Posts by David Alpert — Founder
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The all-purpose suburban mega-home
Robert Samuelson writes about the dangerous trend toward larger and larger homes. “By and large,” he says, “the new American home is a residential SUV. It’s big, gadget-loaded and slightly gaudy.” Encouraged by tax breaks for mortgages, American families are buying larger and larger homes even as the prices soar. Keep reading…
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Purple Line
In the DC area, more jobs are continuing to move to the suburban areas outside the city. The way the regional authorities handle this growth will have a great deal of influence on whether the growth leads to more walkable, transit-oriented communities or to more sprawl. Keep reading…
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A picture is worth a thousand activists
Aaron Naparstek discusses a few reasons for the momentum shifting away from Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards proposal: New York losing the 2012 Olympic bid, the Extell competing bid, but most interesting of all, a suggestion that showing a picture of the bizarre looking buildings in the New York times galvanized previously unconcerned citizens into opposition:… Keep reading…
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Get yer community plans here - maybe
Theresa Toro points out the Greenpoint/Williamsburg community plan, whose difficulty of finding I lamented earlier. Keep reading…
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Added value of community
This article joins in the chorus of criticism of the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision, which allowed the City of New London to condemn property for redevelopment even though the public value of that was fairly tenuous. But the article also thinks beyond the simple government power versus private property rights argument, by suggesting that the real issue is one of valuing the… Keep reading…
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Which came first, the city or the liberal?
Citizens in urban areas disproportionately support Democrats, and citizens in exurban areas - the sprawl far away from urban centers - generally support Republicans. Rich or poor, even controlling for race and other factors, the cities are Blue and the exurbs Red. Is this because living in a diverse, dense community forces individuals to value policies that help all… Keep reading…
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Green along the blue
In New York City’s industrial past, waterfronts were industrial zones. New York became America’s largest city by being America’s busiest port. Manhattan’s coastlines were piers and warehouses, for transferring goods between ships; the entire waterfront of Jersey City was railyards where goods would switch between ship and train. Consequently, the land in the middle of Manhattan… Keep reading…
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El Camino Bonito
I walked across El Camino Real - once. This road, once the main thoroughfare through Silicon Valley, is now a 50 mile long strip mall of motels, gas stations, mattress stores, car rental places, fast food, and one major university. Every business or shopping center along its length has a parking lot. In the utopia of sprawl, El Camino Real would be Main Street. Keep reading…
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What free market?
Houston is the poster child for bad urban planning - or should I say the complete lack of any planning. Developers build subdivisions across the Texas plains, and the government builds freeways to them, in an endless cycle of sprawl. This Houston Chronicle article talks about the many negative effects this is having on the region, from decaying inner-ring suburbs to… Keep reading…
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Harvard’s Allston plan: wow
The architects hired by Harvard University to study locating facilities in Allston have created an interim report, and it’s really nice. If Harvard really implements most of it, rather than getting cheap and cutting the more expensive pieces which improve quality of life, it sounds as though a really nice new campus might result. I’m pleasantly surprised,… Keep reading…