Do Urban Neighborhoods Need Homeowners?
At a conference I attended last week, one of the speakers, a colleague whose judgment and knowledge I respect, offered his take on the future of urban single family neighborhoods. The lower income families who have the credit and can get together the down payment to become homeowners are buying in the suburbs. People working […]
What’s The Matter With Atlantic City?
Over the past few months, there’s been a drumbeat of bad news coming out of Atlantic City. Since the beginning of 2014, four casinos have closed, including Revel, which the state of New Jersey granted $261 million in tax breaks to back in 2011 so they could finish construction and open their doors. A fifth […]
Now You See the Money, Now You Don’t
Since November of last year, the United States Justice Department has announced multi-billion dollar settlements with the nation’s three largest banks – Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America (BoA) – over what Justice calls the “packaging, marketing, sale and issuance of residential mortgage-backed securities.” Collectively, these three banks have agreed to pay a total […]
Japan’s Unintentional Social Experiment
Having just come back from two weeks in Japan, my brain is still overflowing with sensations and images from that fascinating, exciting, and intermittently mystifying country. (I won’t subject Rooflines […]
Is It Time to Think About Post-Post-Katrina New Orleans?
Nine years on, New Orleans is a very different place from what it was like in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. What may be more notable, though, as I came […]
NYC Proposes Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, The “Times” Doesn’t Get It
Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio released Housing New York, a ten-year plan to create or preserve 200,000 affordable housing units in the city. While New […]
A Tale of Two Infrastructure Projects
Living in Central New Jersey, I’ve had a ringside seat for the last few years to one of the largest infrastructure projects currently going on in the United States, the […]
Can Youngstown Make It On Its Own?
If there’s a place in the U.S. where people need to start thinking regionally, and recognize that the entire county has a stake in their central city’s future, it’s the stretch of northeast Ohio that includes Youngstown.
The Millennials Are Marching…But is Anyone Else?
Last month I wrote about how well-educated members of the millennial generation are moving in large numbers to the central cities, and how places like Baltimore, Pittsburgh and St. Louis […]
The March of the Millennial Generation to the Cities is Real
This past fall, the Washington Post ran a series called “The March of the Millennials“ about how this generation is changing Washington, D.C. For those of you who have been […]
The Housing Recovery: Now You See It, Now You Don’t
The housing market is coming back. Finally, after listening to false hopes and promises for the last few years, it may really be happening. New construction starts, existing house sales, […]
Can We Demolish Our Way to Revitalization?
While the answer to that question in the title of this piece is obvious, there’s a strong case to be made that a lot of the buildings that make up […]