This big election day and potential for definitive Obama victory amplifies and highlights dramatic 21st century political, economic, and demographic trends underway:
- The United States population will be majority non-white within the next generation. African Americans will lose clout as Hispanic and Asian populations advance. White Americans will no longer dominate.
- The New Deal and Great Society had a 40-year run before running out of gas. Now Reaganomics goes over the cliff after nearly three decades. Just as the Roaring Twenties ended the last major Republican ascendancy, now the credit meltdown crashes the latest version of free market--trickle down policies, hopefully without the devastating impacts of 80 years ago.
- The global economy, the rise of China and India as economic powers, and the roiled Islamic oil-field region force a change in America's competitive standing. We're a high cost producer whose economy has been depending on consumer spending and high energy use. We are finding out that producing less and consuming more is a zero sum game that needs to be reversed or our standard of living will decline.
- Urban areas, including urbanizing suburbs, continue to gain clout connecting to global pathways. Secondary and tertiary cities removed from the larger global pathway markets are disadvantaged. Rural areas decline further.
From an election day perspective, the Republicans cling to a largely white, more rural Joe Six Pack "Real America" constituency touting old bromides like tax cuts for everyone, free markets, and super-power bluster. That's why it appears they will lose big. Who knows whether Obama can deliver--time will tell. But he represents the New World Order: An increasingly diverse country that must come to grips with reinventing itself with 21st solutions to regain its global footing.
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Jonathan D. Miller
A marketing communication strategist who turned to real estate analysis, Jonathan D. Miller is a foremost interpreter of 21st citistate futures – cities and suburbs alike – seen through the lens of lifestyles and market realities. For more than 20 years (1992-2013), Miller authored Emerging Trends in Real Estate, the leading commercial real estate industry outlook report, published annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute (ULI). He has lectures frequently on trends in real estate, including the future of America's major 24-hour urban centers and sprawling suburbs. He also has been author of ULI’s annual forecasts on infrastructure and its What’s Next? series of forecasts. On a weekly basis, he writes the Trendczar blog for GlobeStreet.com, the real estate news website. Outside his published forecasting work, Miller is a prominent communications/institutional investor-marketing strategist and partner in Miller Ryan LLC, helping corporate clients develop and execute branding and communications programs. He led the re-branding of GMAC Commercial Mortgage to Capmark Financial Group Inc. and he was part of the management team that helped build Equitable Real Estate Investment Management, Inc. (subsequently Lend Lease Real Estate Investments, Inc.) into the leading real estate advisor to pension funds and other real institutional investors. He joined the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S. in 1981, moving to Equitable Real Estate in 1984 as head of Corporate/Marketing Communications. In the 1980's he managed relations for several of the country's most prominent real estate developments including New York's Trump Tower and the Equitable Center. Earlier in his career, Miller was a reporter for Gannett Newspapers. He is a member of the Citistates Group and a board member of NYC Outward Bound Schools and the Center for Employment Opportunities.
