On the Fringe of a Boomtown

Bloomberg recently ranked the Top 12 American Boomtowns. The business editors “sorted through U.S. Census data for metropolitan areas to rank those with the greatest population growth, then scored areas on growth in gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation.”

They should have labeled them Boom-metros though, by the way they lumped areas together to achieve a certain population threshold. For instance, the number one Bloomberg boomer is Austin-Round Rock, Texas. A quick calculation using Google Earth puts Round Rock about 16.5 miles from Austin, as the crow flies.

I point this out because Washington DC “which includes neighboring towns in Virginia and Maryland” is Bloomberg boomer number 6. Using the same methodology I used with Boomberg one, I determined that 16.5 miles in a straight line from the center of DC would bring you right about to Fulton on the southern fringe of HoCo. Close enough to feel the booms ripples.

In some ways HoCo, with its 5.2% unemployment rate is even doing better than its next door boom-metro area where it is averaging 5.5%.

Columbia Gets Some Respect

The Baltimore metro area has been given a new label by the White House Office of Management and Budget. It is now known as the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson MD Metropolitan Statistical Area. To2C netizen, Mike Ratcliffe noted that “Columbia (is) finally getting the recognition it deserves given that it is the second largest place in Maryland and a key economic center.”

“Metropolitan Statistical Areas have at least one urbanized area of 50,000 or more population, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties.”

Mike also shared a link to an interactive map from the Census Bureau that shows net gains and losses of HoCo population migration. For example, the map shows that HoCo has had a net gain of population from Montgomery and Prince George’s counties but a net loss to Carroll, Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties.

Ruminations on Presidents Day 2013

Presidents Day is one of those half holidays, sort of like Martin Luther King Day. Banks, schools and government offices are closed but in the private sector, commemoration of the holiday is not universal. From my own experience, I’d guess that only about a third of our HoCo loco non retail businesses gave their employees the day off.

That would include my own company.

For those of us who were trying to conduct business today it can be challenging. In my own personal experience, more often than not the person I really need to speak to will inevitably be one of those who have the day off.

That’s not to say that nothing gets done. There is even a certain bravado expressed among those who had to work. When a meeting is held on day like today there is certain to be someone who points out that “at least somebody is working today,” as if being stuck at work today was some sort of badge of honor.

Then there is the whole homogenization of what once was celebrated only on the 22^nd, no matter what day of the week it fell on. Congress gave that up in 1971 after deciding that a wandering holiday was inconvenient. It makes you wonder how long they’ll tolerate the 4^th of July.

I did find a couple of Presidents Day items in The Washington Post this morning. First there was this column by John Kelly about a book entitled “The Smithsonian Book of Presidential Trivia” It includes multiple choice quiz for serious history buffs. Until today I never knew that Grover Cleveland was called the Buffalo Hangman by some critics.

Then there is this feature by Chris Cillizza in which readers are asked to weigh in on the most underated and most overrated presidents. This is a political minefield and picks are bound to reflect personal political affiliations. One reader, identified as “blackwell575” tried to achieve balance.

"Over-rated by the right – Ronald Reagan 

Over-rated by the left – LBJ 

Under-rated by the right – FDR 

Under-rated by the left – Warren G. Harding"

Happy Presidents Day!

Those February Blues

Despite being the month of Valentines, it’s hard to find love for February. It’s the last full month of winter and by now, for me at least, the cold weather has really worn out its welcome. Everything outdoors looks uninviting.

It seems appropriate then that on Tuesday we learned that the Washington, DC metro area is the worst area in the country for traffic congestion. According to this story by Ashley Halsey III in The Washington Post, DC is the “most congested metropolitan area in the United States, a place where the average driver burns 67 hours and 32 gallons of gas each year sitting in traffic.”

Great. Then again, it’s probably not quite that bad in HoCo. Our Super Bowl champion city to the north is ranked 15^th in the same study.

On yet an even more positive note, signs of spring are beginning to appear. Pitchers and catchers report next Tuesday.

Thirteen

By some estimates over 17 million people suffer from triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number thirteen. Those folks could be in for a rough year.

They may actually be right to be paranoid. Considering that we begin the year with Congress taking the country over the fiscal cliff, you've have to admit that we are off to an inauspicious start.

Happy New Year!

Watch your step…

What’s It All Mean?

The question on many minds today is what does it all mean?

