U.S. Cities, Some Growing, Some Shrinking

The large population change from the snow-belt to the sun-belt of the U.S. continues unabated.

In the five years between 2010 and 2014, the four snow-belt cities of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, DC and the mismanaged city of Los Angeles lost a combined 270,000 loss in population, or net out-migration as demographers call it.

The state of Texas alone was a major attractor with four of each large cities, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and Austin gaining 80,000 population in the same years.

More analysis in Wendel Cox's  Still Moving to Texas: The 2014 Metropolitan Population Estimates.

Ugly Traffic Poles

The city must stop installing these huge, ugly and expensive light poles. They are wider than a car door! These ugly poles and masts have already defaced Kailua and Puck's Alley. The Caldwell administration has no sensibility and environmental sensitivity. Cease and desist!

It Depends What You Study, Not Where

The Economist: What you study matters far more than where you study it: Engineers and computer scientists do best, earning an impressive 20-year annualized return of 12% on their college fees.

18th Century Infrastructure

In her article in the LA Times "Some Perspective on What We Have to be Thankful for" Marian L. Tupy presents a startling summary of 18th Century infrastructure that sounds so remote from first world today yet it was only 300 years ago...

"The palace also was ill equipped to deal with human waste. People relieved themselves wherever they could. Thus, shortly before Louis XIV died [in 1715], an ordinance decreed that feces be removed from the corridors of Versailles once a week. All that filth meant that disease-spreading parasites were rife. Before the 19th century, people had no idea about the germ theory of disease, and doctors often caused more harm than good."

"If this was the life of Europe's richest and most powerful man, imagine what ordinary people's lives must have been like. People lacked basic medicines and died relatively young. They had no painkillers, and people with ailments spent much of their lives in agonizing pain. Entire families lived in bug-infested dwellings that offered neither comfort nor privacy."

And here is a depiction of 18th century London's life and hazards.

Letter to the Honolulu City Council: Hoopili Doesn’t Fit

Mahalo to Honolulu Civil Beat for publishing my Letter to the Honolulu City Council: Hoopili Doesn’t Fit.

This version includes the pictures in Appendices A and B.

I concluded by saying that it baffles me beyond belief that the Honolulu City Council is serially approving future development such as Ho'opili and transportation projects like the rail that are certifiably calamitous for our island community.