The way I have often put it (including talking to voters as a candidate for local office) is that I think everyone that contributes in our community, whether it's a doctor or lawyer or engineer, or a barista or lawncare guy or teacher, should be able to find a place to live in our community. And that can't possibly happen unless you make it legal to build some smaller apartments, and let folks adapt their own properties to meet the needs of their families, like was legal up until the wave of '70s down-zoning. Make normal neighborhoods legal again!
Integration and diversity is a super power. The people who are against it are zero sum gamers (and probably racists) who think if other people win they lose. We should be optimizing for win-win
Good notes about the higher ed plateau/shrinkage. I called this "peak higher ed" a decade ago.
A few thoughts:
1) Yes, the institutional numbers decline has been marginal, but don't forget the additional amount of program culling going on. WVU is just the most recent instance. Further, recall the higher ed is strongly dependent on enrollment for revenue, and that enrollment, after forty years of rising, is reversing.
2) I'm not sure if research is slowing down. There's the problem of overproduction there, with too many unread papers and books, but the US still has a solid research-producing professoriate.
3) Much depends on institutions' abilities to pivot to new populations: more internationals, more adults.
Great article! My only comment is college education can hardly work for the half of the population less equipped for academic study, plus a lot of jobs are always going to be those that do not require post-secondary education. Adopting economic policy that restores income growth across all quintiles is still the best solution to the problems you mentioned.
I think you may want to distinguish between research universities and small colleges in regards to which colleges are under threat due to declining enrollment. You noted West Virginia budget cuts but from what I’ve read this is the result of some very particular poor spending decisions rather than a general trend.
Much more under threat are your small liberal arts colleges and small religious colleges (especially the latter given declining religiosity in America). I think this is part of the general trend I’ve remarked upon in the past whereby colleges are confronting the contradiction that they are mostly 19th century constructs (at least in foundation) in a 21st century world.
I’ve most touched on this regards to the affirmative action and legacy debates. Namely that legacy is a relic of when colleges were essentially finishing schools for the upper crust (a dynamic that existed well into mid 20th century). But it goes beyond that to things like what courses are taught and what colleges exist in the first place. I say the following as someone with a history degree that included significant course work in Ancient Greek history and Ancient Greek philosophy; why does the Classics major exist still? I’m sorry it’s a relic of when learning classics was a marker of being upper class. This is not an argument that this course work is useless but rather that classics as a major is well past it sell by date. Reality is all sorts of ways colleges are constructed as far as course requirements that are out dated. I was required to take all sorts of “core” classes unrelated to major in order to graduate. Sounds great to learn so much until you consider the enormous costs involved with taking even one class.
For religious colleges. Especially smaller less prestigious ones (so places like Notre Dame and Georgetown excepted) the future is even more stark. America is clearly becoming a less religious place; a trend apparently accelerating with each passing year. The “need” for religious colleges, especially small ones is going to decline dramatically very soon.
Left-NIMBYs are loud on Twitter, but the strongest opposition is from Republicans. Trump, who used to be YIMBYish (he's a property developer, after all) has sniffed the wind and gone full NIMBY
Aug 31, 2023·edited Aug 31, 2023Liked by Noah Smith
I think I previously posted the advantages of a National Education system. Full merit. No union. 2x pay. Minimum 1000 per grade. No local property tax. National funding
Now- improved idea
Mega High School has 7 to 12th grade organized around important learning areas....for life. Each has a child/parent selected 7 to 12th grade facility to take the child a long way:
A. Machine school
B. Design engineering school
C. Auto mechanic school
C.1 Electric, AC, Plumbing
D Pre Nurse school
E. Pre Med school
F Pre Veterinarian and Tech school
G Classics School- English, Philosophy, Literature
H. All around school
I. Everyone has math, science, History, English all years
J. Switching as desired. Where else to better explore a growing minds interest
K. Some may matriculate with essentially Associate degrees and technician level accreditation
“ It’s too early to tell, but it’s possible that the financial crisis of 2008 and the recession that followed marked the end of a 30-year-long Age of Human Capital, where knowledge industries dominated everything else and you needed a degree to flourish.”
