In the 1950s Americans moved from the cities into the suburbs, frequently to large, sprawling developments of dozens or hundreds of nearly identical and newly-built homes. By 1970 much of that process was complete. “Inner city” was synonymous with poor, frequently minority populations while “suburb” conjured images of middle class, white collar or professional people—mostly white.

That has been changing for some time. Poor blacks are moving out of the “inner city” into the adjacent suburbs or to the South in a reversal of the Great Migration of the 1920s. Derek Thompson remarks at Atlantic:

For many years, the New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago areas have seen more departures than arrivals among nonimmigrants. Domestic migration to these metros has been negative for most of the 21st century.

Also for many years now, America’s biggest metros have attracted high-income firms and young, highly educated workers. On the one hand, this phenomenon had led to the sparkling revitalization of many downtown areas, a golden age of fine dining, and an eerie urban selfsameness with green-plant-and-exposed-brick coffee shops and lunch-in-a-bowl restaurants. But on the other hand, this urban blossoming has also made many desirable downtown areas too expensive for non-rich people to start a family, forcing new parents to move out to the fringes of the metro, or leave entirely.

There’s little mystery about where people are heading, or why: They are mostly moving toward sun and some semblance of affordability. The major Texas metros—Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin—have collectively grown by more than 3 million since 2010. The most popular destinations for movers are now Phoenix, Dallas, and Las Vegas, which welcome more than 100,000 new people each year.

Depending on how you look at it Chicago is either a harbinger or an object lesson:

But in many ways, Chicago’s problems make it a canary in the metropolitan coal mine. Immigration to the area has declined by half since the early 2000s. High earners have swarmed the Chicago River banks, revitalizing the downtown area, but the more diverse middle class, especially the city’s African American population, is evacuating Chicago’s suburbs. During the Great Migration of the 20th century, when millions of black Americans moved to northern cities, the population of Chicago went from 4 percent black in 1920 to nearly 40 percent black by 1990. But this century has seen a “Reverse Great Migration,” as the metro black population is on pace to halve from its peak of 1.2 million by 2030. This could reflect a flight from high-crime neighborhoods and the racist legacy of redlining throughout Chicagoland. Less pessimistically, it might be a sign that a lot of young black families would just rather live where they can afford more house, like in the suburbs of Atlanta and Houston.

Each of these Chicago phenomena—declining immigration, revitalized downtowns coinciding with a middle-class exodus, and the specific decline of the black population—has spread from the heartland to America’s largest coastal metros.

I think that Mr. Thompson is sugar-coating what’s happening to some degree. If Chicago is any gauge the big cities have become fantastically corrupt. Political corruption is so normal we don’t even recognize that it’s corruption any more. For people to get ahead or live safely they either need to leave the cities or live in gated communities or buildings with security. That costs money.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I think that the 2020 decennial census will come as an enormous surprise to a lot of people.

The editors of the Washington Post, backed into a corner, endorse a policy of reciprocity with respect to China:

There is a basic asymmetry at work. China, a closed society under the authoritarian rule of a party-state, wants journalists to serve up propaganda, not exposés. The United States and others in the West are open societies that see journalism as a legitimate, probing function key to democracy. China is free to send journalists to the United States — and it has sent many — while regularly restricting those from the United States working in China. The imbalance also exists in academia: China’s professors can visit the United States, but U.S. scholars face sharp limits on access to China. A recent report from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University on Chinese influence and U.S. interests made this point: “The idea that a Western TV news network could lease a Chinese station and broadcast news to China around the clock — as their Chinese counterparts do here in the United States — is not even thinkable.”

For many years, U.S. policy was guided by the logic that it is best to remain open, to showcase a commitment to values and principle. But what if China doesn’t care and doesn’t change its approach? The Hoover report suggested the United States should demand reciprocity; when U.S. journalists are denied visas, “the US State Department should respond in kind by restricting visas and access for Chinese journalists in the United States.” In other words, an open door must swing both ways.

