Let’s Take Advantage of The Bad Times
With city budgets shrinking rapidly, municipal governments are desperate to collect property tax revenue wherever they can find it. So they are moving to fast-track new, large development projects that […]
Television: The Drug of the Public Realm
I have been constantly astounded since I moved back to the city last summer at the extent to which television has penetrated our public spaces. I don’t mean out in […]
Keep Single Family Homes in Mind
I enjoyed looking at the examples of smart growth in NRDC’s new online feature, Picturing Smart Growth. Thanks to Kaid Benfield for bringing this great resource to everyone’s attention! I […]
Disasters in Tough Times
The other day the brakes went out on a fire truck as it drove down a steep side street in a Boston neighborhood. The truck careened across a busy street […]
Considering the Townhouse
Driving along I-95 from Virginia to New England, I noticed how many townhouse-style developments have cropped up where apartment complexes would have been built a decade ago. Here is an […]
A Few Slightly Radical Ideas to Ponder
Here’s a handful of somewhat radical planning ideas to ponder as we enter the Great Mini-Depression: I am wondering what sort of innovations will go mainstream in this strange new […]
Density Revisited
This past summer, I wrote a feature for Shelterforce about a community where a CDC was battling a NIMBY mentality. The CDC was trying to build neighborhood support for over […]
Don’t Put All The Dollars Into a Few Streets?
In a new, substantial post on planetizen.com, Charles Buki suggests that the foreclosure crisis presents an opportunity for community developers to re-assess where they allocate their limited resources. He says […]
The Trials of Grassroots Community Planning
Tom Angotti’s new book, New York For Sale, shows just how frustrating it can be to achieve true community-based planning. He writes that after the city government gave the power […]
Sorting Through What Sustainability Means
It’s interesting how language shifts slightly over time to reflect new ways of thinking. I recall a few years ago reading that some people interpreted “smart growth” to mean government […]
Get Your Bike On
Last night, on Halloween, I saw a hundred bicyclists take command of the street. Wearing all manner of clever costume, they rode confidently in a pack, and drivers waited patiently […]
Transient America
This morning I read about the dismay of residents of a New York City neighborhood who have watched as people who owned homes on their block have suddenly disappeared. Foreclosure […]