Aaron M. Renn, GOVERNING

Aaron M. Renn

GOVERNING

New York, NY, United States

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Recent:
  • Unknown
Past:
  • GOVERNING
  • City Journal
  • Manhattan Institute
  • Crain's Chicago Business
  • The Guardian
  • Business Insider

Past articles by Aaron:

Lies Cities Tell Themselves

Urban leaders like to complain that suburbs are a drain on their prosperity. The facts are otherwise. → Read More

There’s Just One Good Way to Sell a Green Agenda: Make It Attractive.

We need to move toward a lower-energy future, but we can’t present it as a punishment. → Read More

Looming Decline for Chicago?

The Windy City's core problem is that it struggles to lure top talent away from coastal superstar cities. → Read More

Chicago and Its Future: A Glass Half Full

America’s third-largest city has a plenitude of problems. But it has great advantages as well. → Read More

America Discovers Columbus

Ohio’s largest city has never attracted much national attention, but that is beginning to change. → Read More

Review of The Last Brahmin by Luke Nichter

A new biography of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. reminds us of a bygone model of the public servant. → Read More

Government Has a Trust Problem. It Will Take Time to Restore

The route to trust in our institutions is through candor, competence and a clear sense of mission. Two examples, from Indiana and West Virginia, show how trust can be rebuilt one careful step at a time. → Read More

Cities and Suburbs: A Moment of Mutual Unease

Urban and suburban America need each other more than ever. The coronavirus is making their relationship difficult as remote work changes the status quo and increases the competition for talent. → Read More

Las Vegas Zappos founder Tony Hsieh's Radical Vision

The death of Tony Hsieh is the loss of an urban pioneer. → Read More

Technology's Mixed Record in Responding to a Pandemic

While it's helped a lot of Americans who are displaced from their offices get their work done, it's fallen short in areas like education and disease tracking and has once again highlighted the digital divide. → Read More

How Cities Lost Control of the Urban Tech Revolution

As the "smart city" movement has progressed through three distinct waves, local governments have found themselves increasingly struggling to manage the changes that alter many aspects of urban life. → Read More

Several Midwest Cities Are Pursuing Innovative Mass-Transit Plans—With Encouraging Results.

Several Midwest cities are pursuing innovative mass-transit plans—with encouraging results. → Read More

Bring Back Boomtown: New York needs to think like a growth city again.

New York needs to think like a growth city again. → Read More

Once a major American city, St. Louis struggles to redefine itself.

Once a major American city, the Gateway to the West struggles to redefine itself. → Read More

Philadelphia’s Revival May Not Provide a Playbook for Other Cities

Fifteen years ago Philadelphia was yet another Rust Belt city wrestling with decline. Today, as the Pew Charitable Trust’s latest State of the City report has shown, the city is on an upward trajectory, adding population in recent years for the first time since 1950, and adding jobs too.... → Read More

New Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Has an Opportunity to Make a Lasting Mark

A reformist outsider disrupts politics in the Windy City. → Read More

Reviving America's Post-Industrial Cities

A Manhattan Institute report offers strategies to revitalize such struggling cities as Johnstown, Pennsylvania; Pittsfield, Massachusetts; and Youngstown, Ohio. → Read More

A Mad Dash for City Hall in the Windy City

Chicago is a fiscal wreck, and none of the 13 candidates for mayor have a serious plan to fix it. → Read More

Cities: Don’t Fall in the Branding Trap

From Instagram stunts to Edison bulbs, why do so many cities’ marketing plans try to convince people that they’re exactly like somewhere else? It’s curious that while every company tries its hardest to convince you of how much different and better it is than every other company in its... → Read More

Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential candidacy is a longshot.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s longshot presidential candidacy highlights the challenge of being a talented Democrat from Indiana. → Read More