases and economies around the nation. Art Hall, executive director of the Center for Applied Economics at the KU School of Business, said he uncovered three key themes to American population shifts by looking at annual data collected by the Internal Revenue Service on county-to-county migration: He found that Populations are relocating to coastal areas (with the major exception that inhabitants for the first time are taking flight from California's prohibitively priced seaboard) People are moving out from major metropolises to smaller cities The general migration trend in the U.S. now is eastward rather than westward [ Print | E-mail
RCLCO Sustainable Urban Mobility in 2020 To make the car of the future, we need to make the city of the future, says MIT designer Ryan Chin. How can you design a city by designing a car? Today’s automobiles are driven by an increasing number of users who live in cities. The United Nations reported in 2007 that migration patterns and population growth have created an equal split between inhabitants of cities and rural areas for the first time in human history. In 1950, New York City was the only megacity on the planet, with 10 million occupants. The world’s automobile fleet is currently estimated at 800 million cars that serve the 7.8 billion people living on Planet Earth. Size and Weight 2010: Today’s automobiles weigh an average of nearly 4,000 lb, approximately 20 times the weight of the driver. 2020: Tomorrow’s automobiles will be more lightweight and smaller. Range and Speed 2020: Tomorrow’s automobiles will not need that much refueling autonomy. Gasoline versus Electric Driver-Controlled versus Autonomous Driving 1. 2. 3.
Resorts the-ten-biggest-american-cities-that-are-running-out-of-water: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance By Charles B. Stockdale, Michael B. Sauter, Douglas A. Some parts of the United States have begun to run low on water. The water problem is worse than most people realize, particularly in several large cities which are occasionally low on water now and almost certainly face shortfalls in a few years. 24/7 Wall St. looked at an October 2010 report on water risk by environmental research and sustainability group Ceres. The analysis allowed us to choose ten cities that are likely to face severe shortages in the relatively near-term future. Severe droughts that could affect large cities are first a human problem. The ten cities on this list are the ones with the most acute exposure to problems that could cause large imbalances of water supply and demand. These are the ten largest cities by population that have the greatest chance of running out of water. 10. North-central Florida, especially Orange County where Orlando is located, has experienced frequent droughts in the last decade. 9. 8.
Federal income tax is the enemy of urbanism Finishing my dissertation this year has forced me to come out of my troll-cave and interact a lot more with my econ department. And that has been a very good thing! There is so much cool economics going on at the University of Michigan that I didn't even know about that I've decided to start blogging about it. Today's interesting nugget comes from UMich prof David Albouy, for whom I briefly worked as a research assistant a few years back. David has zeroed in on one way in which our government stacks the deck against cities: Income tax. The point is not just that this is unfair (as the Times article contends), but that it's inefficient for our economy. There are several reasons that this is true. Another reason is knowledge spillovers. So when the federal government levees the same percentage tax on San Franciscans that it levees on people in College Station, it is discouraging high productivity.