“Many creative writers keep journals; the sociologist’s need for systematic reflection demands it.” -C. Wright Mills

From the press release:

NYCEDC’s Economic Research and Analysis Department has launched NYC Economics on NYCEDC.com. With this initiative, our readers and clients will get more out of our products and NYCEDC’s economic research will become more accessible.

The content is organized around four modules: Data Resources, Economic Impact Analyses, Publications, and Frequently Asked Questions.

Data  Resources  With  access  to a wealth of economic and demographic statistics, our research runs the gamut from labor force and employment to subway ridership. Many of the information tables featured on NYC Economics are some of our more frequently requested data sets, and we now provide graphs and charts to facilitate their use.

Economic Impact Analyses This module contains the estimated impact on the City’s economy of operations and visitor spending deriving from events such as The Waterfalls and Gates exhibits, Fashion Week, Fashion Tradeshows, Fashion Wholesale, and various sport events.

Publications In addition to our Economic Snapshot newsletter, our team publishes research on the City’s five boroughs, its industries, and other topics. The fashion industry is the newest of our Industry Profiles, a series  intended  to provide a closer look at the performance of NYC’s production sectors. Also forthcoming is At A Glance, a series of occasional pieces dedicated to current economic developments and debates or subject areas of particular interest to our clients. Borough Updates will be updated annually to reflect the latest available data.

Frequently Asked Questions To ensure that our clients understand our work, we have posted answers to several common questions on calculations and definitions of economics vernacular that we hope you will find useful.

The NYTimes reports today on the stress and damage middle class families often experience when the breadwinners lose their jobs. Among other things, it can impact the children’s self-esteem and long-term earnings potential. This is certainly tragic, but compare this to those disadvantaged groups in our societies who have experienced this for generations. It suggests that the “culture of poverty” is a real social force.  In both cases, a greater measure of financial security would surely ameliorate the worst of the effects.

Aramis comes even closer. EU Researchers think they will soon be able to link cars into platoons on the highway.

The more time passes and the more experience I gain, the more I love vim. I’ve just added buffers and recalling buffers (through viminfo) to my repetoire. So much power. And you all know how much I love power.

A great set of photos from 1910-1915 Russia, mostly out in the Urals.

A company named Unimodal Systems (a problematic concept in and of itself) is promoting SkyTran, a personalized maglev monorail. It sounds like a contemporary version of the French Aramis system described by LaTour that never made it to reality. Interesting tech, seemingly ideal plan, but somehow it never came together. First the individual pods freaked people out. What if a hoodlum got on the car? And who wants to sit across from two strangers in a tiny pod? Too awkward socially. Personalized transport requires that cars always be where people need them, which means something like two or three times the total capacity.

In short, a beautiful concept, a utopian concept, a concept that can guide action but is unlikely to materialize.

A&L Daily has a couple of articles today on localism. One, by Joel Kotkin, suggests that Americans are becoming less geographically mobile. The second, a defense of Christopher Lasch’s thought by Russell Arben Fox, that implies that society requires an essentially religious belief in the ability and will of highly localized populations to organize for a more egalitarian, productivist society.