Free Republic

While there are a variety of options for homeowners in foreclosure,many have chosen to cut their losses and abandon their property. The housing market has been improving across much of the nation. However, some cities still have a long recovery process ahead of them as the market deals with a glut of homes in foreclosure, which can often stay in the system for several years. Meanwhile, many of these remain vacant. In Wichita, Kansas, nearly half of homes in foreclosure were abandoned as of the first quarter of 2014. In six of the nationÂ’s most populous metro areas, at least...

For decades, the United States has been a centerpiece of the global economy. Even in the aftermath of the Great Recession, foreign businesses have looked to the U.S. for investment opportunities and talent. According to a recent study from the Brookings Institution, 5% of American employees, or more than 5.6 million people, worked for foreign-owned businesses as of 2011. Foreign direct investment — an investment by a foreign company either through acquisition of an existing business or by starting new company-owned operations — is a critical part of many metro area economies. In the Bridgeport, Connecticut metro area as many...

We have a tremendous opportunity here in the 6th Congressional District. It didn't just “happen," it was created by a known architect of opportunity, Glenn Grothman. Glenn Grothman comes to serve Wisconsin not by sticking his finger in the air to gauge the political winds. Instead, he lights up a jet powered turbo fan to create his own winds of change. While serving in the Wisconsin State Assembly, then Rep. Grothman recognized his state senator wasn't serving with the same conservative ideals held by the majority of the constituency, so he challenged and beat Sen. Mary Panzer in the Republican...

Exposure to environmental pollution may cause brain changes that make people more vulnerable to developing autism or schizophrenia, according to a new study published in Environmental Heath Perspectives. This research falls in line with a 2013 study published in JAMA Psychiatry, which demonstrated an epidemiological link between pollution and autism; the researchers found that children who lived in areas with high levels of traffic pollution seemed to be more likely to be diagnosed with the neurodevelopmental disorder. […] While most research on pollution focuses on large-particle pollution—the only type monitored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency—this research focused on the...

Barton (TX), Coffman, Denham, Valadao, Diaz-Barlart, Farenthold, Heck(NV), Reichert and Herrera Beutler voted no.

I wrote here and here about the Obama administration’s proposed rule on “affirmatively furthering fair housing” (AFFH), an attempt to dictate how we shall live. In essence, President Obama seeks to use the power of the national government to create communities of a certain kind, each having what the federal government deems an appropriate mix of economic, racial, and ethnic diversity. The proposed AFFH rule, issued last July, was expected to be finalized by the end of last year. But the year ended with no further action. 2014 was supposed to be the year Obama’s “year of action” — the...

THE Colorado Republican party’s nightmare is coming true. Tom Tancredo, unfazed by the three so far ineffectual candidates running against him, is speeding toward victory in the GOP primary race for governor. Tancredo is a controversial national figure known mostly for his fiery, unswerving position on illegal immigration — which he sees as a plague that officeholders on every level of government must address as a top priority. Tancredo is an avuncular character with a hard edge. He is in the moment on the stump and in intreviews, quick with a joke, ready to spin out stories and asides that...

The Met Council, as it's known here, was founded in the 1960s to coordinate regional infrastructure—in essence, to make sure that sewers and roads meet up. Over the years, its power to allocate funds and control planning has expanded. Now, under Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton—who appointed all 17 current members—the council intends to play Sim City with residents' lives. Thrive MSP 2040 is part of a nationwide movement called "regionalism." Regional planning of infrastructure is important, of course. But regionalism, as an ideology, is about shifting power away from local elected officials and re-engineering society on behalf of "equity" and...

In the global luxury real-estate scene, is Lagos poised to be the next big thing? The Nigerian city is among a list of 12 up-and-coming luxury markets around the globe, according to the Candy Global Prime Sector Report from design firm Candy & Candy, in cooperation with Savills World Research and Deutsche Asset and Wealth Management. The other cities are Beirut, Cape Town, Chennai, Chicago, Dublin, Istanbul, Jakarta, Melbourne, Miami, Panama City and Tel Aviv.

Even the most dangerous cities in America can have relatively safe neighborhoods, as there is more variation in crime within most cities than between cities. But using exclusive data developed by NeighborhoodScout, and based on FBI data from all 17,000 local law enforcement agencies in America, we here report those specific neighborhoods in America that have the highest predicted rates of violent crime per 1,000 neighborhood residents of all. Violent crimes include murder, forcible rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. These neighborhoods are the epicenters of violence in America, where social issues are likely to ignite into violence and spread....

