Demographics

In his 2004 book, "The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It," Phillip Longman exploded one of the planet's most enduring modern myths. He demonstrated that population growth is not the threat that it has been made out to be and that population decline is the real challenge ahead of us.

By the time of the book's publication, many developed nations were already struggling to address the obvious result of falling fertility: What to… more

As part of our annual report, Inc. studied 393 population centers across the nation, identifying job creation and other signs of business vitality. What did we find? The big cities are idling, and the real entrepreneurial hot spots are on the periphery -- where low costs and favorable regulatory environments make it possible to thrive.

Which metropolitan areas are really booming? Here, you'll find a searchable database, the full 2006 rankings broken down by small, medium, and large cities,… more

Even amidst a strong economic expansion, the most recent census data reveal a renewed migration out of our urban centers. This gives considerable lie to the notion, popularized over a decade, that cities are enjoying a historic rebound. The newest figures are troubling on two accounts. Not only are the perennial losers -- Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Detroit -- continuing to empty out, but some of our arguably most attractive cities, like Boston, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Chicago, have lost… more

Three kinds of boomtowns have emerged in the last decade. The dot-com era created brainy, culturally savvy, "hip" cities such as Boston, San Francisco, Berlin, Montreal and Sydney. But they turned into very expensive places in which to do business and for the middle class to live.

Low-cost cities became the new boomtowns after the bubble economy burst in 2000. Business and tech firms headed to Phoenix, Reno and Fort Myers, FL, and other no-nonsense, middlebrow places.… more

Predictions of the demise of suburbia, choked to death by high gasoline prices, may be greatly exaggerated.

Conventional wisdom suggests that high prices at the pump mean less driving and, hence, the withering of far-flung suburbs, whose residents must drive to jobs, shopping and recreation.

For today's warriors in the fight against sprawl, there's a silver lining in this: The soaring price of gas evokes images of a nation retreating back to its urban past, with chastened suburbanites abandoning their… more

Workplace Flexibility 2010 of Georgetown University Law Center and the Workforce and Family Program of the New America Foundation are bringing together a panel of researchers studying the mismatch between the needs of America’s families and the way the workplace is currently structured. These experts have studied how this mismatch impacts marital well-being, child-rearing, and caregiving responsibilities, including elder care.

The briefing will also highlight how workplace flexibility benefits families and how one company is using flexibility as a key… more

I came to France to see how the country is responding to November's violent suburban riots and the increasing social diversity they symbolized. What I found was a nation that has been forced to acknowledge the existence of its alienated minorities yet stubbornly refuses to concede that the French model of integration has failed.

It's not easy to talk about race or ethnicity in France. For one thing, it is against the law for the government and private firms to… more

The rising protests against proposed tough immigration reform now appear to have turned a growing number of Americans against foreign immigration. Since January, according to an AP-Ipsos poll, for example, the number of Americans who consider immigration the top national problem quadrupled, equal to the percentage naming the economy.

If the recent peaceful, and largely well-controlled, protests engendered hostility, the next round of protests, including the proposed Monday general strike, poses a still greater danger. Over time, the gradual radicalization… more

Joel Kotkin is an internationally recognized authority on global economic, political, and social trends. He is the author of six books, including, The City: A Global History (Modern Library, 2005), as well as the bestseller, The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape (Random House, 2002).… more

Michael Lind is a Senior Research Fellow and Policy Director of New America's Economic Growth Program. He is the author, with Ted Halstead, of The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics (Doubleday, 2001). He is also the author of Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover… more