Kotkin Voodoo Dolls In High Demand

Joel Kotkin, in a piece that was run by Forbes and widely picked up, wrote about a topic that must cause more than a few urban-focused thinkers to pull out Kotkin voodoo dolls and ready the pins.

See the piece at JoelKotkin.com.

When Kotkin uses tools like the Census to debunk urban development concepts, he leaves urbanists with little choice but to convert to voodoo tactics.

What else can they do when the data is so compelling?

The Kotkin premise is simply that the 25-34 year olds of the 2000 Census are the 35-44 year olds of the Census done in 2010. That's logical.

He spotlights reports that this demographic group grew 1.8 million in the suburbs and, conversely, lost 1.3 million in the big cities. His interpretation is that should this trend continue, and there's no evidence it won't, that the bigger Millenial generation coming up could bring a huge blow to urban living.

Kotkin was delivering a wakeup call for urban developers, but I bet it just got him a few voodoo doll pin pricks instead.