Recent Posts
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News flash: people drive more if there is parking
A study from San Francisco State shows something that should be obvious, but isn’t to the New York City Council: if there are fewer parking spaces, people choose to drive less. Therefore, San Francisco should limit the amount of parking in new developments, rather than requiring a certain amount as it does today. More about free parking, and its costs, in this SF Chronicle editorial. Keep reading…
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City Council takes some stupid pills
It’s the most basic rule of economics - if something costs more, people will do it less, and vice versa. Keep reading…
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Memorable Phrases for Parks
I’m in the bloggers’ area of the Parks1 Mayoral Forum. Up on stage, Democrats Gifford Miller, Virginia Fields, Freddy Ferrer, and Republican Tom Ognibene, are telling us why they all love parks. Keep reading…
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When will they ever learn?
The Death and Life of Great American Cities was published in 1961. It’s understandable that back then, urban planners thought single-use zoning was great. Cozy residential neighborhoods, grand shopping districts, polluting industry far away, beautiful soaring towers with verdant parkland in between - who wouldn’t be seducded by that vision, standing… Keep reading…
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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…