One of Robert Conquest’s “laws of politics” is that everyone is conservative about whatever he knows best and this is a wonderful example of that. The editors demand reciprocity when journalism is at stake but condemn it with respect to trade despite China’s manifest failure to maintain labor, environment, and health and safety standards, its pegging the yuan to the dollar, i.e. “currency manipulation”, and its requirements that American businesses transfer their proprietary technologies to China in order to do business with China in contravention of the responsibilities they assumed when joining the World Trade Organization.

I don’t know whether the editors are hypocritical, are learning, or are just conservative about what they know best.

Dexter Filkins devotes his New Yorker column to Samantha Powers’s support for humanitarian military intervention:

Power’s new book, “The Education of an Idealist,” takes in much of this tumultuous time. In the opening pages, she warns that the title might suggest that she had “lofty dreams about how one person could make a difference, only to be ‘educated’ by the brutish forces” she encountered. She adds, “This is not the story that follows.” But the book does hint at the death of a dream. Power, who provided Obama with foreign-policy advice when he was a senator and a Presidential candidate, joined the White House in 2009 as a champion of humanitarian intervention in an Administration dedicated to ending the conflicts it had inherited and refraining from entering into others. One of the questions facing the new Presidency was whether someone like Power, an insistent voice for the primacy of morality over politics, could be effective—or whether the idea of humanitarian intervention, on which she had built a career, had essentially exhausted itself.

The premise is fatuous. We are responsible for our actions not for our inactions. We are also not all-knowing or all-powerful. We do not have the ability to ensure that our blundering about destroy and killing will produce a benign outcome and good intentions are far from enough. As I’ve said before, if you can subject military intervention to cost-benefit analysis, you should not intervene militarily.

In attacking Qaddafi’s government in Libya we broke the law. Not only did that wreck Libya, it had adverse effects on our relationships with Russia and China. The murders and destruction and people literally being sold on the block as slaves that cannot be justified by good intentions. Supplying our enemies in Syria because Assad is a bad man cannot be justified. Not only was it immoral it was stupid.

Well, I’ve gone through the campaign sites of the top two tiers of Democratic presidential aspirants and, honestly, I find their contents pretty dismaying. With few exceptions they do not seem to have much idea of what the president actually does. They appear to be running for Senate Majority Leader rather than for President of the United States.

Not to be a pill about it but here’s Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution in which the responsibilities of the president are defined:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

It corresponds to Section 8 of Article I in which the powers of the Congress are specified or Section 2 of Article III in which the powers of the Supreme Court are defined. Note that Article II is much shorter than Article I. That isn’t an accident.

Other than in a few rare instances the amount written about foreign policy wouldn’t be enough for a good blog post. They’re more like tweets. All of them are making an assumption of something for which I see no evidence—that the world is thirsting for American leadership. Quite to the contrary I don’t think a lack of American leadership is as much in evidence as an utter void of followership.

Additionally, they are very long on aspirations and pitifully short on details. I guess that’s to be expected on campaign websites.

From a total content standpoint I would say my three favorites were Tulsi Gabbard’s, Joe Biden’s, and Pete Buttigieg’s, pretty much in that order. I thought the worst was Kamala Harris’s. Sen. Harris’s uses much the same approach in providing content as far too many supermarkets use in marketing their goods. You have to search through the entire thing to find what you’re looking for. Maybe that’s deliberate but I doubt that many will have that sort of patience.

There has been a lot of breastbeating in the media about Trump’s cancellation of a planned meeting with representatives of the Taliban at Camp David. We don’t really know if such meetings were actually scheduled but let’s suppose they were. Commentary has tended to fall into one of three categories:

• If Trump does it, it must be wrong.
• We should never negotiate with the Taliban under any circumstances.
• We should negotiate with the Taliban but the timing was wrong.