Just wait five years and see how AI has eaten many white collar jobs that required a college degree. As of this spring I have been telling my students that, unless you really love the law and want to be public service, don’t go to law school. Eighty percent of the work lawyers do is transactional work, such as reading contracts or writing briefs, and that is currently being automated away by fine-tubes LLMs. See harvey.ai or spellbook.legal for examples.
To put the melting pot narrative in historic context, the "melting pot" and "multiculturalism" narratives refer to the same social dynamics. They are distinctions without a difference.
The life and death of the melting pot metaphor reflects the conditions of 19th and early 20th century America. The film "Gangs of New York" is very good for its social realism despite a fictionalized story; the melting pot was the response to that world. America had: true open borders with constant streams of immigrants pouring in, very weak state capacity, high population growth, high anomie (moral vacuum), an economy with very sharp booms and busts, sectarian strife, and America and the immigrant nationalities who arrived here were very much honor cultures.
Violence was constant -- nativist vs. immigrant, Protestant vs. Catholic, Christian vs. Jewish, White vs. Black, White vs. Chinese, etc. There was also a low sense of solidarity among immigrant groups. Protestants and Catholics broadly hated each other as a group, but Catholicism wasn't enough of a unifying force to stop Irish, Italians and Germans from feuding among themselves.
This is identity politics in its most literal, basic and naked form. A lot of the institutions we take for granted today, like government, houses of worship, employers, etc., did not exist or were too weak and served existing group power structures. Everyone looked after their own.
The melting pot was a response to this madness. Assimilation was an aspiration to transcend petty tribal identities. (In the early days of show business, "ethnic" was a disparaging term for someone whose name, usually Italian or Jewish, or appearance would give away their outsiderness and would be concealed to sound more commonly American.) It stressed education and involvement in civic life. It encouraged tolerance. The melting pot was forward-looking; the American identity could be created without being fraught with past attachments.
The melting pot narrative became conventional wisdom by the 20th century, helped along by the strengthening of the state and wresting control of economies and institutions from political machines and racketeers. There were also large public works projects and the world wars.
The melting pot faded away because in many ways it succeeded, so much so that there's very little trace of what came before it.
We are actually starting to see how the Auckland Unitary Plan has effected rents - see this recent paper from Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy finding that rents for three bedroom dwellings are 22-35% lower than they would have been in absence of the upzoning.
I think what’s happening at universities is ultimately a good thing. Marginal institutions will be forced to innovate in order to survive. We spent 20 years propping them up with obscene amounts of easy student loan debt. It seems like many institutions who face challenges are now thriving by recruiting out of state students or offering unique programs. Welcome to capitalism! Long overdue in this space, in my opinion.
Regarding: The college shakeout and the market forces behind it.
Industrial policy to the rescue? If the U.S. positions itself as a worldwide supplier of education, then policies to encourage foreign students to attend U.S. universities could bolster existing college enrollments. It would also yield both a sustainable skilled labor force and geopolitical benefits, especially if partnered with other educational foreign-aid initiatives. Attending foreign students would benefit by experiencing the world outside their country, even if they ultimately return home.
As purely regional drivers of economic health, community colleges and trade schools seem beneficial. The Our Towns initiative started by James and Deborah Fallows ( ourtownsfoundation.org ) has noted the positive contributions of local higher education facilities.
Regarding: Integration works, the melting pot is real.
If our tendency is towards fusion, as the evidence suggests, then it reveals that divisiveness is manufactured. The dynamics behind manufactured divisiveness would be an interesting journalistic beat for someone (or many someones!).
The way I have often put it (including talking to voters as a candidate for local office) is that I think everyone that contributes in our community, whether it's a doctor or lawyer or engineer, or a barista or lawncare guy or teacher, should be able to find a place to live in our community. And that can't possibly happen unless you make it legal to build some smaller apartments, and let folks adapt their own properties to meet the needs of their families, like was legal up until the wave of '70s down-zoning. Make normal neighborhoods legal again!