The lengthy and contentious presidential campaign bought us right back where we started, Dem President, Dem Senate and Repub House, despite billions spent trying to convince us to try something new. New York Times columnist Gail Collins wonders, “if we've moved into a post-political-consultant America.”

“You know, the last time I was in Ohio I found the people had heard so many ads they were numb. And they’d been called by so many people, and visited by so many party workers, that I began to think they had transcended all the wonders of modern election science and were just going to do whatever they would have done if they’d been left in peace from the beginning.”

Gail and fellow columnist David Brooks coauthored this column today with their thoughts on what it all means.

David believes the “election was mostly about demographics or more precisely about the way demographic shifts lead to cultural and political shifts.”

 “Ronald Reagan won with an electorate that was nearly 90 percent white. Now the electorate is around 72 percent white. And the white population is different — more educated, more centered in college towns, more socially diverse, more likely to live in single-person households.”

“That means they are less likely to subscribe to the cowboy ethos of the rugged individual. It doesn't mean they want to return to the New Deal, but it does mean that the old Republican narrative can no longer win a majority.”

It’s a fun read, if you like this sort of stuff, even with its scary ending.

Santa Claus for President

Tonight at dinner, CG’s bf Waterboy, mentioned that Santa Claus was listed as a presidential write-in candidate on his sample ballot in AA Co. Despite the political differences represented at the dinner table, all agreed that Santa would probably make a dam fine commander in chief.

After dinner I discovered that the jolly old elf is also listed as a write-in candidate on the HoCo ballot.

A quick Google search revealed that Santa Claus is actually serious about this.

Who can argue with Santa?

Brain Food

Instead of watching the debate Tuesday night we headed into Baltimore for the first lecture in the Baltimore Speaker Series. I've often described these evenings as brain food. It’s not as if we escaped an evening of politics either, the featured speaker was Bill Clinton.

It is not all that uncommon for protesters to show up at some of these lectures. A few years ago when we went to hear Pervez Musharraf, a sizable group of protesters in the park across the street from the Meyerhoff greeted attendees. Tuesday night a handful of protesters were on hand for the 42^nd presidents appearance but their cause was much more benign. The signs they held read “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Hillary.”

Even if you don’t agree with the mans politics or find his presidential behavior to be abhorrent, you probably would have enjoyed his lecture. He spoke at length about the work of his foundation but also offered his perspective on current affairs, um, I mean events.

As reported in this story by John Fritze in The Sun, the former president told the audience “he is confident Washington will work quickly through the nation's looming fiscal crisis after the election despite predictions that partisanship will continue to leave the federal government gridlocked next year.”

It’s easy to forget that before the impeachment mess he actually enjoyed a pretty good relationship with Congress, much better than Obama has. That being said, he was hopeful that things would soon improve.

“He reiterated calls for Congress to adopt a 10-year budget plan front-loaded with new spending to boost the economy that would then begin to impose cuts to reduce the nation's debt in the out-years. He said the Nov. 6 election would be a defining event that would force Republicans and Democrats to work more cooperatively.

"I think you'll be surprised after this election," he said.”

Next up in the speaker series is Jeanette Walls, author of The Glass Castle. I doubt there will be any protesters for her but we’ll still enjoy another healthy serving of brain food.

Election Forecasting

The almost daily release of polls on the presidential contest provide continual fodder for political debate. Political junkies like me eat this stuff up up and for longtime HoCo blogger Dave Wissing this is high season. The Hedgehog Report has posted the results of five polls already today and his readership is souring. A year go his monthly site visits were just shy of 40,000. This month they've already exceeded 110,000.

This morning, while digging around for post debate data, I discovered Nate Silvers FiveThiryEight Forecast blog in The New York Times. If you enjoy reading Hedgehogs daily poll postings you’ll love Nate's daily breakdowns of Electoral Votes, Chances of Winning, Popular Vote, State by State Probabilities, Electoral Vote Distribution, Tipping Point States, Return on Investment and more.

He covers the Senate races too.

All in all, good stuff.

A Civil Session

When it was first suggested that we do a podcast in conjunction the HoCo libraries Choose Civility Symposium I wasn't so sure it was a good idea. Paul and I both view the Choose Civility in Howard County effort with a fair degree of skepticism. On the other hand, it was an opportunity to have a freewheeling discussion about civility with Andy Green from The Sun, Korva Coleman from NPR, and author and investigative humorist, Henry Alford. That was too tempting to pass up.

We talked about civility in politics, the press, Facebook, old TV shows and email. It was more fun than I’d hoped. This was first time we've had three guests at the same time and somehow everyone managed to get equal time. I credit that to having a professional broadcaster in the group.

I also screwed up by calling Andy "David" at least once. I’ll chalk that up to the fact that maybe I was bit tired after a day that started at 5 AM. We didn't start taping the show until a little after nine last night. In keeping with the civil tone of the evening, Andy took it in stride and never said a word. When I listened to the show this afternoon I was embarrassed, to say the least. I can't imagine Korva making a gaffe like that. Sorry Andy.

Since it was late, we deliberately kept it shorter than usual. This episode is is only 26 minutes long. You can listen, to what may be our most civil podcast yet, here.

Fun Facebook Figures

While doing some research for my Business Monthly column tonight, I ran across a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center just before Facebook went public this summer. The highlights:

• Average number of friends: 229
• Percentage of friends that were high school acquaintances: 22%
• Percentage of friend requests that are accepted: 80%
• 63% of Facebook users have unfriended someone in the last year, up from 56% the year before.

I happen think the unfriending trend is directly related to the increase in nasty political status updates, which also happens to be the main theme of my column.

I also ran across this post from earlier this month by Jennifer Moire on the AllFacebook blog in which she discloses that “Facebook identified which states were buzzing about which candidates using its “Talk Meter” tool.”

The top five states “buzzing” for Romney are: 1) Utah; 2) Washington, DC; 3) Florida; 4) Massachusetts; 5) North Carolina.

The top buzz states for Obama are: 1) Washington, DC; 2) North Carolina; 3) Mississippi; 4) Louisiana; 5) Georgia.

I think some folks in DC would take umbrage with Jennifer labeling Washington DC as a state but there you go...

Some readers may have noted the absence of my column in last months paper. For the first time in a very long time, I sat that one out. Believe it or not, I couldn’t think of anything to say.

It happens.

HoCo By the Numbers…Fall 2012

The unemployment rate in HoCo currently stands at 5.5%, down slightly from the same period last year and still significantly below the national rate (8.1%). During the same period of time the total number of jobs in the county rose 4.3% to 159,503.

These numbers were reported in the September 2012 issue of Howard County Maryland Economic Indicators, a joint publication of the Howard County government and the Howard County Chamber of Commerce. The report tracks data through June.

HoCo also experienced a slight drop in office space vacancy from 13.9% to 13.8% which occurred in spite of an additional half million square feet being added to the market. HoCo now has over 11.5 million square feet of office space.

Other loco economic highlights include a 7.5% increase in personal income tax receipts and a 93.7% increase in Planning and Zoning fees, though building permits declined 16.9% from the same period last year.

It’s been a good year so far for HoCo agriculture too with soybean and corn expected to produce record crops. “Beef milk and bread prices are expected to increase in the long term due to increases in feed prices resulting from the Midwestern drought.”

This release of this report comes at the same time we learn that HoCo remains one of the top ten richest counties in the country. Seven of the nations richest counties are in the DC metro area, with HoCo in the number 5 spot, down two places from last year.  According to this story by Carol Morello in The Washington Post, “Maryland has the nation’s highest household income level, and Virginia is ninth.”

“The rankings in the 2011 American Community Survey released Thursday expand Washington’s dominance among high-income households, reflecting a regional economy that was largely cushioned as the recession yanked down income levels elsewhere. Household incomes rose in most counties around Washington last year, even as they continued to sink around the country.”

Irish Football

Though I can’t say that I am all together pleased that summer is ending, there is one good thing about it; the return of football.

Although the NFL season doesn’t officially start up until next Wednesday, college action begins this weekend with a storied rivalry being played in Ireland. On Saturday, Navy and Notre Dame will face each other in Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

A good number of US football fans will be making the trip across the pond to catch the game. That’s a good thing. I suspect Irish football fans find our version of the game slightly boring. Their own unique version of football moves a bit faster.

And though the Navy - Notre Dame game is grabbing the spotlight, the Irish gridiron action actually begins tomorrow when my own alma mater, John Carroll University takes on the St. Norbert College Green Knights at Donnybrook Stadium in Dublin.

Go Blue Streaks!

White House Beer

Beer is the new red wine, or so it seems to me at least. Lately more than a few people who generally prefer a glass of red wine as their adult beverage of choice, have mentioned to me how much they’re enjoying the craft beer revolution. Having come of age in a time when Heineken was considered the gold standard for beer and most bars only offered one or two beers on tap, I never really took to brewskis.

That is no longer the case. Nowadays I’m just as happy to enjoy one of the ever growing number of microbrews as I am a glass of red wine and any bar worth its beer nuts offers a myriad of draft beers on tap.

President Obama has even gotten in the craft beer game. According to this story by Amy Gardner in The Washington Post, the president “bought a beer-making kit (with personal funds) for the White House. The kitchen staff has made three varieties so far: White House Honey Ale, White House Honey Blonde Ale and White House Honey Porter. All are made with honey from Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden.”

He’s come a long way in three years. Back in 2009, when he hosted the beer summit with Henry Louis Gates and James Crowley, Obama had a Bud Light.

Special Delivery

I’m not exactly anti gun but I do count myself as one of those who believe that obtaining and possessing a semi automatic weapon ought to be more difficult than obtaining a fishing license. I don’t own a gun and I’m not a hunter but I have been known to enjoy blasting the hell out of trap and skeet on occasion.

It’s not so much the senseless assault in the Aurora Colorado  movie theatre that scares me as it is how loosely regulated the gun market is. Today, in this country, you could just as easily have an assault weapon dropped on your doorstep as any other package from UPS, even if you didn’t order it.

That's what happened a few days ago just down the pike in DC, a city with supposedly stricter gun controls than most states. Seth Horvitz, a DC musician, ordered a television through Amazon and ended up with an assault weapon instead. According to this story by Paul Duggan in The Washington Post, Seth “heard a knock at the door. By the time he opened it, a UPS man was leaving the building, on Eighth Street NE. To the right of the door, propped against a wall in the hallway, was a rectangular cardboard box about three feet long.”

He had ordered a 39 inch television. That would typically come in a bigger box.

In a box this size you get a “a tactical military-style SIG716 semiautomatic rifle, wrapped in heavy plastic and encased in Styrofoam, with an empty magazine for 7.62x51mm ammunition...”

“I definitely knew it was a mistake,” he said. “But I was confused as to how that kind of mix-up could happen. Especially given the recent events, the recent shootings. It surprised me to see how easy it would be for a gun to show up on someone’s doorstep — not just a gun, but an assault weapon.”

An Amazon spokesman did not return calls for comment. A UPS spokesman could not be reached.”

And, just in case you were wondering, this is the rifle that was dropped on Seth's doorstep. 

Creative Classing

The recent news that The Atlantic Cities online magazine had recognized HoCo as one of top ten counties in the country for concentration of the creative classes whetted my curiosity to learn more about what that actually means. The term “ creative classes” has been popularized by Richard Florida’s book “The Rise of the Creative Classes” eight years ago. 

“The economic need for creativity has registered itself in the rise of a new class, which I call the Creative Class. Some 38 million Americans, 30 percent of all employed people, belong to this new class. I define the core of the Creative Class to include people in science and engineering, architecture and design, education, arts, music and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or new creative content. Around the core, the Creative Class also includes a broader group of creative professionals in business and finance, law, health care and related fields.”

That’s a pretty big class.

Richard Florida is a senior editor of The Atlantic, the parent publication of The Atlantic Cities, so it comes as no shock that it focuses so much energy on identifying creative class areas of the country. In addition to ranking the counties, they ranked creative class states of which Maryland is number 3, behind the District of Columbia and Massachusetts. I suppose it’s nice that we beat Virginia at something. Squeezing even more juice out this topic, the magazine also ranked creative class metro areas. In this list Maryland got lumped together with DC, Virginia and West Virginia for a third place ranking.

West Virginia?

General Alexander and the Hackers

General Keith Alexander, Director of NSA and Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command will travel to Las Vegas next week to speak at Def Con, the 20th annual hacker conclave. According to this story by Timothy W. Coleman in Intelnews.org, the gathering “has become a Mecca of sorts for those interested in groundbreaking developments and nefarious possibilities within the computer security and cyber realm.”

It could present an awkward moment for the four star general.

“Attendees are encouraged to make a scene and yell out that they spotted a Fed. An interview of the suspect will take place and an informal vote will be conducted, as to the likely veracity of the attendee being a so-called Fed.  It’s meant to be in good fun and if the Fed is ousted a tee shirt is awarded to the accuser (“I spotted the fed!”) and to the Fed (“I am the fed!”).”

I’ll bet he gets a t-shirt.

Maryland vs Kansas

The governors of Maryland and Kansas were singled out in the national press today for being polar opposites in their respective approaches to taxing and spending. In this article by Michael Cooper in The New York Times the reporter writes that “the proper balance between taxing and spending has been raging in Congress, on the presidential campaign trail and in statehouses around the country, and no two states have settled it more differently this year than Maryland and Kansas, whose fiscal years began July 1.”

The Kansas guv “was persuaded that his state needed to cut its income taxes and taxes on small businesses significantly when he studied data from the Internal Revenue Service that showed that Kansas was losing residents to states with lower taxes.”

Many have made the same argument about our neighboring states but our guv takes a very different tack. He was quoted from an address he gave last month at the Maryland Municipal League annual convention.

“How much less research and development would be good for the innovation economy that we have an obligation and a responsibility, a duty and an imperative, to embrace? How many fewer hungry Maryland kids can we afford to feed? Progress is a choice: we can decide whether to make the tough choices necessary to invest in our shared future and move forward together. Or we can be the first generation of Marylanders to give our children a lesser quality of life with fewer opportunities.”

Coincidentally, I also came across this story by G. Scott Thomas in The Business Journals which ranked how well the individual states have recovered in employment since the recession began in 2007. He writes that nine states and DC, “have recovered all of the jobs they lost during the recession.”

The number one state was Texas, led by a Repub guv and the number two state was New York, led by a Dem. Below the top ten were 41 other states that have yet to recover their recession employment losses. Kansas was 21 and Maryland was 23. At that far down in the rankings you’d have to call it a draw.

That being said, I smiled when I noticed the dateline on The New York Times story. It was Ocean City, Md. Kansas may rank two places higher than us in State Nonfarm Employment but it doesn’t have a beach town to file a story from.

That’s gotta count for something.

In This Months Business Monthy

It was during a recent walk with Mama Wordbones that I began contemplating the fate of the poor mailbox. As we crossed through an established neighborhood in Ellicott City I noticed that many of the homeowners had landscaped around their mailboxes. Some had flowers and shrubs while others were a bit more elaborate.

“That’s something you won’t see in Columbia,” I said in reference to the planned communities cluster mailboxes.

She was a bit surprised to find out that even single family homes in Columbia are serviced by these communal mail receptacles.

“I don’t think I’d like that,” she said

It’s almost irrelevant anymore. The mailbox is not the conduit to the larger world that it once was. It’s place in our content delivery hierarchy has slipped to a lower tier. It is conceivable that, in my lifetime, I will witness the phasing out of regular delivery of mail by an agency of the federal government.

I’d be okay with that. Providing mail service to every single household in the United States is a very expensive proposition. The USPS has over 574,000 employees, operates 31,000 postal facilities, and owns over 218,000 vehicles. It last reported net revenue in 2006. Since then the losses have been in the billions.

The argument for keeping the USPS is that it reaches every single home in the country, urban, rural, rich, poor and everyone in between. Not everyone has broadband but everyone, except perhaps the homeless, has a mailing address.

Still, at the rate these USPS losses are accumulating, we might be better off giving everyone a 4G iPad.

You can read this month’s column here.

Fighting Fire with Fire

In our politically polarized world, there are still two things that can engender disdain from both sides of the aisle, robocalls and bandit or snipe signs. Snipe signs of course are those roadside signs that hold messages like “we buy houses,” and “credit repair ” along with a phone number to call. Unlike robocalls, snipe signs are prohibited in HoCo but that doesn’t seem to stop the loco proliferation of the signs. As fast as public works crews remove them, new ones pop up in their place.

In Hollywood, Florida, local officials have begun using the legal nuisance, robocalls, to fight back against the illegal nuisance, snipe signs. According to this story by Robbie Brown in The New York Times, “some coastal communities have begun aggressive campaigns against the signs — by robocalling the advertisers’ phone numbers.”

“It’s the only crime I know of where a person deliberately leaves their phone number behind,” said Mayor Peter Bober of Hollywood, which uses computer software to call the phone numbers, up to 20 times per day, until offenders pay a $75 fine. “They want us to call. So let’s call. And keep calling.”

It appears to work. In Hollywood, snipe signs have dropped 80%.