My own view is that putting boots on the ground in Afghanistan was stupid. As soon as we did so and brought down the Taliban government, we became the “occupying power” under international conventions to which we are a party with certain obligations—obligations that would be difficult or impossible to satisfy. We did need to respond forcefully but I don’t think we should ever have become the occupying power. Americans didn’t have the stomach for my preferred solution.

All of that is water under the bridge. We still have troops in Afghanistan with a primary mission of counter-insurgency, i.e. fighting the Taliban in the futile hope that a non-Taliban Afghan government will be able to stand on its own.

Should Trump be negotiating with the Taliban? When? What should the objectives of such a negotiation be?

I agree with Carl Jaison’s point in his piece at The Diplomat that an Indian-Russian alliance is more likely than not:

As India expresses keen interest in shoring up its energy supplies from Russia’s Far East, the broader contour of the development is the two countries’ strategic convergence on the region’s issues. In the Indo-Pacific, India and Russia have carved out a unique strategy to amplify their own machinations. While New Delhi has sought to break free from the U.S.-China geopolitical rivalry in the region, Moscow has come up with a compelling strategy in the form of the Eastern Economic Forum to build strategic relationships with Asian countries to limit its reliance on China. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, India might have reservations about the Taliban’s rise to prominence at the expense of the democratically elected government in Kabul but having Russia as a channel to influence the Taliban after a U.S. withdrawal could play to India’s favor.

On the China front, India is seeking to diversify its options beyond the U.S.-led initiative and encourage a multi-stakeholder approach. This works in Russia’s interests, as it should know better than to put all its eggs in the Chinese basket. Despite their growing bonhomie, Russia is better off considering expanding its ties with other Asian countries like India, Vietnam, and Indonesia than solely piggybacking on China in matters relating to the Far East, Central Asia, and Asia as a whole.

I have always found the notion of a persistent Chinese-Russian alliance bizarre. The two countries are strategic competitors not likely allies. They can form a temporary alliance of convenience in the face of an aggressive and hostile United States but that won’t be something that is durable. Believe me, the Russians are aware of that.

The Indians and Russians on the other hand are not strategic competitors, their interests are complementary and they have a common adversary: China.

I wish Mr. Jaison had elaborated on the implications of a Russo-Indian alliance. Perhaps that will come in later pieces.

I agree with some of what James Meigs says in his post at City Journal about the Democratic presidential candidates’ climate change plans and I disagree with some but what I want to focus on in this post is this sentence:

It’s almost as if bringing down carbon emissions isn’t the candidates’ top goal.

Of course it’s not their top goal. Their top goal is to secure their party’s nomination for president. Then the prevailing candidate’s top goal will be to become president.

Something I think that very few people really realize is that everybody has a hierarchy of values. Those candidates are perfectly sincere in their support for reducing carbon emissions but they’re also perfectly sincere in their support for a dozen other goals. Those are their principles. If you don’t like them, they have others.

Those goals are arranged in a priority sequence with the next rung in the process of becoming president the topmost priority. No candidate who puts some other goal above that one can possibly prevail. It’s a lousy system but it’s the one we have.

But things are drastically different than they were when the three leading candidates were young which is now a half century or more ago. They apparently believe that they can leave the excessive promises they’ve made reaching that next rung in the dust as they reach for the next rung. I think they’re wrong but we’ll see.

I do not see how the carbon emissions they’re claiming as their objective can be achieved without embracing nuclear power, making a highly improved energy grid a top priority, and quickly adopting technologies for carbon capture but each of those would lose them votes, i.e. would be at the expense of their prime objective.

The object of power is power.

As I read James Dobbins’s plea to return “to the basics of statecraft”, reproduced at The RAND Blog, I could barely make out the outlines of actual events in his characterization of the events of the last 30 years:

Since the turn of the century, even America’s apparent successes have turned sour. Afghanistan and Iraq became quagmires. Al Qaeda metastasized in new forms throughout the Muslim world. Russia and China became more hostile. The Arab Spring turned quickly to winter. Democracy everywhere encountered new headwinds. The Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal and the Trans-Pacific Partnership were concluded, then rejected. An ever-growing number of books and articles bemoan the demise of the liberal world order, the erosion of democracy, and the end of the American century.

