Coronavirus Infects Stock Market: Part LVI “Requests for driving directions on Apple Inc.’s Maps app are back around mid January levels, while data from Dutch location technology firm TomTom International BV show traffic congestion gradually climbing in some late U.S. cities, though it is still down substantially from March levels in many,” reports the WSJ. But after this weekend’s riots, who is in a rush to visit a city? The future of the city is on the rocks. Blue state governors and mayors have gone wild. They’re a fiscal mess. Consider the self-inflicted wreckage of mismanaged … [Read more...]
Looking for a Better America
Gang Violence Preventing Chicago from Caring for Coronavirus Victims
A spike in what appears to be gang violence is sucking up resources from Chicago's emergency services that could be put to much better use helping the city's coronavirus patients. The Chicago Tribune reports: Mayor Lori Lightfoot and interim police Superintendent Charlie Beck decried Tuesday’s spike in gun violence in Chicago, saying the shootings strain the city’s health services at a time when hospitals need to focus on the coronavirus pandemic. “Violence of any kind is never acceptable,” Lightfoot said. “But the fact that this is especially urgent now as our ability to treat all … [Read more...]
The Most Charming Small Towns in New England
You want to look for a better America for yourself in retirement. Finding a small town can be just right for many retirees who want to slow down and take things easy. The Boston Globe has rounded up a list of the best small towns in New England, including ten that just might be the right place for you. Here they are: A town in Massachusetts made famous by Norman Rockwell is the most charming small town in America, according to Big 7 Travel. Stockbridge in the Berkshires ranked No. 1 on the travel website’s list of 50 most charming small towns in America, released earlier this month. Big 7 … [Read more...]
Americans Flee the Big City Blues
According to the scholar Richard Florida, "the great urban revival is 'over.'" Americans are leaving "luxury" cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Joel Kotkin writes at New Geography: Since 2010, urban inner rings, including central business districts, accounted for barely 10 percent of population growth in the nation’s 53 largest metropolitan areas. More revealing still, the country’s three largest metropolitan areas — New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago—are now losing population. Since 2012, suburbs and exurbs, which have seven times as many people as the core, are again growing … [Read more...]
You Can Find a Better America in the South
Many Americans are Looking for a Better America in the South. Old stereotypes heap derision on the South, but as my father-in-law, Dick Young explains: At The American Conservative, Casey Chalk defends the South from the, unfortunately, frequent, unoriginal, and incorrect attacks against the region. He writes (abridged): In polite company among the technocratic elite, it’s acceptable to ridicule the South, Southern culture, and Southern politics. The Left has skewered Southern states for.” Historian and foreign policy commentator Robert Kagan in a July opinion piece for The Washington … [Read more...]
You Probably Know Exactly Why People Want to Abandon Big Cities
You probably know exactly why people want to abandon the big cities of America. They look at rural states and towns with low taxes and low cost of living, and they see the freedom they expect America to provide. But in the big cities of America, when the government tries to solve problems of high rents and lack of housing, it actually makes them worse. The Wall Street Journal's editors explain how big-city governments are actually hurting their residents with overregulation of the housing market, writing: In a December 2019 working paper, Harvard and University of Pennsylvania researchers … [Read more...]
Sunbelt States Finding Solutions for a Swarm of Tax Refugees
The biggest problems in low tax southern states are ones high tax states wish they had, too much growth. Low tax states have become so desirable for movers and retirees that they are now looking for places to put all the people seeking an escape from the city where they can live small, cheap and safe in America. In The Wall Street Journal, Valerie Bauerlein profiles one town dealing with a mass influx of newcomers who are looking for a better America. She writes of Lake Wylie, South Carolina: Since 2000, Lake Wylie has tripled in population to 12,000 on the strength of its good schools, … [Read more...]
Escape the City: Live Small, Cheap, and Safe in America
After decades of urbanization, Americans are beginning to rebel against the "bigger is better" mentality of city-living. Seeking a smaller, more affordable, sustainable, and secure lifestyle, some are venturing out from the mega-cities in search of a different life. A number of techniques have become popular in an effort to save, especially scaling down the size of one's home. Living small and saving big is even better when it's coupled with living in a state that treats you more like a human than an ATM machine it can withdraw money from. Carey L. Biron explains this trend at Thompson … [Read more...]
Don’t Let Your Retirement Dream Community Become a Nightmare
When it comes to your living situation in retirement, there are developments (literally) that may turn your idyllic retirement community into an “anywhere in the USA” suburb. As liberal states like California, crush the middle-class, neighboring states such as Idaho, and towns west of Boise like Star, pick up the slack, explains Dan Frosch in the WSJ: Over the past nine years, Star’s population has doubled to more than 10,000. Most of the growth has come from people like the Turnipseeds who uprooted from the West Coast to the greater Boise area—known as the Treasure Valley—drawn by the … [Read more...]
How to Find the Best Place to Retire
If you are like many soon-to-be-retirees in America, you're looking forward to getting away from your cold, northern, probably-high-tax state and settling down in retirement in a southern locale with low taxes and warm winters. But, how can you know where you'll like it best in your Golden Years? I encourage you to do some A/B testing. Live short-term or spend a vacation in some of the places you'd potentially move to during retirement. Without actually staying there for a month or more, it can be hard to judge whether or not you'll be happy. There's another way to get a feel for new … [Read more...]