I commend to your attention a brilliant essay, “Ghost Malls,” by James Quinn in The Prudent Bear on the dismal future of retail development in the United States. I then invite you to ponder the implications for (a) commercial development in Virginia, (b) the public fisc, and (c) human development patterns. Permit me summarize the…

Before it goes away, you might take in Time’s list of 25 people to blame for the Global Financial Meltdown. (Time just calls it a “financial crisis.”) The list is fun, the voting by citizens on the rankings is very interesting. Note that Phil Gramm comes in number one in the “Average Rank” voting but…

For better or worse, here’s a story I did for Richmond’s alternative newsweekly, Style Weekly. The topic involves how lots of bets go bad when it comes to economic development. A few examples: Republican Governor George Allen went heads over heels with Motorola showed interest in two silicon chip making plants in the Richmond area…

Your citation to BELTWAY BURDEN http://commerce.uli.org/misc/BeltwayBurden.pdf is a real service. Since moving to a Beta Village in the Countryside in 2002 EMR’s focus has been on understanding the economic, social and physical reality outside the Clear Edge around the Cores of New Urban Regions. EMR was not aware of this work but it is a…

This isn’t terribly Virginia-specific but I thought I’d share it. Just heard NPR this morning talk with Matt Miller, a Fortune magazine columnist who has written a book titled “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.” His thesis is that many assumptions that have been true in America for decades are no longer true. This really rngs…

Rather than add this note to the ANATOMY OF A BAD COMMUTE post, EMR will put it here because it is important to understand these issueS. Why is it important? Because NovaMiddleMan’s idea of economic reality is exactly why those who made bad location decisions are hurting now and will be hurting far more in…

Take a look at this graph of income distribution. When I was leading the Army 21 futures study for 2005-2015, this is precisely what the economists from the Library of Congress (under our contract) predicted. No surprise to me that there is a “wage gap.” The reason for the gap today – again predicted in…

Like Asking for a Show of HandsThe Employee Free Choice Act does far more than “merely level the playing field” as Mr. Lawrence Frame’s editorial suggests; in fact, it tips the scales in favor of unions. This is especially bad news for Virginia as our largely union free workforce is a primary reason that we…

On 24 March 2008 BaconsRebellion published EMR’s column # 118 titled “Good News, Bad Reporting.” That column was about: Good news: The Regional, nation-state and Global economic slowdown provided a chance, with intelligent management, to achieve a sustainable trajectory without a crash. Bad reporting: MainStream Media scaring citizens into thinking that carefully backing away from…

What to do after an economic bubble bursts. The economic crisis is an economic bubble. It’s a very big bubble. But, it isn’t an economic meltdown or the end-of-capitalism-as-we-know-it, hysterical hyperbole. Even if politicians, the news people, and losing special business interests bleat that it is so. Yet, a 24 month adjustment – tops –…

Military spending propelled economic growth in Virginia during the past decade. Now that rocket fuel has run out. Fox News reports that the Obama administration “has asked the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon’s budget request for the fiscal year 2010 by more than 10 percent — about $55 billion.” It’s not…

Today, the President and Vice President launched a task force on “the middle class.” Here is what EMR said last month in a draft of Chapter 26: A 2009 PERSPECTIVE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF VOCABULARY There is a larger context for understanding the importance of Vocabulary. The Shape of the Future, Chapter 1. employs statements…

One perpetual and frustrating riff I hear on this blog and throughout the conservative elements of Virginia is the bug-a-boo about government regulation. Everyone from the Gipper on down has told us that we need to get the government off our backs, that government is the problem. I think the opposite is true. We need…

Here’s a curious tale that you’re not likely to see in the Richmond Times-Dispatch or other Media General outlet. Diane Cantor, a veteran finance industry official and wife of GOP Congressional wunderkind Eric Cantor, is an executive of a bank that got a $267 million federal bailout even though conservative Cantor has at times publicly…

Well down in the post titled “The Intellectual Pretensions of Suburb Bashing” Peter G. said: “EMR, “It’s so frustrating. I can never win. Just when I think I come up with a really good post, you tell me I got the vocabulary all wrong. If I get the vocabulary right, you’ll say my point is…