New Report: Superstar Cities Need to Bring Back a “Growth Mindset”

Cities like New York and Los Angeles risk population decline if they don’t learn to “scale up”

NEW YORK, NY – Having overcome previous associations with civic failures like poverty and crime, America’s marquee cities like Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles may seem to be coasting on their success. But their growth rates are slowing, and they have begun to suffer problems not of failure but of success. A new Manhattan Institute report by City Journal contributing editor Aaron Renn diagnoses the reasons for this dwindling growth, explains why the trend is problematic, and offers solutions for its reversal.

“Superstar cities”—New York, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Washington, and Seattle—offer well-above-average per-capita GDP and incomes and are home to high-value sectors like finance and technology. But even as they have seen success in recent decades, they have failed to expand their housing supply and infrastructure to accommodate the many newcomers they attract. The reasons for this include:

• Regulatory accretion and changes in social attitudes;
• A loss of civic capacity to grow in the wake of an extended era of shrinkage; and
• A belief, on the part of ordinary current residents, that there are few significant marginal benefits to growth, or that the negative effects of growth, such as rising congestion, outweigh any benefits.

America’s superstars need to think like high-growth cities again, or the national economy will lose access to these high-productivity centers. This will require reducing land-use regulations to permit more and denser housing development near transit lines and business districts. It will also require broad infrastructure expansion that extends beyond mere incremental projects, as well as a shift in public perception that recognizes the positive benefits of growth.

Click here to read the full report.