Posts about Development
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Yglesias on urbanism
Matt Yglesias wades into the debate about cities versus suburbs, and which is the future of America. Keep reading…
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“Saving” a neighborhood in order to destroy it
Many neighborhoods in New York City have their local NIMBY civic groups, which believe that all development is bad and frequently use phrases like “preserving the low-rise character of the neighborhood” as arguments for resisting all development and all change. A group in and around the Bowery has such a petition now, which a friend forwarded to me, but I had to reply… Keep reading…
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Three Bay Area transit plans
As the car-dependent San Francisco Bay Area continues to gradually make itself more transit-friendly, the idea of building less car-dependent housing, even in less central areas, continues to attract at least some adherents. Here are three plans in varying stages of realism. Keep reading…
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The comments keep rolling in
My post on Westwood Station is now number two on a Google search for “Westwood Station”, above even the project’s own home page. And it continues to be the most commented post, with comments coming in on a regular basis - eleven months after the original post! Keep reading…
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New York public spaces good and bad
Speaking of public space, the Project for Public Spaces has put together a detailed commentary on New York’s public space - the good spaces, the terrible ones, and the opportunities for the future. Keep reading…
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Hiro’s U-Stor-It
In the book Snow Crash, Hiro Protagonist (the protagonist, of course) lives in a U-Stor-It, a storage facility. There’s a building in Oakland, right next to Interstate 880, right at a curve positioned in a way that made it very visible from either direction. Keep reading…
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Westwood controversy swirls on Alpie.net
I get email notifications of new comments on this blog, and every so often there’s a comment on some really old post. The post that’s generated this most often is January’s discussion of Westwood Station, a mixed-use development proposal next to the Route 128 MBTA and Amtrak station in Westwood, MA (about 30 minutes south of Boston). Keep reading…
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Scott Stringer supports moving MSG
Following up to my post on moving Madison Square Garden and restoring a grand Penn Station, Borough President Scott Stringer has announced his support for the idea, and advocates for ensuring public participation in the planning process. Keep reading…
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“Suburban sensibility”
A Times article about Newport, the dense mixed-used development on the Hudson waterfront in Jersey City, talks about how the LeFrak family turned this wasteland of abandoned railyards into a thriving neighborhood. It’s a real success story and a great - and uncommon - example of how open developable spaces can be turned into something better than two-story generic… Keep reading…
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Save Our Superblock
One of the travesties of 1950s-era urban planning was the “superblock”, where cities disrupted the regular street grid to build large towers surrounded by windswept plazas. Most of these superblocks are now recognized as mistakes, such as Boston’s City Hall Plaza, a huge barren space nearly empty all year round, and the World Trade Center superblock,… Keep reading…