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LI Dems to councilman: oppose density so we can get reelected


Earlier today I was reading this article about “cupcake moms” at the local PTA mobilizing online against TOD in Huntington Station, a hamlet in Long Island, and while it looked like your average suburban NIMBY story, this part of the Long Island Press story jumped out at me:

[Supervisor] Petrone had reportedly wanted [...]

Even Midtown Manhattan not immune to anti-density NIMBYism


by Stephen Smith

In general, I think of Manhattan below Central Park as perhaps the freest place in America in terms of land use restrictions. There are no minimum parking regulations, zoning variances are relatively easy to get, and FAR restrictions are relatively generous. Historical preservation designations sometimes limit redevelopment, but other than [...]

Taxing Land Speculation


Bill Hudnut at the Urban Land Institute wrote a post that attracted some attention at Austin Contrarian and Overhead Wire. Hudnut discusses a different approach to taxing land:

How about restructuring the property tax across America to install a two-tiered system? More tax on those horizontal pieces of empty land and asphalt, less [...]

The Story of I’On: Struggles of a New Urbanist Project


43 John Galt Way

27 Mises Street

I recently googled upon a post at a blog called “Rub-a-Dub” that mentioned a land development project in Mount Pleasant, SC called I’On. 

I imagine the developers of the I’On “Traditional Neighborhood Development” (TND) community are sympathetic with Market Urbanism, as they named streets [...]

Euclid’s Legacy


While well intentioned, like many progressive interventions of the eary 1900s, zoning has contributed to sprawl (which has begun to be demonized by progressives over the recent decades) and served to inhibit the vitality and diversity of urban neighborhoods. The triumph of the core philosophy behind Euclid vs. Ambler later enabled destructive urban [...]

Dealing With NIMBYs


NIMBYism is the biggest obstacle to the evolution of vibrant urban communities, but the incentives for some to use public forums to impose restrictions on neighboring properties are great. Local politicians often bow to the most vocal residents, often with minority opinions, to avoid making waves, but their impositions are at the expense [...]

Urban[ism] Legend: Greedy Developers


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 [...]

Carroll Gardens, Choose Only One: Setback or Height Restriction?


NY Times – Carroll Gardens: The Big Front Yards That Rob the Streets

Although the yards serve as leafy margins to the streets, creating ample open space between the rows of brownstones arrayed on either side, they also put those streets into the “wide” category for zoning purposes. This means developers can [...]