Link Banana

Matt Yglesias has compiled a chart showing that population density — on a country-wide basis — is not a strong determinant of how frequently people drive. It is worth noting, as he does, that this probably doesn’t reflect practical density.

I’ll leave the analysis of this interesting data to Mr. Yglesias:

You’ll see that Los Angeles, despite its reputation, is surprisingly dense. Conversely, transit-friendly Portland isn’t especially dense (less so than Houston or Dallas or Las Vegas) which goes to show how much smart policy matters — if all 23 denser-than-Portland cities on the list were as savvy as Portland about bikes, pedestrians, and transit we’d have a much better environmental situation in the country without constructing any new, denser urban areas.

This week’s Economist makes the argument that total GDP, which is usually used for measures of growth from country to country doesn’t work very well. Because it ignores the direction of population size, it distorts the picture in favor of growing countries — and misses the fact that the US is already in a recession.

Once you accept that growth in GDP per head is the best way to measure economic performance, the standard definition of a recession—a decline in real GDP over some period (eg, two consecutive quarters or year on year)—also seems flawed. For example, zero GDP growth in Japan, where the population is declining, would still leave the average citizen better off. But in America, the average person would be worse off. A better definition of recession, surely, is a fall in average income per person. On this basis, America has been in recession since the fourth quarter of last year when its GDP rose by an annualised 0.6%, implying that real income per head fell by 0.4%.

The Economist has an interesting look at the way internal migration is changing the density of the interior United States. If you do nothing else, click the link and see the map.

Two-fifths of all counties are shrinking. In general, people are moving to places that are warm, mountainous or suburban. They are leaving many rural areas, with the most relentless decline in a broad band stretching from western Texas to North Dakota. In parts, the Great Plains are more sparsely populated now than they were in the late 19th century, when the government declared them to be deserted.