Posts tagged Sprawl
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Island Plan for new villages?
Martha’s Vineyard’s regional land use agency, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, is conducting a broad participatory planning proccess, Island Plan, to solicit input and devise a long-term plan for the future of the island over the next 50 years. Still in its early stages, it covers topics such as housing affordability, year-round employment opportunities,… Keep reading…
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Freeways that never were
In the 1950s and 60s, urban planners were busy constructing freeways across America, through plains and mountains where they were needed, and into the centers of cities where they bulldozed vibrant communities and hastened sprawl and urban decay. Keep reading…
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Thin layer of ice found in hell
Smart growth, transit-oriented development - there are many names for the idea of building mixed-use, walkable communities. Whatever you call it, it’s starting to catch on in suburban communities from San Mateo to Silver Spring. But most are areas with existing transit, near to already walkable cities. What about America’s great bastions of… Keep reading…
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Economists for sprawl?
A Harvard economist, Edward Glaeser, got some press recently for a report he has written about the connection between land-use rules in Massachusetts towns and housing prices. It’s really not much of a surprise that many towns, like Lincoln and Weston (among the richest towns in the Commonwealth) use land restrictions to keep their towns small and expensive. 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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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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The sprawl lovers
There’s something aesthetically appealing about big, soaring highway ramps conveying a feeling of speed and mobility. And I can understand why, in Robert Moses’ day, people could have thought building highways was a grand endeavor. But we now know they just don’t work. Or do we? Alex Marshall, author of one of the best books on sprawl,… Keep reading…
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Let’s solve traffic jams by creating more!
Congress is close to approving a huge transportation bill, which in its original form allocated $300 billion to roads but only $75 billion to transit. According to the article, “House Transportation Committee spokeman Steve Hansen… cited the $70 billion that is ‘wasted each year due solely to traffic congestion and the waste of more than 5.7 billion gallons… Keep reading…
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Reaper Mall
Actually, it turns out there’s quite a lot to say about How Cities Work and Reaper Man. In Reaper Man, a mysterious set of snow globes appears in Ankh-Morpork, followed by metal shopping carts. A character realizes that if cities are like life forms - large, slow moving life forms - then there would evolve parasites to prey upon them, just as other long-lived life… Keep reading…
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Marshall and Pratchett
I started reading How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken by Alex Marshall on the plane. (I also started reading Reaper Man, but there’s not much to say about that other than that Terry Pratchett is hilarious and you should read his books). Keep reading…