{"id":16314,"date":"2013-04-09T10:21:44","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T17:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=16314"},"modified":"2013-04-09T10:21:44","modified_gmt":"2013-04-09T17:21:44","slug":"kotkin-why-the-next-great-american-cities-arent-what-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16314\/kotkin-why-the-next-great-american-cities-arent-what-you-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Kotkin: &#8220;Why the next great American cities aren\u2019t what you think.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Joel Kotkin at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2013\/04\/08\/houston-rising-why-the-next-great-american-cities-aren-t-what-you-think.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Daily Beast:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Once considered backwaters, these Sunbelt cities are quietly achieving a critical mass of well-educated residents. They are also becoming major magnets for immigrants. Over the past decade, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newgeography.com\/search\/node\/fastest+growing+foreign+born\" target=\"_blank\">the largest percentage growth in foreign-born population<\/a> has occurred in sunbelt cities, led by Nashville, which has doubled its number of immigrants, as have Charlotte and Raleigh. During the first decade of the 21st century, Houston attracted the second-most new, foreign-born residents, some 400,000, of any American city\u2014behind only much larger New York and slightly ahead of Dallas-Ft. Worth, but more than three times as many as Los Angeles. According to one recent Rice University study, Census data now shows that <a href=\"http:\/\/content.usatoday.com\/communities\/ondeadline\/post\/2012\/03\/study-houston-area-passes-nyc-as-nations-most-diverse\/1#.UVmuDFdvB8M\" target=\"_blank\">Houston has now surpassed New York<\/a> as the country\u2019s most racially and ethnically diverse metropolis.<\/p>\n<p><i>Why<\/i> are these people flocking to the aspirational cities, that lack the hip amenities, tourist draws, and cultural landmarks of the biggest American cities? People are still far more likely to buy a million dollar <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/02\/12\/nyregion\/paying-top-dollar-for-condos-and-leaving-them-empty.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\"><i>pied \u00e0 terre<\/i> in Manhattan<\/a> than to do so in Oklahoma City. Like early-20th-century Polish peasants who came to work in Chicago\u2019s factories or Russian immigrants, like my grandparents, who came to New York to labor in the rag trade, the appeal of today\u2019s smaller cities is largely economic. The foreign born, along with generally younger educated workers, are canaries in the coal mine\u2014singing loudest and most frequently in places that offer both employment and opportunities for upward mobility and a better life.<\/p>\n<p>Over the decade, for example, Austin\u2019s job base grew 28 percent, Raleigh\u2019s by 21 percent, Houston by 20 percent, while Nashville, Atlanta, San Antonio, and Dallas-Ft. Worth saw job growth in the 14 percent range or better. In contrast, among all the legacy cities, only Seattle and Washington D.C.\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/articles\/bernanke-496089-big-banks.html\" target=\"_blank\">the great economic parasite<\/a>\u2014have created jobs faster than the national average of roughly 5 percent. Most did far worse, with New York and Boston 20 percent&nbsp;<i>below <\/i>the norm; big urban regions including Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and, despite the current tech bubble, San Francisco have created essentially <i>zero<\/i> new jobs over the decade.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>[&#8230;.]<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The reality is that most urban growth in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16314\/kotkin-why-the-next-great-american-cities-arent-what-you-think\/#more-16314\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joel Kotkin at The Daily Beast: Once considered backwaters, these Sunbelt cities are quietly achieving a critical mass of well-educated residents. They are also becoming major magnets for immigrants. Over the past decade, the largest percentage growth in foreign-born population has occurred in sunbelt cities, led by Nashville, which has doubled its number of immigrants, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[251,212,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-big-mother","7":"category-flourishing","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13252,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/13252\/joel-kotkin-why-housing-will-come-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":16314,"position":0},"title":"Joel Kotkin: Why housing will come back.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Urban savant Joel Kotkin in Forbes magazine:What we are going through now is not a sea change but a correction from insane government and business practices. The rise in homeownership from 44% in 1944 to nearly 70% at the height of the bubble reflected a great social democratic achievement. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Flourishing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Flourishing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/flourishing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2840,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2840\/urbanologist-joel-kotkin-why-growth-oriented-cities-like-houston-phoenix-and-atlanta-reflect-the-future-of-global-commerce\/","url_meta":{"origin":16314,"position":1},"title":"Urbanologist Joel Kotkin: Why growth-oriented cities like Houston, Phoenix and Atlanta reflect the future of global commerce","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Joel Kotkin is the only American urbanologist who can tolerate actual living human beings. In consequence, he can write about the organic growth of cities as they really are, rather than as he might remake them with enough tax money and firepower. This is a long extract from a much\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Investment&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Investment","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/investment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16349,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16349\/joel-kotkin-on-the-triumph-of-suburbia\/","url_meta":{"origin":16314,"position":2},"title":"Joel Kotkin on the triumph of suburbia.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"New Geography:The \u201csilver lining\u201d in our five-years-and-running Great Recession, we\u2019re told, is that Americans have finally taken heed of their betters and are finally rejecting the empty allure of suburban space and returning to the urban core. \u201cWe\u2019ve reached the limits of suburban development,\u201d HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan declared in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Mother&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16288,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16288\/has-your-town-pissed-away-a-fortune-on-the-so-called-creative-class-bad-news-from-richard-florida-on-close-inspection-talent-clustering-provides-little-in-the-way-of-trickle-down-benef\/","url_meta":{"origin":16314,"position":3},"title":"Has your town pissed away a fortune on the so-called &#8216;creative class&#8217;? Bad news from Richard Florida: \u201cOn close inspection, talent clustering provides little in the way of trickle-down benefits.\u201d","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Joel Kotkin:Among the most pervasive, and arguably pernicious, notions of the past decade has been that the \u201ccreative class\u201d of the skilled, educated and hip would remake and revive American cities. The idea, packaged and peddled by consultant Richard Florida, had been that unlike spending public money to court Wall\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Mother&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":499,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/499\/where-the-babies-are-and-where-they-arent\/","url_meta":{"origin":16314,"position":4},"title":"Where the babies are &#8212; and where they aren&#8217;t . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a decently if not very deftly balanced comparison of Gilbert, Arizona, to Portland, Oregon, in the Christian Science Monitor today. The star of the piece is urbanologist Joel Kotkin, so Gilbert doesn't suffer the usual big-city-dweller's I-just-don't-get-it sliming. The issue of fecundity is touched upon without any mention of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Marketing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18128,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/18128\/overnight-news-the-secret-to-zillows-flavor-of-ibuying-sucking-at-real-estate-helps-them-sucker-real-estate-agents-which-is-where-the-real-money-is\/","url_meta":{"origin":16314,"position":5},"title":"Overnight News: The secret to Zillow\u2019s flavor of iBuying? Sucking at real estate helps them sucker real estate\u00a0agents \u2013 which is where the real money\u00a0is.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote the other day about Zillow's losses on its iBuyer \"investments\" \u2013 incomprehensible losses considering that this is one of the few times when it is possible to make money on non-producing real estate. The losses on iBuyer \"investments\" can be stupefying from the point of view of any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Group Therapy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16314"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16317,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16314\/revisions\/16317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}