Rural America is taking a beating in the news. Part of it is deserved. I grew up in rural Indiana and am shocked at some of what is going on there: severe hard drug problems, HIV outbreaks, serious crime, etc. Things are a long way from when I was a kid there in the 70s and 80s and people not only left their doors unlocked, they left their keys in the car. While I don't want to minimize the challenges facing rural America, there's a lot that has flat out gotten better since I first moved to Harrison County in first grade around … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2017
What Do We Do With Shrinking Cities?
Shrinking Cities: Understanding Urban Decline in the United States By Russell Weaver, Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen, Jason Knight, and Amy E. Frazier Routledge (2017) Cities like Detroit, St. Louis, and Cleveland have lost stunning percentages of their peak population since 1950. Yet these are all in metro areas whose regional populations are much higher than in 1950, even if not at their all time peak high in all of them. Some cities like Youngstown have gone so far as to try to plan for shrinkage and a permanently reduced population future. … [Read more...]
The Quest for Food Freedom
Biting the Hands That Feed Us Baylen J. Linnken Mariza Ruelas currently faces up to two years in jail in California for the crime of selling ceviche through a Facebook food group. Welcome to the mad world of American food regulation. In Biting the Hands That Feed Us, Baylen Linnekin looks closely at a system that can take pride in a historically safe food supply but that also imposes too many rules that defy common sense. Linnekin traces the system’s origins to The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s exposé of the appalling conditions in Chicago’s … [Read more...]
Ten Things You Need to Know About Indianapolis City Culture
What makes one city different from another? Some of it is the geography, the economy, or the buildings. But a big chunk of it is culture. Every city has its own culture. A journalist recently interviewed me about Indianapolis and asked about some of the things that make that city's culture distinct. I'm reposting ten of my observations here. Keep in mind that many of these points are relative, not absolute. They are comparisons versus what I see in other cities. 1. Indianapolis has a very open social structure. Many cities have very … [Read more...]
What Is Gigabit Internet Actually Good For?
Bloomberg ran a recent long feature on why it's so hard to build the next Silicon Valley. Kansas City was the initial winner in the super-hyped race to be the launch region for Google Fiber, but this hasn't translated into a tech boom: Schatz’s disappointment is a tale of misplaced expectations, by both entrepreneurs and city leaders. (The challenges that he and other startup founders face is the subject of the latest episode of the Decrypted podcast; subscribe here on iTunes.) In 2011 the cities’ two mayors called Fiber’s then-future … [Read more...]
Small Colleges and Small Towns Working Together for Their Futures
My latest column in the March 2017 issue of Governing magazine is about how small liberal arts schools are partnering to try to help the small towns where they are located succeed. In this they are imitating big cities, where major institutions have often played a key role in driving revitalization efforts, often in part out of self-interest. Here's an excerpt: Many of the efforts these colleges are undertaking are still in their early days. But there’s a good chance that they will have staying power. Colleges’ increasing interest in the … [Read more...]
The Feds Halt Caltrain Electrification Funding
The Trump administration has put a hold on $647 million in federal funding for a proposed electrification of the Caltrain commuter rail system in the San Francisco Bay peninsula. This is the main passenger rail line serving Silicon Valley. The US DOT did this at the request of California's Republican Congressmen, who see it as a further subsidy to California's high speed rail line, which would apparently use the tracks. I haven't ridden Caltrain, but it appears to be a diesel engine system with bi-level coaches similar to Chicago's Metra or … [Read more...]
Is Climate Change Really the Cause of Mexico City’s Water Problems?
A couple weeks ago the New York Times ran a gigantic front-page Sunday article by architecture critic Michael Kimmelman on Mexico City's water crisis. This piece was billed as the first installment in a series on the effect of climate change on cities. Which is a head-scratcher, since Mexico City's problems don't seem to have anything to do with that. Mexico City is a megacity of 21.2 million people, making it roughly the size of greater New York. It's also a mile and a half above sea level on a former lake bed in a valley among the … [Read more...]