I never thought the day would come, but I actually find myself taking issue with Donald Shoup's recent criticism of the Cato Institute (which Randal O'Toole works for) and its own DC headquarters' employee parking program. While I agree with Shoup's more general critique of Cato's stance on … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2010
Darien, CT gets sued by the DOJ over inclusionary zoning
The New York Times has an interesting article about a Justice Department probe into Darien, CT's local inclusionary zoning rules. Inclusionary zoning means essentially that multi-unit developments have to offer a portion of the project as "affordable housing," which invariably means charging … [Read more...]
No ARC without TOD
A lot of fuss has been made by urbanists about how important the ARC transit tunnel under the Hudson is to curbing sprawl in North Jersey, but frankly I'm not convinced that more commuter rail into Manhattan is the cure for what ails New Jersey. The state's fundamental problem is its reliance on … [Read more...]
Sunday links
1. Planners in the Twin Cities have decided to "back away from the age-old compact in which the state tries to keep pace with suburban expansion" (i.e., they're canceling new outer road projects) and add toll/bus lanes to highways in the inner metro area. Republican governor and business on one … [Read more...]
Cap’n Transit comes out of the closet as a market urbanist
...sort of. He never quite cops to it, but he says he "appreciates" libertarianism's arguments (unlike some people), and gives this great summary of what we here call the market urbanist narrative: In the past, private companies ran the trains, interurbans, trolleys and buses. They were usually … [Read more...]
Friday links
1. Miller-McCune (what a bad name for a magazine) has an article about a possible VMT tax, and points out that more fuel-efficient vehicles will lead to less gas tax revenue.2. Streetsblog has an extremely unflattering profile of Republican nominee for NY Governor Carl Paladino. He made a name … [Read more...]
When will New Jersey reverse its sprawling ways?
by Stephen SmithNew Jersey has always been an odd state – it's the most densely populated of the fifty, and yet it lies just outside of the core of both of its metro areas (Philadelphia and New York). North Jersey does have a formidable number of mid-sized cities, but the biggest – Newark - is … [Read more...]
A comment on NYU’s proposed superblocks
Benjamin Hemric left an interesting comment about my remark about NYU's expansion plans in Greenwich Village. First of all, I should admit that I was lazy and got NYU's plans totally wrong – they are going to add towers to the three that I. M. Pei already built, not tear them down, and they're … [Read more...]