The Meaning of the Media Bubble

Newspaper vs. Internet/Broadcasting Jobs. Click to enlarge.

Politico ran a very interesting piece by Jack Shafer and Tucker Doherty called “The Media Bubble Is Worse Than You Think.” It’s a look at the geographic distribution of media jobs, which has grown starkly more concentrated over the past decade as the more geographically balanced newspaper business declines and the heavily geographically concentrated internet publishing business grows.

The bottom line is the media is now extremely concentrated on the coasts. It’s also heavily concentrated in blue counties, with over 50% of media jobs in counties that voted for Clinton by at least 30 points.

It’s a great piece with some interesting data and I’d encourage you to read the whole thing. This media bubble is clearly affecting the media’s credibility. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 52% of American’s think the mainstream media regularly reports fake stories. And a new Morning Consult poll found that 51% of people think the media is “out of touch with everyday Americans” and that over half of even independents don’t trust the media’s fairness to cover the White House.

I talk more about the Politico piece in my most recent podcast episode. I not only give an overview of the piece, but also talk about the longstanding dearth of local perspectives and writers in the heartland, the the nationalization of the news, the fact that geographic balance doesn’t translate to viewpoint balance, and the potential of more ethnographic approaches drawn from anthropology.

I hope you enjoy the episode. If you haven’t already, please do click over to iTunes and leave a rating for my podcast, because that helps new listeners discover it. If the audio player doesn’t display for you, click over to listen on Soundcloud.

Subscribe to podcast via iTunes | Soundcloud.

from Aaron M. Renn
http://www.urbanophile.com/2017/04/28/the-meaning-of-the-media-bubble/

America the Cheap

Photo Credit: Mike Kalasnik, CC BY-SA 2.0

America is a price dominant culture, and we need to take responsibility for that when we complain about bad customer service, poor infrastructure, etc. Certainly American business and political leadership could be better, but they aren’t the ones who decided to shop at Wal-Mart instead of the local store (favoring short term financial gain over long term community loss). Nor are they the ones who force us to vote for politicians promising something for nothing.

This is the subject of my latest City Journal piece, “America the Cheap“:

American politicians understand this. That’s why they frequently promise voters something for nothing, or free stuff with other people’s money. Republicans promise to “eliminate fraud and waste” or to increase government revenues somehow by slashing taxes, or through some other cost-free method. Democrats say that they are going to tax “the rich,” such as when New York City mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio said that he would give all New Yorkers free pre-K education, funded by a special surtax on high-income households (i.e., somebody else).

European social democracies offer extensive government services and generously funded safety-net programs. But these come with high taxes for the average citizen. Few American politicians are willing to advocate explicitly for that. They keep promising citizens a free lunch. And why not? It seems to be what we want to hear: there’s some magic elixir that can transmute lead into gold.

The populists are right that corporate, governmental, and cultural elites have too often let America down, and even sometimes acted disgracefully. But that doesn’t mean that the man on the street is off the hook. Just because someone else is guilty doesn’t mean that we’re all innocent. If populism takes a high view of the ordinary citizen, then it should also recognize the importance of these citizens’ decisions in shaping the world we live in.

Click through to read the whole thing.

from Aaron M. Renn
http://www.urbanophile.com/2017/04/25/america-the-cheap/

Urbanophile Indianapolis Happy Hour This Wednesday 4/26

 

Photo Credit: Miyin2 CC BY-SA 4.0

I am in Indianapolis later this week to speak at the 2017 State of Downtown event. I will be hosting an Urbanophile happy hour on Wednesday 4/26 at 6pm at Scotty’s Brewhouse downtown. I am meeting someone there for a drink at 6, and anyone who would like to show up is welcome. This is a rare chance to connect or reconnect, so come on down.

 

from Aaron M. Renn
http://www.urbanophile.com/2017/04/24/urbanophile-indianapolis-happy-hour-this-wednesday-426/

How Do We Measure Thriving Cities?

Josh Yates at the University of Virginia is the director of a project there called “Thriving Cities.” One if the interesting things they did is put together an analysis of city indicators that people use to measure their success. They linked it to popularity, level of academic support, and other items. It’s a cool project they call the Indicator Explorer. Here’s a screen shot:

I sat down with Josh recently and chatted with him about the project for the podcast. If the audio player doesn’t display for you, click over to listen on Soundcloud.

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes | Soundcloud.

from Aaron M. Renn
http://www.urbanophile.com/2017/04/14/how-do-we-measure-thriving-cities/

Brief Notes on Boston Transit

Photo Credit: Pi.1415926535 CC BY-SA 3.0

I was in Boston at the end of last week for a conference and rode around on Boston transit for a bit. I’d ridden their commuter rail many times, but not much in the city besides the Silver Line bus service to the airport.

