Free Republic

Many Americans still are holding off on buying homes in some of the country’s most expensive cities. While home prices fell 23% on average in the largest cities since the housing crisis began, for many home buyers the drop was not enough. Based on a new report released by Trulia, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 10 metropolitan areas to which no one wants to move. Trulia ranked the 100 largest metropolitan areas by their Metro Movers ratio, which measures homebuyer activity and interest in metropolitan areas. The ratio compares the number of online searches of local residents looking to buy...

<p>Which is worse when you’re traveling: the local driver who blithely cuts you off in traffic or the surly cabbie who gives you attitude right to your face?</p> <p>Such skirmishes no doubt fueled this year’s America’s Rudest Cities contest, voted on by Travel + Leisure readers. Three-time-champion Los Angeles, home of road rage, went head-to-head with classically brusque East Coast cities such as Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. — all of which landed in the top five.</p>

There are a 154 million workers in the U.S., and the current 8.5%, unemployment rate means about 13.1 million Americans are still out of work. A new report commissioned by the United States Council for Mayors and prepared by IHS Global Insight shows that only 26 of 363 metropolitan statistical areas have completely recovered the jobs they lost during the recession. We drew on the report to show the number of jobs these metros lost during the recession, their pre-recession peak level, and the metro area's employment level as a share of overall state employment. Note: The “pre-recession peak” date...

The Advocate, an LGBT magazine, has released a list of what it says are the "gayest" cities in the U.S. The equation breakdown used is a bit different from what you may have expected. The magazine takes into account such parameters as LGBT bookstores and "International Mr. Leather competition semifinalists" among the nine criteria used to compile the list.

Cities have played an important role in human history for over 9,000 years. Jericho, the oldest city on record with a population of 2,000, was the center of commerce and learning in its day. So was Uruk, Mari and other great cities through history to Tokyo, which is the largest city today. Cities are becoming even more important as we passes through the biggest wave of urbanization in human history. Determining the population of any city prior to the late 1700's is no easy task. Even the most casual census was unheard of before then, and studies to nail down...

I'm in a conversation with a lib. I'm sure that the welfare receiving populations are concentrated in the cities... but I can't find an article to show that (and you know libs need proof from a published source). Can anyone help me prove my assertion?

All across America there are cities and towns that were once prosperous and beautiful that are being transformed into absolute hellholes. The scars left by the long-term economic decline of the United States are getting deeper and more gruesome. The tax base in many areas of the nation has been absolutely devastated as millions of jobs have left this country. Hundreds of cities are drowning in debt and are desperately trying to survive. Last year, city government revenues in the United States fell by another 2.3 percent. That was the fifth year in a row that we have seen...

Of the 7,800 bonds in the U.S. secured by state or local governments, only 25 are currently speculative-grade, or junk-bonds, rated by Moody’s Ba1 or lower. Only municipalities received such low ratings, and the reasons vary. Moody’s report, “A Look at Speculative-Grade Local Governments in the Wake of the Recession,” details the economic issues that have lead each into junk-bond territory. 24/7 Wall St. has analyzed the nine worst cities, whose credit rating is Ba2 and lower. Each of these municipalities faces a unique situation, Moody’s explains, and the list is not indicative of a greater trend. Most municipalities, Moody’s...

Unemployment rates fell in roughly two-thirds of large U.S. cities in August, despite zero job growth nationwide. Here are the cities with the highest and lowest rates: Best and Worst Metro areas Figures are in percentages Highest unemployment rates August 2011 El Centro, Calif. 32.4 Lowest unemployment rates August 2011 Bismarck, N.D. 3.0

For the fifth year in a row, crime is down in the United States, according to the FBI. The 2010 final statistics released today show a 6.0% drop in violent crimes from last year's report -- better than the 5.5% announced in the preliminary findings in May. Violent crime is down 13.2% from 2006 and 13.4% from 2001. But parts of the country are getting worse. Flint, Michigan -- the most violent city in America -- saw a 10% increase in violent crime over last year, with 2,208 violent crimes per 100,000 people. Rust Belt neighbor Detroit was only slightly...

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Anthony Watts Urban areas with at least one million inhabitants in 2006. 3% of the world's population lived in cities. Image via WikipediaFrom Yale UniversityGrowth of cities endangers global environmentNew Haven, Conn.—The explosive growth of cities worldwide over the next two decades poses significant risks to people and the global environment, according to a meta-analysis published today in PlosOne.Researchers from Yale, Arizona State, Texas A&M and Stanford predict that by 2030 urban areas will expand by 590,000 square miles—nearly the size of Mongolia—to accommodate the needs of 1.47 billion more people living in urban...

