(Via the fantastic Strange Maps).

The Economist reports:

Mayors are forming alliances with nearby settlements mostly because
they have to. Few cities can now expect to dominate their hinterlands
simply by virtue of being big. Across America suburbs are strongly
competing for people, offices and cultural centres. Many mayors quietly
worry that their cities will turn into nightmarish Detroits, with a
rotten core and a choice collection of the region’s most troubled
residents.

The article points to regional organizations, alliances, and initiatives forged by mayors Rich Daley of Chicago; John Hickenlooper, Denver; Jerry Abramson, Louisville; and Bob Walkup, Tuscon – all mayors we know well, we admire, and with whom we have worked. Mayors – from both parties – are becoming the innovative force in politics and policy around the world. Makes sense, actually, since that world is increasingly spiky.

If you think this headline is about politics, you’re wrong. Slate’s Dan Gross reports on the incompetence of American business management:

Dissing American financial management is an affront to national
pride tantamount to standing in Rome and asking, loudly, if Italians
are able to make pasta. The United States invented the concept and
practice of running large, complex systems. Along with baseball and
deep-frying, management is one of our great national pastimes … Americans’
ability to manage complex systems has been the ultimate competitive
advantage. It has allowed the United States to enjoy high growth and
low inflation—a record we haven’t hesitated to lord over our foreign
friends…

But now, thanks to widespread incompetence, American
management is on its way to becoming an international laughingstock.
Faith in American financial sobriety has been widely undermined by the
subprime mess …  Americans abroad are constantly taunted by perceived failings of American
management. America’s aviation system is now the butt of jokes because
9-year-olds have become accustomed to removing their Heelys before
boarding a plane…

More here. Your thoughts.

Virgina Prescott interviews moi on her NPR show, Word of Mouth, from New Hampshire. I enjoyed it immensely: Virgina knows her stuff. A Loeb fellow at Harvard, she also once interviewed the great Jane Jacobs.

Florida says we all put lots of thought into what we want to do for a
living and whom we want to spend our lives with, but we don’t put
enough thought about where we want to live. He says location is what
really matters. Do you agree? How much thought did you put into your current
location? Did you just “find” yourself somewhere, or did you think
carefully about where you wanted to live? Do you think Richard Florida
is right? Do we put enough emphasis on where we want to spend our
lives?

The interview is here.

Yes it’s Toronto (via Andrew Sullivan’s “View from Your Window”).

Bestsellers

The New York Times:

Over its four days, SXSW, as the festival is called, is like MySpace moved to the physical realm: more music than anyone could possibly hear, freely available and clamoring to be heard.

Hmmmmm …

Carol Lloyd in the San Francisco Chronicle picks up on the connection between suburbanization and the mortgage/financial mess:

Slumburbia? After decades of middle-class flight from the cities in
search of safe neighborhoods and good schools – a flight that continues
today even from gentrified cities like San Francisco – it’s hard to
conjure the image of a truly derelict suburbia …

This week RealtyTrac released new foreclosure
numbers about cities that were hit the hardest in February.  Stockton, with nearly 5 percent of all its households at some stage
of foreclosure, got the honor of ringing up the second-highest
foreclosure rate nationwide, after Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla. Other
sprawling California regions dominated the list: Modesto at No. 3,
Merced at No. 4, Riverside-San Bernardino at No. 5, Bakersfield at No.
7, Vallejo-Fairfield at No. 8 and Sacramento at No. 9 …

When asked if the edge suburbs are turning into slums, Florida
concurs with Leinberger’s ominous vision. “Yes, they are already well
on their way,” he says. “The knowledge workers can’t afford the time
cost, they can’t afford the commuting time.” …Florida and Leinberger say that retooling the suburbs is going to make urban renewal look like a walk in the park. “Suburb development is really fragile,” Leinberger explains. “It’s going to be very complex to rebuild.”

Your thoughts?

Suburban sprawl was a boon to the industrial economy stimulating consumption of just about everything that comes of the assembly line – cars, washing machines, kitchen appliances and home electronics (all sold at the local strip mall). But as Brad DeLong points out, sprawl is not only an environmental issue, it’s one of a half-dozen key factors behind the current, worsening financial mess (h/t: Alison Kemper).

The filling-up of America so that you can no longer build a detached
single-family house within half-an-hour’s driving time of the interesting places
people want to be, and the consequent rise both in current location premia and
expected future location premia.

DeLong is essentially right about this. However, he and many others have gotten extremely negative about future US economic prospects. Let me butt in with my proverbial two cents.  There remains tremendous productive potential in America’s real economy. The strength of the is, as it has always has been, diversity and innovation.  The focus on finance, resources, and war are terribly unproductive and horribly damaging distractions.  The idea that the US can secure hegemony using its military machine and financial shenanigans is an unmitigated disaster. Time to get back to the basics. But who will take us there?

A New Yorker writes:

So why did I move here, again? I never wanted to live in NYC…I got
into one school here (one I applied to on a whim, because the entire
application process was online)…I visited the city for approximately 18
hours before I decided to move here…

In retrospect, it was almost a force majeure. It seemed to
happen on its own. I never would’ve seen this- the clubs, the people,
the chaos- as something I would ever be able to handle, let alone
enjoy. And the ease with which I went from a socially-withdrawn,
non-drinking homebody to whatever the fuck I am now was astounding.
From standing in line at the Wal-mart to walking past the line at the
club (so now I’m hungover and out of Fiber One and trash bags…magical).

Furthermore, every attempt I’ve made to transition out of this
insanity to calm myself and find meaning, loyalty, and consistency has
been fruitless and ultimately painful.

So, is it all coincidence? Someone like me, randomly moving here and
changing so drastically? My failed attempts at creating a calmer, less
intense personal life? The way people continue to come out of
the woodwork to adamantly oppose my departure and offer me help to
entice me to stay? It’s like a cult I was apparently born to join.

Let’s refer to Richard Florida’s [personality] map.

“Certain personality types seem to require higher and more
intense levels on stimulation- both literally and figuratively. They
are drawn to extreme experience- complex music, intense tastes,
exciting places, and eccentric people. It’s not by chance that people
with these qualities happenm to cluster in highly stimulating places, I
thought. They are inclined, if not programmed, to seek them out.”

Who’s your city – tell us your city-story.