I noticed that the Red and Orange Line subways both appeared to be very well patronized at rush hour, with some pretty crowded trains. A couple of stops left people unable to get on and having to wait for the next train. Even off-peak had pretty good loads. The frequencies seemed to be decent too.

Curious, I went to Wikipedia and pulled the ridership stats. Boston’s heavy rail ridership is very good for such a small system at 552K weekday riders vs. around 750K in Chicago and Washington. (Philly has 312K).

But Boston has much less milage than Chicago and Washington. On a per route-mile basis, Boston is at 15,000/mile, with Chicago and Washington at less than half that (7,500/mile and 7,200/mile, respectively). That’s pretty impressive.

I was chatting with a friend and we both agreed that New York’s often dilapidated stations still have something of a hint of romance, thanks to things like the mosaic tiles and other artwork. Boston’s subway, by contrast, exudes a dull midcentury style decay. (I’m not sure when the station decor actually dates to).  It’s clearly in need of a major refresh.

Boston’s commuter system remains extremely focused on coverage vs. frequency. It uses old legacy diesel locomotive technology. The contrast with Philly’s system (which has its own share of problems, let’s note) is stark.

If Boston was electrified and had a tunnel linking its two train stations like Philly, it’s easy to see game changers happening here for both commuter rail and Amtrak. (This could allow direct Amtrak access from all the northern Boston commuter lines, plus the Orange and Green Lines, and allow Amtrak through running to Maine). Alas, last I read Boston was actually thinking about terminating weekend commuter rail service instead of investing in it. I’m generally not an advocate of rail expansion projects in an era when there are huge basic maintenance needs, but a man can dream about the long term.

Meanwhile in Rhode Island, I noticed that Amtrak was building a new Taj Mahal station at Kingston, including brand new high platforms and a third track. This is a $41 million project, which seems a dubious investment at this fairly small stop. This is being paid for by the feds, apparently to enable the Acela to overtake the regional at this location. But it will also enable the MBTA to extend commuter rail service from Wickford Jct.

Rhode Island now has high platform stations at Providence, TF Green, Wickford Jct, and Kingston. Presumably they’ll convert Westerly at some point. The Massachusetts stops are almost all low platform. It’s kind of crazy that it’s Little Rhody that’s building all these expensive, modern stations.

 

from Aaron M. Renn
http://www.urbanophile.com/2017/04/11/brief-notes-on-boston-transit/

Urban Renewal, Brutalism, and Economic Development

I was in Providence, Rhode Island this week and stopped by the new video studios at GoLocalProv for a chat about urbanism with Kate Nagle on their new Facebook/YouTube live venture. I just put the audio of that up on my podcast channel. If the audio player doesn’t display for you, click over the listen on Soundcloud.

Subscribe to podcast via iTunes | Soundcloud.

Cover image via Bullshark44 CC BY-SA 3.0

from Aaron M. Renn
http://www.urbanophile.com/2017/04/07/urban-renewal-brutalism-and-economic-development/

What Are the Biggest Emerging Issues for Cities?

Photo Credit: Jean-Christophe Benoist CC BY 3.0

I first and foremost write about the areas where I have interest and have a contribution to make to the discussion that other people aren’t making. But I also want to write about what you, my readers, are interested in and think is important to world.

Before I get to that, I wanted to remind you that I have a free monthly newsletter with exclusive content for email subscribers. It includes personal updates on what I’m up, along with some exclusive writing and a selection of the most interesting links I found that month.

I had been in the habit of tweeting out a lot of links to great articles, but I’m moving away from Twitter. So I’m moving my link roundup to my email list.

This is material you can’t get anywhere else, so don’t miss out. Sign up at the top of the right sidebar on my blog. Just enter your email address and go. You also get a free PDF copy for my e-book The Urban State of Mind just for signing up.

If you are also interested in getting every single blog post sent to your email in addition to my monthly newsletter, subscribe at this link.

Back to the topic at hand. I’m interested in hearing from you about what you want to hear about and think is important.

Specifically, what are the emerging, going forward issues that you think are most important in the urban (or other) world?

Relatedly, who do you think are the most interesting new or young writers I should check out?

Please post your ideas in the comments, or send me an email, because while this is a personal site, I want it to be valuable to you too. Thanks for reading and for your input.

 

from Aaron M. Renn
http://www.urbanophile.com/2017/04/03/what-are-the-biggest-emerging-issues-for-cities/