Stephen’s post on alleged corruption at the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission reminded me of a great scene from The Bonfire of the Vanities that I wanted to share here. Tom Wolfe describes a scenario in which a black bishop wants to sell his church’s property in order to raise money for the [...]
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October 10th, 2011 | Category: corruption, Lifestyle, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, preservation | 3 comments |  printable viewIn his new book, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America, Richard White explores the financing of railroads in the American West and the political process behind it. In history books, this accomplishment is often looked on as a heroic feat of engineering and perseverance, but White offers a contrasting perspective of [...] July 13th, 2011 | Category: corruption, infrastructure, Transportation | 17 comments | printable viewby Stephen Smith There’s a lot to be said for Amtrak’s mismanagement, but a lot of it is technical and inaccessible to the layman. This, however, is unconscionable: Amtrak still does not offer wireless internet – either free or paid – on any of its trains. Megabus and Bolt Bus (whose tickets between DC [...] December 30th, 2009 | Tags: amtrak, Stephen Smith | Category: corruption, Transportation | 5 comments | printable viewThe Orange County Register’s Freedom Politics website (check out my rent control article FreePo published in March) features articles discussing two differing takes on road privatization from notable scholars Walter Block and Robert Poole. In Robert Poole’s article, he discusses the merits of the increasingly popular use of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) to fund [...] May 7th, 2009 | Tags: fascism, Private Roads, privatization, Public-Private Partnerships, Robert Poole, socialism, Walter Block | Category: corruption, Economics, infrastructure, privatization, Transportation | 10 comments | printable view(Map of Robert Moses’ unbuilt proposals via “vanshnookenraggen.”) Sandy Ikeda blogs: If Moses were around today I don’t think he’d waste any time getting every major project he could think of “shovel ready” for hundreds of billions of stimulus money. While he’s no longer with us, I do fear that, with the [...] March 23rd, 2009 | Tags: Author: Sandy Ikeda, infrastructure, nyc, robert moses, stimulus | Category: corruption, history, infrastructure | 10 comments | printable viewChicago Real Estate Daily: An Illinois appellate court has struck down the city of Chicago’s landmarks ordinance, saying it is unconstitutionally vague, putting in jeopardy the city’s protection of more than 250 buildings and 50 historic districts. Judge James Fitzgerald Smith of the three person Appellate Court wrote, “We believe that the terms ‘value,’ [...] February 1st, 2009 | Tags: blair kamin, historic preservation, Landmarks, property rights | Category: corruption, preservation | 4 comments | printable viewAs Washington debates how many hundreds-of-billions of the nearly trillion-dollar stimulus will go towards infrastructure or to other spending/tax cut schemes, pundits claim that spending billions on “shovel ready” public works projects can effectively create jobs that will lead to recovery. As readers probably know, I am skeptical that the anticipated spending could be [...] January 12th, 2009 | Tags: boondoggles, budgets, construction, government, highways, infrastructure, paul krugman, roads, stimulus, Transportation, tyler cowen | Category: corruption, Economics, Free-market impostors, Transportation, Urban[ism] Legends | 2 comments | printable viewThis morning, as I stepped to the stairway that brings me into Brooklyn’s 86th street subway station on the R line, I was greeted by two MTA employees who handed me MTA’s ‘Rider Report Card’ to fill out and mail in. As I started down the steps, I noticed something different than the usual [...] December 8th, 2008 | Tags: incentives, maintenance, MTA, nyc, subway, transit | Category: corruption, Transportation | Leave a comment | printable view |
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