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/7/3/making-normal-neighborhoods-legal-again
Integration and diversity is a super power. The people who are against it are zero sum gamers (and probably racists) who think if other people win they lose. We should be optimizing for win-win
Good notes about the higher ed plateau/shrinkage. I called this "peak higher ed" a decade ago.
A few thoughts:
1) Yes, the institutional numbers decline has been marginal, but don't forget the additional amount of program culling going on. WVU is just the most recent instance. Further, recall the higher ed is strongly dependent on enrollment for revenue, and that enrollment, after forty years of rising, is reversing.
2) I'm not sure if research is slowing down. There's the problem of overproduction there, with too many unread papers and books, but the US still has a solid research-producing professoriate.
3) Much depends on institutions' abilities to pivot to new populations: more internationals, more adults.
The effect on rent in Minneapolis is huge!
Great article! My only comment is college education can hardly work for the half of the population less equipped for academic study, plus a lot of jobs are always going to be those that do not require post-secondary education. Adopting economic policy that restores income growth across all quintiles is still the best solution to the problems you mentioned.
I think you may want to distinguish between research universities and small colleges in regards to which colleges are under threat due to declining enrollment. You noted West Virginia budget cuts but from what I’ve read this is the result of some very particular poor spending decisions rather than a general trend.
Much more under threat are your small liberal arts colleges and small religious colleges (especially the latter given declining religiosity in America). I think this is part of the general trend I’ve remarked upon in the past whereby colleges are confronting the contradiction that they are mostly 19th century constructs (at least in foundation) in a 21st century world.
I’ve most touched on this regards to the affirmative action and legacy debates. Namely that legacy is a relic of when colleges were essentially finishing schools for the upper crust (a dynamic that existed well into mid 20th century). But it goes beyond that to things like what courses are taught and what colleges exist in the first place. I say the following as someone with a history degree that included significant course work in Ancient Greek history and Ancient Greek philosophy; why does the Classics major exist still? I’m sorry it’s a relic of when learning classics was a marker of being upper class. This is not an argument that this course work is useless but rather that classics as a major is well past it sell by date. Reality is all sorts of ways colleges are constructed as far as course requirements that are out dated. I was required to take all sorts of “core” classes unrelated to major in order to graduate. Sounds great to learn so much until you consider the enormous costs involved with taking even one class.
For religious colleges. Especially smaller less prestigious ones (so places like Notre Dame and Georgetown excepted) the future is even more stark. America is clearly becoming a less religious place; a trend apparently accelerating with each passing year. The “need” for religious colleges, especially small ones is going to decline dramatically very soon.
Left-NIMBYs are loud on Twitter, but the strongest opposition is from Republicans. Trump, who used to be YIMBYish (he's a property developer, after all) has sniffed the wind and gone full NIMBY
https://reason.com/2020/08/17/donald-trump-and-ben-carson-go-full-nimby-in-the-wall-street-journal/
And there are almost no Republican YIMBYs
I think I previously posted the advantages of a National Education system. Full merit. No union. 2x pay. Minimum 1000 per grade. No local property tax. National funding
Now- improved idea
Mega High School has 7 to 12th grade organized around important learning areas....for life. Each has a child/parent selected 7 to 12th grade facility to take the child a long way:
A. Machine school
B. Design engineering school
C. Auto mechanic school
C.1 Electric, AC, Plumbing
D Pre Nurse school
E. Pre Med school
F Pre Veterinarian and Tech school
G Classics School- English, Philosophy, Literature
H. All around school
I. Everyone has math, science, History, English all years
J. Switching as desired. Where else to better explore a growing minds interest
K. Some may matriculate with essentially Associate degrees and technician level accreditation
Always appreciate the facts on housing! Thank you!
Multiculturalism SUCKS. Melting Point FTW. America is Awesome ~ immigrant
“ It’s too early to tell, but it’s possible that the financial crisis of 2008 and the recession that followed marked the end of a 30-year-long Age of Human Capital, where knowledge industries dominated everything else and you needed a degree to flourish.”
