Global Chinatown, the trend of Chinese investment in a wide range of business and real estate opportunities across the globe, is continuing to show endurance, particularly as investors from China drop substantial bucks in American cities. Globally, including in the US, Chinese investment did decline in the first half of 2014, largely due to significant drops in energy-sector investment. But...

In good times and bad, cyber security will be big business. The Sony hacking incident was just the latest high-profile cyberattack that has the cyber security industry rapidly expanding to keep pace with growing demand. And that translates into a robust and growing career arena, ripe with potential to provide expertise and services on a range of levels. The Trends...

Vinyl record sales in 2014 were the highest they’ve been since 1993, according to a survey by Digital Music News and The Wall Street Journal, mirroring the rise in digital music sales around the world (the only exception being in the United States). Neilsen SoundScan data report that 9.2 million vinyl albums were sold worldwide. While that accounts for only...

For generations of Americans, “success” meant life in the suburbs. Not anymore. Millennials are choosing city life in far greater percentages than their parents’ generation, according to several recent census studies. There are a variety of reasons. The first: the economy. Unlike previous generations for which home ownership was a goal, most millennials now are too financially stretched to even...

To understand the insanity of China’s real estate bubble, imagine every state governor borrowing $10 billion from the federal government to build a city to suit his own vision. The result is China’s Ghost Cities — sprawling new cities with almost no one living or working in them. Many of these cities resemble a Las Vegas casino, such as the...

When World War II ended in 1945 and the troops came home from war, they did what a vast majority of young men love to do. No longer dropping bombs and firing bullets in foreign lands, returning soldiers concentrated their firepower on the home front. The Baby Boom generation was born. Now, 70 years later, those boomers, the youngest of...

Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom.   —   Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation In Our Time You tell me it’s the institutionWell, you know, you better free your mind instead — John Lennon, Revolution The article in the Winter 2014 Trends Journal on the growing role of creativity and purpose...

Rangers at national parks have a new duty: rescuing visitors from life-threatening selfies. An increasing number of park visitors have been trying to photograph themselves in the company of parks’ wild animals. People who would not think of walking into the woods to pet a bear feel no compunction about getting close enough for a smartphone camera two-shot with an...

Every generation has its nostalgia, that sentimental longing for iconic moments in the past. Yet, when a culture is stressed, depressed, discontent and riddled with pessimism, the appeal and psychological uses of nostalgia are intensified. Entering 2015, we expect to see nostalgic yearnings come to the forefront in cultures around the word, with “new” retro products, attitudes and packaged memories...