Nolan Gray plunges into the Sam Raimi “Spider-Man” trilogy to uncover the housing problems (and solutions) of expensive cities like New York.
The Limits of the Singapore Housing Model
In 2015, urban studies professor Anne Haila published a book on Singapore’s land ownership and housing system called Urban Land Rent: Singapore as a Property State. … [Read More...]
Review: The Urban Mystique, by Josh Stephens
This book, available from solimarbooks.com, is a set of very short essays (averaging about three to five pages) on topics related to urban planning. Like me, Stephens generally values walkable cities and favors more new housing in cities. So naturally I am … [Read More...]
More on Subways and COVID-19
After reading an article suggesting that New York's subways seeded COVID-19, Salim Furth's response to that article on this blog, and one or two other pieces, I decided to write a more scholarly piece summarizing the various arguments. The piece is at … [Read More...]
The “everybody left Manhattan” argument (updated 5-15 to reflect recent data)
The COVID-19 epidemic has led to a lot of argument about the role of urban form; defenders of the Sprawl Faith argue that New York's high infection and fatality rate is proof that transit and density are bad, bad, bad. On the other hand, urbanists point out … [Read More...]
Automobiles Seeded the Massive Coronavirus Epidemic in New York City
New York City is an epicenter of the global novel coronavirus pandemic. Through April 16, there were 1,458 confirmed cases per 100,000 residents in New York City. Always in the media eye, and larger than any other American city, New York City has become the … [Read More...]
Do cities have too much public space?
My sense is that parks and similar forms of public space tend to be far less controversial than housing or industry. But an interesting paper by Israeli architecture professor Hillel Schocken suggests that a city can have too much public space.He begins … [Read More...]
Are Dollar Stores Wiping Out Grocery Stores?
I had always thought dollar stores were a nice thing to have in an urban neighborhood, but recently they have become controversial. Some cities have tried to limit their growth, based on the theory that "they impede opportunities for grocery stores and … [Read More...]
Even NIMBYs should be YIMBYs
Jeremiah Moss, a New York blogger, just wrote a long article complaining about the bad habits of his new neighbors in the East Village. I suspect many, if not most readers, of his article would think: maybe we need to zone out new housing to keep out the … [Read More...]
For once I agree with the NIMBYs: please don’t turn my neighborhood into Dubai- because Dubai isn’t dense enough!
One common argument against new housing is that it will turn "[neighborhood at issue] into Dubai." Evidently, some people think Dubai is a hellscape of super-dense skyscapers.In fact, Many Dubai neighborhoods aren't very dense at all.There is one … [Read More...]