Just wait five years and see how AI has eaten many white collar jobs that required a college degree. As of this spring I have been telling my students that, unless you really love the law and want to be public service, don’t go to law school. Eighty percent of the work lawyers do is transactional work, such as reading contracts or writing briefs, and that is currently being automated away by fine-tubes LLMs. See harvey.ai or spellbook.legal for examples.
To put the melting pot narrative in historic context, the "melting pot" and "multiculturalism" narratives refer to the same social dynamics. They are distinctions without a difference.
The life and death of the melting pot metaphor reflects the conditions of 19th and early 20th century America. The film "Gangs of New York" is very good for its social realism despite a fictionalized story; the melting pot was the response to that world. America had: true open borders with constant streams of immigrants pouring in, very weak state capacity, high population growth, high anomie (moral vacuum), an economy with very sharp booms and busts, sectarian strife, and America and the immigrant nationalities who arrived here were very much honor cultures.
Violence was constant -- nativist vs. immigrant, Protestant vs. Catholic, Christian vs. Jewish, White vs. Black, White vs. Chinese, etc. There was also a low sense of solidarity among immigrant groups. Protestants and Catholics broadly hated each other as a group, but Catholicism wasn't enough of a unifying force to stop Irish, Italians and Germans from feuding among themselves.
This is identity politics in its most literal, basic and naked form. A lot of the institutions we take for granted today, like government, houses of worship, employers, etc., did not exist or were too weak and served existing group power structures. Everyone looked after their own.
The melting pot was a response to this madness. Assimilation was an aspiration to transcend petty tribal identities. (In the early days of show business, "ethnic" was a disparaging term for someone whose name, usually Italian or Jewish, or appearance would give away their outsiderness and would be concealed to sound more commonly American.) It stressed education and involvement in civic life. It encouraged tolerance. The melting pot was forward-looking; the American identity could be created without being fraught with past attachments.
The melting pot narrative became conventional wisdom by the 20th century, helped along by the strengthening of the state and wresting control of economies and institutions from political machines and racketeers. There were also large public works projects and the world wars.
The melting pot faded away because in many ways it succeeded, so much so that there's very little trace of what came before it.
We are actually starting to see how the Auckland Unitary Plan has effected rents - see this recent paper from Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy finding that rents for three bedroom dwellings are 22-35% lower than they would have been in absence of the upzoning.
https://cdn.auckland.ac.nz/assets/business/about/our-research/research-institutes-and-centres/Economic-Policy-Centre--EPC-/WP016.pdf
I think what’s happening at universities is ultimately a good thing. Marginal institutions will be forced to innovate in order to survive. We spent 20 years propping them up with obscene amounts of easy student loan debt. It seems like many institutions who face challenges are now thriving by recruiting out of state students or offering unique programs. Welcome to capitalism! Long overdue in this space, in my opinion.
Regarding: The college shakeout and the market forces behind it.
Industrial policy to the rescue? If the U.S. positions itself as a worldwide supplier of education, then policies to encourage foreign students to attend U.S. universities could bolster existing college enrollments. It would also yield both a sustainable skilled labor force and geopolitical benefits, especially if partnered with other educational foreign-aid initiatives. Attending foreign students would benefit by experiencing the world outside their country, even if they ultimately return home.
As purely regional drivers of economic health, community colleges and trade schools seem beneficial. The Our Towns initiative started by James and Deborah Fallows ( ourtownsfoundation.org ) has noted the positive contributions of local higher education facilities.
Regarding: Integration works, the melting pot is real.
If our tendency is towards fusion, as the evidence suggests, then it reveals that divisiveness is manufactured. The dynamics behind manufactured divisiveness would be an interesting journalistic beat for someone (or many someones!).
On the victory of the melting pot, from the micro to the macro, there are questions still to be asked and answered.
As a reference, for example, "The Sources of Brexit and Trumpism Are Not the Same", by
Alexander Clarkson at World Politics Review.