Educational attainment explains two-thirds of the variation in economic success among metropolitan areas. Each additional percentage point increase in the four-year college attainment rate increases metro per capita income by $1,250 For a long time, we’ve been exponents of what…
What City Observatory did this week 1. The death of Flint Street. In Portland, a $450 million dollar freeway widening project is being sold as a way to “re-connect” a community that was divided by freeway construction half a century…
After a long, slow recovery, wages are finally rising for the lowest-paid workers, but we’re no where close to rectifying our inequality problem; in fact, it’s going to get worse. The very smart Jed Kolko, who now writes for labor…
Churn means that lots of businesses, even large ones, aren’t around forever Many of our discussions of the economy are based on simple, and often largely static mental models of the economy. In a good year, a local economy might…
A proposed freeway widening project will tear out one of Portland’s most used bike routes At City Observatory, were putting a local Portland-area proposed freeway widening project under a microscope, in part because we think it reveals some deep-seated biases…