Charlotte, NC area

What is Middle-Income Housing Affordability?

by Wendell Cox — Few local or metropolitan issues receive more attention than housing affordability. This article provides a perspective on housing affordability, which is the relationship between housing costs and income.
Urban Center, downtown Toronto

Housing Affordability From Vancouver to Sydney to Toronto: Time to Do What Works

by Wendell Cox — A healthy market has a balance between supply and demand. In many cities, the demand for houses far outstrips the supply. Yet, cities have studiously avoided the obvious supply side policy that could restore housing affordability.
Classic ranch style suburban house

Pervasive Suburbanization: The 2017 Data

by Wendell Cox — The most recent Census Bureau population estimates have made it clear that migration to the suburbs and away from urban cores has accelerated dramatically since the early years of the Great Recession.
Aerial photo of California suburbs

Poverty is Worse Than Sprawl: California's Housing Affordability Crisis

by Wendell Cox – Rent control supporters in California recently announced that they have enough signatures to qualify a state proposition to remove limitations on municipalities to control rents. Their purpose is to improve housing affordability in the nation’s most unaffordable state.
Polk County Courthouse at night

The Midwest is Booming - Just Not Where You Think

by Joel Kotkin — The Midwest is booming, but not where you might think. Kansas City, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Grand Rapids, and Des Moines are the fastest-growing cities in the Midwest—lapping bigger hubs like Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and even Chicago that are still suffering from stagnant economies and slow or even negative population growth.
Suburb of Des Moines

Suburbs Could End Up On The Cutting Edge of Urban Change

by Joel Kotkin — Overwhelmingly, suburbs are where most growth is happening. Since 2010 suburbs and exurbs have produced roughly 80 percent of all new jobs. Even tech growth is shifting...

Landless Americans Are the New Serf Class

by Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox — For the better part of the past century, the American dream was defined, in large part, by that “universal aspiration” to own a home. As housing prices continue to outstrip household income, that’s changing as more and more younger Americans are ending up landless, and not by choice.
Los Angeles Central Business District, by Doc Searles

California's Middle Class is in Decline Despite State's Immense Wealth

by Amita Sharma — The California Dream of two or three generations ago was, `I’m going to move from a place that’s cold and flat to a place where there’s lots of opportunity,’” said Joel Kotkin, a presidential fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University.

The Screwed Millennial Generation Gets Smart

by Joel Kotkin — It’s been seven years since I wrote about “the screwed generation.” The story told has since become familiar: Millennials, then largely in their twenties, faced a future of limited economic opportunity
suburban homes

Housing and the California Dream are at a Crossroads

by Joel Kotkin — For generations, California has offered its people an opportunity to own a home, start a business, and move up, whether someone came from Brooklyn, east Texas, Morelos or Taipei. That deal is still desired by most