Joel Kotkin

Described by the New York Times as “America’s uber-geographer,” Joel Kotkin is an internationally-recognized authority on global, economic, political and social trends. His latest book, The Coming of Neo Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class, is out in paperback.

Mr. Kotkin is the presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University in Orange, California and executive director of Chapman's Center for Demographics and Policy. He is a senior research fellow at Civitas Institute at University of Texas at Austin. He is executive editor of the widely read website www.newgeography.com and has a regular column in Spiked in the UK, the National Post in Canada and the American Mind. He also writes regularly for Unherd, The Spectator (UK), Quillette, the Telegraph (UK) National Review, City Journal and many other national publications.

Kotkin is the author of seven previously published books, including the widely praised The New Class Conflict (Telos Press), which describes the changing dynamics of class in America. He is co-editor of a book on the future of cities which was published in winter 2023 by the American Enterprise Institute and co-edited the 2018 collection Infinite Suburbia.

He authored The Human City: Urbanism For the Rest of Us, in which he argues that built environments must reflect the preferences of most people. Other past books include The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, which explores how the nation will evolve in the next four decades. The City: A Global History and Tribes: How Race, Religion and Identity Are Reshaping the Global Economy, was published in numerous languages including Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, German and Arabic.

Mr. Kotkin has published reports on topics ranging from the future of class in global cities to the places with the best opportunities for minorities. His report, “Post-familialism: Humanity’s Future,” an examination of the world’s future demography, was published by the Civil Service College of Singapore and Chapman University and has been widely commented on not only in the United States, but in Israel, Brazil, Canada and other countries. He recently published the California Latino Project, looking at ways to help Latinos achieve upward mobility.

He has spoken to groups ranging from small numbers of CEOs to large international organizations. Consulting work has included ideas about improving American competitiveness and the US business climate as well as studies of New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Houston, San Bernardino, and St. Louis, among others.