So Much for the Middle Class

Urban issues writer Joel Kotkin writes in an article about the middle class's "uphill battle against a host of forces from high taxes and regulation to poor schools, highly bifurcated labor markets, and the scourge of crime" to continue existing in big cities. San Francisco's among the big names leaching the traditional bread and butter of the economy, and Kotkin wonders aloud whether cities even need a middle class, and whether they're a "demographic dead end." To be replaced by a self-renewing supply of hipsters! [New Geo]