While I sympathize with the theme and agree with regards to roadway spending and “conservative” hypocrisy, a recent article in the progressive The American Prospect takes a narrow-minded view of politics and urbanism, while throwing around broad generalizations about evolution and global warming to support their assertions:
The Conservative Case for Urbanism
In fact, one doesn’t have [...]
Ever hear of interesting economic indicators such as the correlation beween the economy and length of skirts? Here’s one urbanists should appreciate: the skyscraper index, which shows strong correlation between the completion of world’s tallest buildings and downturns in the business cycle. Mark Thornton discusses the skyscraper index in his article, Skyscrapers and Business Cycles [...]
affordability in New York City
Play with the HUD-Brookings Institution’s new index maps here:
The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, developed by CNT and its collaborative partners, the Center for Transit Oriented Development (CTOD), is an innovative tool that measures the true affordability of housing. Planners, lenders, and most consumers traditionally measure housing affordability as 30 [...]
Harvard Economist Ed Glaeser wrote an opinion piece in the New York Sun about the differences in housing affordability and other costs of living between Houston and New York.
New York is naturally more expensive than Houston because the geographical constraints force higher density development, which is more expensive to build. New York’s highly regulated [...]
There is little reliable research into the economic returns of high-performance (green) features of buildings, but Professor John Quigley plans to release his groundbreaking research on the subject this Fall.
I am very excited to learn this news, and will certainly look forward to reviewing the results. Especially if implementation could improve my own development practice.
Professor [...]
This post is part of an ongoing series featured on Market Urbanism called Urbanism Legends. The Urbanism Legends series is intended to expose many of the myths about development and Urban Economics. (it’s a play on the term: “Urban Legends” in case you didn’t catch that)
We’ve all heard it said by some NIMBY [...]
Regular reader, Bill forwarded this article from the New York Daily News calling it an “outstanding collection of anti-density and anti-market propaganda presented (as always) as objective journalism.” The article is riddled with misconceptions (aka Urbanism Legends) about zoning and development and is a perfect example of the quality of journalism that touches on [...]
So, you think the planners in your area are taking something a little too far? Be glad you aren’t in Venezuela…
I wish I could link to the article by Michael Mehaffy in The Urban Land Institute’s May edition of Urban Land titled “Venezuela’s New Socialist Cities”, but ULI doesn’t provide the online edition to non-members. [...]
Check these out:
