What the hell is going on with "progressive" mayors?

We're so far away from any actual city leadership-except, it would seem, in Baltimore.

Paul Krugman is almost right, again.

As much as I hate to admit it, I mostly agree with Paul Krugman’s main point from his most recent Opinion piece for the Times called “The Gentrification of Blue America.” There’s almost (almost) nothing I dislike more within the larger urbanism discourse than the word “gentrification,” which has the chameleonic quality of meaning “development that displaces,” but is often tossed around as “development [this group] doesn’t like,” but nevertheless Krugman makes a good point, and it’s worth diving into a little more:

One way to think about this is to say that California as a whole is suffering from gentrification. That is, it’s like a newly fashionable neighborhood where affluent newcomers are moving in and driving working-class families out. In a way, California is Brooklyn Heights writ large.

Krugman is talking about a whole state, California, as having been Golden Gate-kept¹, widening the gap between haves and have-nots. In this case, the have is a h…