The American Enterprise

Ideological Hurricane

Articles — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Last September's tragedy in New Orleans revealed, in the starkest manner, the soft underbelly of America's cities. After all the 1990s rhetoric insisting that "Cities are back!" we got a glimpse behind the facades of a major urban center and tourist mecca which revealed many utterly dependent and disorganized residents, looking more like Third Worlders than denizens of a modern metropolis. In the process, the urban liberalism that has dominated city administration for the last generation was unmasked.

New Orleans as paragon of a hollowed-out city

To be sure, New Orleans is a unique case. Built below… more

America Still Beckons

Articles — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0400

The American dream may be a musty old relic in the minds of some American elites, but for Annique Lambe -- -who arrived in the U.S. 12 years ago from Ireland -- -it is alive and well. Now a schoolteacher in Manhattan, she marvels at the energy and opportunity that she and other friends who are also recent immigrants from Europe have found on these shores. "New York is a huge place where something is always happening," she says in a soft Irish lilt. "Now I am a part of it, living among the big towers and the skyline. It… more

Europe's Latest Export; Antisemitism

Articles — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0400

For years, Americans have consumed fashions, expensive cars, and fancy foods from Europe. But the latest export from the old continent won't be nearly as tasty. It's left-wing anti-Semitism.

Over the past decade, Americans have noticed the rise of harsh new anti-Jewish statements and actions in Europe. Once largely the province of proto-fascists, these views are now boiling out of Europe's left-wing establishment. The editor of the major French paper Le Monde recently described Jews as "a contemptuous people taking satisfaction in humiliating others." Similar sentiments are commonplace in left-wing dailies like Madrid's El Pais. The left-leaning British Guardian ran… more

The U.S. Brain Belt

Articles — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 00:00:00 -0400

When A. T. Burgum came to the Dakota Territory in 1880, the way to riches lay in the deep, rich soil of the Red River Valley. A generation later, his son J. A. Burgum founded an elevator company in a small town called Arthur (current population 400). The company remained in family hands, and after A. T.'s great grandson Doug Burgum graduated from Arthur's high school, he left town to attend North Dakota State University and then Stanford. In 1983, after working in Chicago, he returned to North Dakota, lured back by another kind… more

We're Already a Homeownership Society

Articles — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Fresno, California -- In the late 1980s, Rich Mostert had the usual dream -- a house, a flourishing business, a family -- but in the wrong place. He was living in San Francisco, one of the nation's most expensive places, and he didn't have sufficient cash to turn any of his dreams into reality.

Local housing was ridiculously expensive. And competition from people with large inheritances -- or a willingness to forego a family or a home -- made starting a business almost impossible. "It's hard to make it in San Francisco if you don't start with… more

Get Used To It

Articles — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 00:00:00 -0500

For the better part of the last half century, urbanists, planners, and environmentalists have railed against suburbia, and the dreaded trend of cities to "sprawl" outward from the old city core. Yet despite many attempts to discourage such growth, the pattern continues -- not only in America but in nearly all modern countries. The battle against sprawl is over. Sprawl won.

Since 1950, over 90 percent of metropolitan growth in America has taken place in the suburbs. The biggest reason for this triumph is not the "conspiracy" of big oil companies and freeway builders oft cited by enviro-activists.… more

The Moldy Massachusetts Miracle

Articles — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 00:00:00 -0400

A midst the coverage of John Kerry's nomination in Boston last summer, the region that produced him -- New England -- received remarkably little intelligent scrutiny. For the most part, the area was portrayed as quaint, idiosyncratic, and brainy, a kind of screwball seafood stew of Harvard, the Red Sox, and ethnic diversity spanning Yankees, Italians, Irish, and a host of more colorful recent newcomers.

Some suggested that New England also provides a compelling economic model for the rest of the country. "What New England has achieved economically," gushed Newsweek's usually sensible Robert Samuelson, "is precisely what Democrats aspire… more

Rediscovering Lewis and Clark Territory

Articles — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 00:00:00 -0400

When President Thomas Jefferson acquired the vast new territory of the Louisiana Purchase, St. Louis, founded in the late 1760s near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, was the natural launching point for an exploratory expedition. So in May 1804, Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery set out from this city to map the sprawling new American wilderness.

At that point the city had a population of roughly 1,000. As it became the fulcrum for decades of expeditions and migrations west, rapid growth ensued. By the time of the Civil War, St.… more

Great Expectations

Articles — Sun, 01 Sep 2002 00:00:00 -0400

The importance of a university education is not seriously disputed in the United States. Most Americans agree that, whether one is seeking what former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli called "a place of light, of liberty, and of learning," or simply the opportunity to earn 75 percent more than the average high school graduate, a college campus is the place to look. Even as our primary schools are routinely attacked for under-performance, our higher education system continues to draw students from around the world.

Nonetheless, America's institutions of higher learning should not be immune from criticism. In an Atlantic… more