Nine Chicago neighborhoods riddled with foreclosures will get a blitzkrieg of cash and attention to turn those properties around, thanks to a $20 million loan pool unveiled Wednesday. With foreclosures rising by 20 percent in 2010, and resources steadily declining, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying a new approach to combat the epidemic that threatens to tear down entire inner-city neighborhoods. Instead of approaching the problem on a house-by-house basis, the mayor is targeting “small sub-sections” of nine neighborhoods hardest-hit by the foreclosure epidemic: Humboldt Park; Chatham; Chicago Lawn; West Woodlawn; Auburn-Gresham; West Pullman; Belmont-Cragin, Englewood and Grand Boulevard. All nine...

For some time now, residents of some US cities have noted occasional incidents of seemingly random, racially motivated violence in which young Black males are involved. The hot weather and bad economy seem to be combining to generate a small but possibly significant uptick this year. The national media are doing their best to avoid looking too closely at this disturbing phenomenon, and perhaps for good reason. What the United States doesn’t need is a media firestorm that triggers copycat violence. Nevertheless some attention should be paid.

As we have watched horrified over the last week as parts of London and several other major British cities burned, one unspoken thought was; Are we next? In between all the harrumphing by talking heads going on about either turning the water cannons on the little monsters, or how this is just a protest gone wrong is a simple point: The West has created a generation of feral children. This phenomenon is not unique to Britain, or Europe, as the frustrated mayor of Philadelphia[1], Michael Nutter, demonstrated in the wake of a series of recent racially motivated “flash mobs”. Further...

There may have been no rioting in the Highlands, but no one has been watching the arson and looting of Britain’s cities more closely than the Queen. With fewer than six months to her Diamond Jubilee, when celebrations are planned for the length and breadth of the kingdom, the disorder has alarmed aides planning the extravaganza. Central to their concern is not just the damage to the country’s image overseas, but also how quickly the feelgood factor engendered by April’s Royal Wedding has been lost. From her summer home in Balmoral, the Queen has kept in touch with developments and...

From the mid-1990s to early 2000s, pundits blamed “urban sprawl” for soaring infrastructure costs, environmental degradation, increased CO2 emissions, shrinking farmland and even obesity. Today, in Michigan and across the country, this issue has largely disappeared. Strangely, this disappearance is attributable to the government, albeit more by accident than by design. If sprawl is to remain in the rearview mirror, politicians must address their own contributions to its rise. In the 1990s, the number of people moving out of cities and inner-ring suburbs into surrounding areas increased, turning more Michigan farms and open spaces into housing developments and suburbs. In...

Bankruptcy: From Greece To Rhode Island By Frederick SheehanJuly 25, 2011 07/25/11 Central Falls, Rhode Island faces a plight that should be studied for its application elsewhere. It is nearly out of money. This is common news today, whether in Greece or California. The various parties are assumed to possess a means to carry on. This is assumed because it is generally so. The banks had the Fed; General Electric had the Fed and the FDIC; Greece has the ECB; California is prepared to launch a bridge loan. Despite the band-aids, the trend towards insolvency continues. Central Falls has reached...

Americans sweltered today in the scorching heat in what was officially the hottest day of the year in scores of cities across the country. The heatwave covered a million square miles, affecting 141million Americans. New York's Manhattan experienced the hottest ever July 22 recorded, with an overwhelming 104-degree temperature in Central Park. The Washington DC region continued to be smothered in heat and humidity with temperatures reaching 102 degrees but with a heat index of more than 120 - hotter than Death Valley at daybreak

For well over a decade urban boosters have heralded the shift among young Americans from suburban living and toward dense cities. As one Wall Street Journal report suggests, young people will abandon their parents’ McMansions for urban settings, bringing about the high-density city revival so fervently prayed for by urban developers, architects and planners. Some demographers claim that “white flight” from the city is declining, replaced by a “bright flight” to the urban core from the suburbs. “Suburbs lose young whites to cities,” crowed one Associated Press headline last year. Yet evidence from the last Census show the opposite: a...

California cities can protect workers from being fired immediately when their company changes owners, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.The 6-1 decision reinstated a Los Angeles ordinance, struck down by lower courts, that required supermarkets to keep their workforce for 90 days after a new owner takes over. Similar laws covering different industries are in effect in other cities - including Oakland, San Jose, Berkeley and Emeryville - and the state also has a law protecting janitors who work for building contractors. "When you're keeping a business open and all you're doing is changing the name