Kerry Jackson
Blog
California’s Train Drain
It’s an interesting question: Will California’s high-speed rail make its first run before BART trains make their last? Actually, it’s a tricky question. The bullet train might never run. We’ve chronicled the troubles that have bedeviled the high-speed rail project, most recently when we reported on its financial problems. The ...
Blog
How Eminent Domain Obliterated the Character of Cities
No city can possibly express its character – the many urban quirks and idiosyncrasies, as well as the strangely appealing grittiness and shining luxury that often coexist side-by-side – when government planners use the bulldozer to “improve” cities. Writing about the “wave of urban renewal that swept the world in ...
Blog
CAPITAL IDEAS–California’s Green Energy Transition: Is the State Getting Ahead of Itself?
No state is rushing toward a zero-carbon power grid faster than California. By 2045, every watt of electricity used in this state has to be produced by a source that emits no carbon dioxide. Sacramento is convinced it will happen because it has said so. Reality is likely to have ...
Blog
Private Sector High Speed Rail Moves Forward While State Bullet Train Cost Estimates Climb
It has been called a dud, the train that couldn’t, a train that went off the rails, a train wreck, the train to nowhere, and a crazy train. The high-speed rail is also a financial fiasco, its cost now almost four times the initial estimate Californians based their votes on ...
Blog
Latest San Francisco Public Bank Proposal Doomed to Fail
According to the proposal prepared by consultants, the bank would focus “its initial lending activities on affordable housing development and affordable homeownership, local enterprises (small businesses), and green investments and environmental justice.” The “fundamental need for a city-owned bank,” it says, “stems from the historic inability of traditional financial institutions ...
Blog
The Ugly Californian
There’s no shortage of stories. A woman and her boyfriend who moved from California to Montana in 2020 “changed their licenses right away.” In “the most competitive race in recent memory” for the mayor’s office in Boise, Idaho, one candidate “ran on a very simple platform,” the Los Angeles Times ...
Commentary
California’s high gas prices go on trial
The California Senate’s first hearing on gasoline prices was held Wednesday and his plan “was met with a dose of skepticism” according to Politico. Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee chairman Sen. Steve Bradford told the committee that “we must ensure our actions that we take first (do) no harm to consumers.” ...
Blog
Progressives misread housing market with attack on investors
There seems to be mild panic regarding investors buying up housing. The Washington Post reported last year that, “investors bought a record share of homes in 2021,” almost “one in seven homes sold in America’s top metropolitan areas” as well as “the most in at least two decades.” Often the ...
Blog
Latest Data Shows ‘California Premium’ Chasing More People Out of State
Using U.S. Census Bureau data, the Los Angeles Times reported last week that net migration from April 2020 to July 2022 was a 699,904-person loss for California as that many more moved out than moved in. That’s a loss greater than the population of the entire state of Vermont. (CalMatters ...
Blog
Maze of red tape impedes urban business growth
Maze of red tape impedes urban business growth By Kerry Jackson | February 17, 2023 Humanity flourishes when it’s free. Minds innovate, human capital is liberated and the ambitious get to work when they’re not interrupted by restrictive licensing and other bureaucratic hurdles that pose impenetrable barriers to personal and ...
California’s Train Drain
It’s an interesting question: Will California’s high-speed rail make its first run before BART trains make their last? Actually, it’s a tricky question. The bullet train might never run. We’ve chronicled the troubles that have bedeviled the high-speed rail project, most recently when we reported on its financial problems. The ...
How Eminent Domain Obliterated the Character of Cities
No city can possibly express its character – the many urban quirks and idiosyncrasies, as well as the strangely appealing grittiness and shining luxury that often coexist side-by-side – when government planners use the bulldozer to “improve” cities. Writing about the “wave of urban renewal that swept the world in ...
CAPITAL IDEAS–California’s Green Energy Transition: Is the State Getting Ahead of Itself?
No state is rushing toward a zero-carbon power grid faster than California. By 2045, every watt of electricity used in this state has to be produced by a source that emits no carbon dioxide. Sacramento is convinced it will happen because it has said so. Reality is likely to have ...
Private Sector High Speed Rail Moves Forward While State Bullet Train Cost Estimates Climb
It has been called a dud, the train that couldn’t, a train that went off the rails, a train wreck, the train to nowhere, and a crazy train. The high-speed rail is also a financial fiasco, its cost now almost four times the initial estimate Californians based their votes on ...
Latest San Francisco Public Bank Proposal Doomed to Fail
According to the proposal prepared by consultants, the bank would focus “its initial lending activities on affordable housing development and affordable homeownership, local enterprises (small businesses), and green investments and environmental justice.” The “fundamental need for a city-owned bank,” it says, “stems from the historic inability of traditional financial institutions ...
The Ugly Californian
There’s no shortage of stories. A woman and her boyfriend who moved from California to Montana in 2020 “changed their licenses right away.” In “the most competitive race in recent memory” for the mayor’s office in Boise, Idaho, one candidate “ran on a very simple platform,” the Los Angeles Times ...
California’s high gas prices go on trial
The California Senate’s first hearing on gasoline prices was held Wednesday and his plan “was met with a dose of skepticism” according to Politico. Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee chairman Sen. Steve Bradford told the committee that “we must ensure our actions that we take first (do) no harm to consumers.” ...
Progressives misread housing market with attack on investors
There seems to be mild panic regarding investors buying up housing. The Washington Post reported last year that, “investors bought a record share of homes in 2021,” almost “one in seven homes sold in America’s top metropolitan areas” as well as “the most in at least two decades.” Often the ...
Latest Data Shows ‘California Premium’ Chasing More People Out of State
Using U.S. Census Bureau data, the Los Angeles Times reported last week that net migration from April 2020 to July 2022 was a 699,904-person loss for California as that many more moved out than moved in. That’s a loss greater than the population of the entire state of Vermont. (CalMatters ...
Maze of red tape impedes urban business growth
Maze of red tape impedes urban business growth By Kerry Jackson | February 17, 2023 Humanity flourishes when it’s free. Minds innovate, human capital is liberated and the ambitious get to work when they’re not interrupted by restrictive licensing and other bureaucratic hurdles that pose impenetrable barriers to personal and ...
