Category: Housing
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Government Fragmentation and Economic Growth
by James A. Bacon What are the secrets of successful metropolitan regions? According to conventional economic-development thinking here in Virginia, success hinges upon the ability to maintain a positive business climate, a concept that encompasses everything from tax rates to the tort system, the transportation network to the education level of the workforce. But a…
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Best Region for Hispanics — the Mid-Atlantic
Hispanics now comprise 17% of the United States population. In New Geography, Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox ask where in the country Hispanics are faring the best economically. Based on their analysis of the nation’s 52 largest metropolitan regions, it appears that Hispanics are more likely to prosper in the Mid-Atlantic than anywhere else in…
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Interview: McAuliffe’s Economic Goals
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka For a glimpse of where the administration of Gov. Terry McAuliffe is heading, here’s an interview I did with Maurice Jones, the secretary of commerce and trade that was published in Richmond’s Style Weekly. Jones, a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College and University of Virginia law, is a former Rhodes Scholar who had…
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Virginia’s Top Stories in 2014
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka The Year 2014 was quite eventful if unsettling. It represented some major turning points for the Old Dominion. Here are my picks for the top stories: Robert F. McDonnell becomes the highest-ranking former or serving state official to be convicted of corruption. The six-week-long trial from July to September of the Republican…
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Takeaways From the GOP’s Big Win
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in Business and Economy, Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka The night of Tuesday, Nov. 4 was an ugly one for the Democrats and a big win for Republicans. Here are my takeaways from it: U.S. Sen.Mark Warner clings to a tiny lead that seems to grow slightly, still making it uncertain if opponent Ed Gillespie will ask for a recount. The…
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Brat’s Strange Immigrant-Bashing
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in Business and Economy, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Economic development, Electoral process, Federal issues, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka It must have been an interesting scene. Congressional candidate David Brat had been invited to a meeting of the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce along with his Democratic rival Jack Trammell to outline his views on immigration and undocumented aliens. Brat, an obscure economics professor who nailed powerhouse Eric Cantor in a…
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Millennials Want a New Kind of Suburbia
by James A. Bacon The Millennial Generation (18- to 29-years old) will be a predominantly suburban generation, contends a new study by the Demand Institute based on a survey of 1,000 Millennial households. Significant majorities of the younger generation aspire to owning a single-family home and consider automobiles a necessity, while a 48% plurality expresses a preference…
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Two UMW Daughters of the ’60s
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in Business and Economy, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Environment, Federal issues, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Just a few days ago, Elena Siddall, a Mathews County Republican activist and Tea Party Patriot, posted her account on the Rebellion of being a social worker in New York in the 1960s and the wrong-headedness of Saul Alinsky, a leftist organizer who had had a lot of influence back in the…
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Menu Items on the Free Lunch Smorgasbord
Last week I published “Lean Urbanism and the Bureaucratic State,” a post that described a New Urbanist project to rectify the baleful effects of excess regulation upon urban re-development efforts. Questions arose in the comments regarding this initiative. What were these terrible regulations? Were the New Urbanists exaggerating the costs they imposed? Reader Richard N.…
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The Rise of Walkable Urbanism and “the End of Sprawl”
by James A. Bacon The Washington metropolitan region is the national model for “walkable urbanism” in the United States — more so even than metropolitan New York, according to the findings of “Foot Traffic Ahead: Ranking Walkable Urbanism in America’s Largest Metros,” a report released this morning by LOCUS, an organization of smart-growth real estate developers, and Smart…
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Lean Urbanism and the Bureaucratic State
by James A. Bacon The really big idea to emerge from the 2014 Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) was “lean urbanism.” The idea isn’t entirely new. Andres Duany, New Urbanism guru and the driving force behind “lean” urbanism, has been publicly discussing the idea for a year or more. But he used the annual confab…
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Brat and Cantor: Two Unsavory Choices
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka The hottest political race coming up is the Republican primary this Tuesday involving the 7th Congressional District now represented by Eric Cantor, a powerful conservative who is House Majority Leader and could possibly one day be Speaker of the House. His opponent, college professor David Brat, has gotten much national attention because…
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Why Executive Fiats Are Needed
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka Two initiatives — one on the state and the other on the federal level– show just how untenable the politics of confrontation has become. It is forcing the executive side to take charge at the expense of the legislative. Democrats Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Atty. Gen. Mark Herring are exploring ways to…
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Urbanizing the Burbs: Fairfax Circle Plaza
by James A. Bacon Route 50 through the City of Fairfax is a classic stroad, a street-road hybrid, that originated as a state highway and degenerated into a local access road for commercial development, with the result that it serves neither function — moving cars or providing local access — especially well. In a lengthy…
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Prospect for Virginia Housing Prices: Grim to Dismal
If you’re a homeowner hoping to see your house increase in value, or if you’re a local government looking for assessments and tax revenues to rise, Virginia is just about the worst state of the union to be in right now. According to a new projection of housing prices published by the Demand Institute, the price…