Trust in Cities
An established political order blocks innovation and economic development; there's too much local trust, with individuals only doing business with those they know. Look at what happened in Detroit.
Displacing Poverty
Our metrics of urban neighborhood health fail to capture individual success stories, which is why we see South Central Los Angeles, which has a history of successfully encouraging social mobility, as a place with persistent poverty.
Immigration Kills
Migrants are a thorn in any government's side, but authoritarian regimes, in particular, fear nomads.
Texans Didn’t Make Houston Great
A city with more outsiders is more likely to attract more outsiders. And birthplace diversity, not density, is what fuels prosperity.
Detroit Saved
In trying to figure out what went wrong in the Motor City, we reveal how little we know about cities and what makes them successful.
Pittsburgh Booming
The Steel City offers a better chance for upward mobility than almost any other place in the United States.
Detroit Postmortem
Forget all of the obituaries filled with talk of brain drain and population decline. Magical things are still happening in Detroit.
Fresno’s Detroit Problem
A city can be beautiful and offer plenty of amenities, but if it's too close to known failures, it's going to have a difficult time attracting talent.
Hitler’s Baby Pictures
Evil needs a face and it doesn't look like your neighbor—or your child. Evil must be inhuman, other. The familiar is innocent. We let our guard down. This is part of the diversity paradox.
Inbreeding Homophily
Globalization favors open networks, people who can do business with each other on a minimal amount of trust, and avoids closed networks, the parochial neighborhoods that only look out for their own.