A few days ago, Mayor Bloomberg made a startling announcement: The 7 train extension to New Jersey is still on. The idea was first floated last year as a replacement for the canceled trans-Hudson commuter rail ARC project, but it was a hard sell then, and at $10 billion, it’s still a hard … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2011
Book Review of Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi
I'm reviewing Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi by Steve Inskeep as part of a TLC Book Tour. Other bloggers are also reviewing the book throughout October, and you can find links to their reviews here. I received a complimentary copy of the book, and I'd like to send it to a reader if anyone … [Read more...]
Cities and the Market Process: Part 1
In a post about the tendency for emergent urbanists to promote the idea of cities having a single equilibrium, Alon Levy recently wrote that collective choice is the best manner for determining urban form. Many urbanists accept that some of the top-down regulations that limit density or use are … [Read more...]
London Planning Politics Breeds a Rare NIMBY Strain: Preventative Anti-NIMBY NIMBYism
Ministry of NIMBYs is more like it! Talk about man-bites-dog: London’s Ministry of Sound, perhaps the world’s most famous nightclub, has gone on an all-out offensive against new residential skyscrapers near its home at Elephant & Castle, in Southwark. Their latest target is a … [Read more...]
Why Preserve a Broken Cornice Line?
There’s a lot that bothers me about preservation policy, but one of the weirdest has to be rules that make it difficult to fill in gaps in building height. I’m not a big fan of the idea that historic neighborhoods have to stay the same “scale” forever, but it boggles my mind … [Read more...]
On Favored Quarters, Off-Center Skyscraper Districts, and Poverty
Following up on my post yesterday skyscrapers in Europe, I’d like to explain why, in detail, central business districts are generally superior to off-center ones like La Défense outside Paris or Washington’s Virginia suburbs. It’s not that I just enjoy the spatial symmetry and … [Read more...]
Old Urbanist on New Public Housing
Charlie Gardner at Old Urbanist, one of my favorite urbanist blogs, has a great post that echoes what I said a few days ago about the latest wave of American public housing projects. Here he first quotes a Nashville public housing official: “Part of the problem with public housing in the … [Read more...]
How Europe Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Skyscraper
I often hear from people who are defending Washington, D.C.’s height limit argue that the restriction gives the city a “European” feel. I disagree with this for a number of reasons – the city has much fewer historic downtown buildings, and the ones it does have are much younger … [Read more...]