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Joel Kotkin

Joel Kotkin is the Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Urban Reform Institute. His most recent book is The Coming of Neo-Feudalism (Encounter).

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UNWELL

One Simple Trick for Making Post-Pandemic Cities Great Again

Many office workers simply aren’t coming back. That means tough times ahead for big cities, but also a chance for renewal and revival.

Joel Kotkin

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BOOM BOOM

The Kids Are Not Alright and the Center Is No Longer Holding

The French election gives a hint of where things are headed in America—and it isn’t pretty what happens when you let a generation go by with little hope of living as the last one.

Joel Kotkin

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UNREAL ESTATE

The Metaverse Isn’t Real but It’s Already Really Lucrative

And it’s going to be real, and vast, much sooner that you might think.

Joel Kotkin

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OLD AND OVER THE HILL

Here’s Why California’s Losing Population for the First Time

Fewer people are arriving, the people who are there are having fewer kids, and more people are dying. Add it up, and it’s big trouble for the biggest state.

Joel Kotkin

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THE URBAN GRAVEYARD EFFECT

How America Abandoned the World—and Our Own Inner Cities

The pandemic has hit hardest in two very different historically impoverished and poorly educated populations: rural America and inner-city America.

Joel Kotkin

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FROM ZUCK TO YUCK

America’s Overdue to Unfriend Mark Zuckerberg

The tech boss is finally being recognized as the American villain he is, rather than the folk hero he’s tried to present himself as.

Joel Kotkin

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BYE BYE BAY AREA

Could COVID Exodus Speed the Heartland Revival?

Americans—including immigrants and young workers—are leaving big coastal cities for more affordable regions, in a trend that began before COVID but was accelerated by the pandemic.

Joel Kotkin

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‘EXPOSURE DENSITY’

Trust the Science: The Blue State Surge Is Real

The pandemic put a harsh spotlight on urban inequality and its health consequences, which turned out to be far more impactful than the policies Democratic governors boasted about.

Joel Kotkin

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BAD VALUES

How Declining Fertility Rates May Deliver Us Into Oblivion

In the 1960s, experts fretted about the coming population explosion. But today, the opposite is the problem. Woke young lefties, please have more kids.

Joel Kotkin

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THE FIRE NEXT TIME

If Biden Can’t Build a Better Economy, America Is F*cked

If the rich keep getting richer and everyone else struggles to keep up, we’ll have a new, nastier Trump type in not so many years.

Joel Kotkin

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