Author Archives: Robert Lang

MICRO POLITICS: The 2004 Presidential Vote in Small-Town America

ROBERT LANG: In 2004, the Bush campaign painted the town red—Republican red. The president swept the vote in the nation’s small towns and cities, which the U.S. Census Bureau now officially labels as “micropolitan areas” (or Micros). Bush’s micropolitan voting edge in Ohio exceeded his winning margin in the state by over 18,000 ballots. The [...]

ANAHEIM: THE REAL “OC”

ROBERT LANG: The second season of the popular FOX television show The OC (as in Orange Country, California) starts this week. The OC focuses on the lives of several families that live in ocean-front McMansions in wealthy Newport Beach. Almost everyone in the show The OC is white. But in the real OC, according to [...]

NO ROOM TO BOOM: HOUSE PRICES AND LAND SUPPLY

ROBERT LANG: Humorist Will Rogers once famously observed that people should buy land because “they don’t make it anymore.” That message resonates with home buyers in some of the nation’s most land constrained metropolitan areas. The National Association of Realtors’ house price data for 2004 shows price spikes in places where land supplies are short [...]