London is the most important city in the world for the rich, according to the latest Wealth Report from real estate consulting firm Knight Frank. But it won't hold onto its title for long. According to the report, New York is set to overtake London as the top city for the wealthy in the next decade. And Asian cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai will also become more important over the next 10 years. Knight Frank determined its eighth-annual "global cities" ranking based on four factors: economic activity, political power, quality of life, and influence and power

According to Gallup, 70.5% of Americans surveyed in 2012 and 2013 said they felt safe walking alone at night. This is effectively unchanged from 2011, when 71% of respondents said they felt safe. In a number of metro areas, however, far fewer residents felt safe at night. In McAllen, Texas, where Americans were least likely to feel safe, less than half of all respondents were comfortable outside of their homes after dark. Based on data gathered by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, these are the 10 cities where Americans felt the least safe.Seven of the 10 metro areas in which residents...

The U.S. population rose by just 0.72% in 2013, the lowest growth rate in more than 70 years. Not only has the country become less-attractive to immigrants than in years past, with net immigration down from nearly 1.2 million as of 2001 to 843,145 last year, but also the U.S.’s domestic birth rate has dropped to a multi-decade low. While the population of most of the country’s metro areas grew at a low pace in recent years, in a small number of metro areas the population actually shrank. Looking at the most recent years, the U.S. population rose by just...

That's the title of a Bloomberg op-ed by Francis Wilkinson, who examined statistics from a report by the National Urban League about income inequality between blacks and whites in America. Minneapolis-St. Paul. San Francisco. Chicago. Even Madison, Wisconsin. If you are politically liberal and value relatively high levels of income equality, you might live in one of these quintessentially liberal U.S. cities. Yet all four lurk in the bottom half of the 2014 National Urban League's State of Black America report on income inequality between blacks and whites. Among the many places where black-white income is less skewed are Phoenix,...

The U.S. population rose by just 0.72% in 2013, the lowest growth rate in more than 70 years. Not only has the country become less-attractive to immigrants than in years past, with net immigration down from nearly 1.2 million as of 2001 to 843,000 last year, but also the U.S.’s domestic birth rate has dropped to a multi-decade low. While population growth in most of the country’s metro areas has slowed in recent years, in a small number of metro areas it grew a great deal. Between April 2010 and July 2013, the U.S. population rose by just 2.4%, but...

Swiss Re, a global reinsurance company, has analyzed the disaster potential for 616 of the world’s largest cities (PDF). Each city is ranked according to its potential for earthquakes, storms, storm surges, tsunamis, and river floods. For each type of disaster, Swiss Re devised an extreme weather scenario in which defenses fail and the human and economic toll can be enormous. Further, each city was ranked based on the effect each scenario would have on its residents by combining population-distribution data and vulnerability estimates for each disaster. The scenarios consider fatalities, injuries, evacuations, those whose homes would be damaged or destroyed, and those who...

Detroit's looming bankruptcy is making news again, this time focusing on current restructuring plans aimed to wipe out $18 billion in debt by axing pension checks of city retirees, including police and fire. Massive long-term retirement and healthcare promises were by no means solely responsible for the city's fall, but these massive pensions coupled with a tax base weakened by high unemployment and housing vacancies caused the budget to bleed out quicker. The Michigan city may be the most recent victim of bankruptcy, but many of the 61 largest U.S. cities have adopted the same retirement legacy leading to $118...

Mark Levin has proposed a series of "Liberty Amendments" to the Constitution through an Article 5 state convention. I have my own set of amendments which I hope to share here and add to the proposed Liberty Amendments. The first involves the resurrection of the city-state. This plan would take our largest cities, governed primarily by socialist Democrats, and separate them out as independent, self-governing, self-funding political units, with no connection to the states, but within the exclusive oversight of the federal government, just as the states are. There is a huge separation in this country right now between the...

Germany, home of the high-speed autobahn, is perhaps one of the few countries that has had as intense a love affair with the automobile as the U.S. But in an effort to go green, the country's second-largest city is studying ways to eliminate cars by 2034. The northern city of Hamburg has laid out an initial concept, named the Green Network Plan, that would expand public transportation and add more routes for pedestrians and bicyclists. The most controversial aspect of the plan calls for a steady phase-out of automobiles in the center of the city over the next two decades....

Lost Angeles is the worst traffic city in America. 'Carmaggedon' is no joke. Drivers in the worst traffic city wasted an average of 63.3 hours in traffic over the last year. Congrats to Los Angeles, although worst traffic city might not be the most coveted of titles.