Joel Kotkin

He has also authored The City: A Global History and The New Geography books about city development and has studied various major cities including Los Angeles. Kotkin argues that the model of urban development as exemplified by pre-automobile cities such as New York City and Paris is outdated in many cases.

Kotkin believes in a "back to basics" approach which stresses nurturing the middle class and families with traditional suburban development. In addition he was a columnist for the New York Times a business reporter at KTTV earning a Golden Mic award for his reporting and was West Coast editor for Inc. magazine.