I couldn’t help but wonder how he reconciles any of the following with that worldview:

• The U. S.’s systematic dismissal and hostility towards Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union?
• Stationing troops in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
• That the Muslim world has always had violent separatist movements? It is what you would expect in a sola scriptura faith without a magisterium whose holy book can be interpreted as condoning political violence.
• The drone war?
• The bombing of Libya in support of the removal of Qaddaffi?

I also wondered when in the post-war period China had ever been anything other than hostile to the United States?

In light of the enormous gap between the way Mr. Dobbins apparently sees the United States and our place in the world and mine, let me offer some of the my thoughts on the basics of American statecraft.

The United States is not the United Kingdom or France. We do not have an identifiable foreign policy, crafted by elites and coherent over time. Our foreign policy is an emergent phenomenon formed day to day by politicians, diplomats, American businesses, and the American people.

Whenever military force is used in pursuit of an objective that is war. War should never be used except as a last resort. If you can subject it to cost-benefit analysis, you should not go to war.

When our military is ultimately used, it should be decisive and dispositive.

We should never, ever go to war without enlisting the American people in the war effort first.

Our diplomats need to understand their role. They are not the sole creators of our foreign policy and they serve at the pleasure of the president.

We need diplomats with a solid core of American social and political values.

Most Americans aren’t much interested in American Empire, spreading democracy at the point of a sword, or ensuring that a few large companies prosper. They want to be secure in their property and persons, have a job, have a reasonable level of comfort in their lives, and not be fearful for their futures. They want to be able to come home after work and watch television.

What the American people want is important in our foreign policy. It isn’t the only important thing but it is important.

And i haven’t even gotten to the role of the president and the risks in persistently electing presidents who have little or no knowledge of foreign policy and little interest in it.

Speaking of magic, I think there’s a comeuppance brewing for the entire gig and sharing economy. But first, a word about taxicab regulation.

Taxicab regulation goes back to the 1840s. Taxis are regulated by federal, state, county, and city governments with most of the regulation being at the city level. You may not know it but the federal government regulates taxis by establishing standards for how taximeters, those gadgets next to the driver in the front seat of a cab that ticks off the mileage and charges for your ride, function. Notionally, the purpose of laws regulating taxis is to ensure the safety of the passengers, predictability in the amount customers will be charged, the elimination of price gouging, and allow owners and drivers to make a reasonable return. The primary mechanism that has been adopted to do that has been to create barriers to entry. The practical effect of taxicab regulation has been to subsidize the owners of permits, medallions, certificates, or whatever other barrier to entry has been put in place and increase rates.

Lyft, Uber, Airbnb, and other similar startups that depend on creeping into crevices in taxi or hotel or other regulations will all fail for a simple reason. The regulations exist for valid reasons and the crevices that gig and sharing economy startups depend on will be closed. Enjoy them while you can.

In her latest Washington Post column Megan McArdle muses over the first inklings of the comeuppance I spoke of earlier:

WeWork isn’t the only tech “unicorn” that has lost some of its magic. Uber and Lyft were probably the most famous of the unicorns — companies valued at more than $1 billion in private funding rounds. They’re also trailing their initial valuations by quite a lot since both companies went public this spring. Now another of the best-known unicorns seems to be molting. And perhaps that’s not an accident.

These companies got so famous, and got such stratospheric valuations, because they promised to be revolutionary rather than evolutionary. With Uber and Lyft, for example, investors were buying into not just a better way to hail a taxi but also an option on a future in which everyone outsources their car ownership.

The reality is that in 50 years anyone who can afford one will still own their own cars because they provide freedom and flexibility and those are worth quite a bit. You can’t get those with ridesharing services and when the dust has settled and the regulations have caught up with the technology the cost of a cab ride to the airport or grocery store will be as high as it’s been for the last 75 years.