"Houston has no zoning" is a very popular urban planning meme. It has its roots in Houston's lacks one very specific kind of zoning: Euclidean separation of residential, commercial, and industrial uses. Euclidean zoning happens to be the one kind of planning that people easily understand (the whole … [Read more...]
Archives for 2011
The Texas Transportation Institute’s funny definition of “congestion”
As if anybody didn't realize it before, it's now obvious that the Texas Transportation Institute, despite its prestige, is intellectually bankrupt. David Alpert at Greater Greater Washington says it better than I could: The Texas Transportation Institute today released the final version of their … [Read more...]
Links
1. A report on (Western) European parking policies. Abstract of the abstract: Big on charging market rates for on-street parking, but also big on capping private developer's ability to build parking. I'd be interested to see an analysis like this done to see if the caps are actually set lower than … [Read more...]
Why are universities so bad at managing their land?
I've lived near a lot of schools in my life. Growing up on the Main Line I could walk to (at least?) five institutions of high learning, I went to school in Georgetown, and just a few weeks ago I've moved across the street from Gallaudet University in DC. And I've noticed a common thread among the … [Read more...]
Why am I so mean?
In the past week I've been asked twice why, essentially, I have to be so mean: Steven [sic!], I'm struck by how well you couple true insight with meaningless insults that undermine your credibility to those who don't share your point of view. Stephen– I like your work here quite a bit, but I find … [Read more...]
Long weekend links
1. The NYT utterly humiliates itself with a story on how difficult it is for a kid straight outta college from "a prominent Portuguese banking family" to rent a $2,500/mo. studio in a Chelsea coop for less than 12 months. Sounds like the perfect posterchild for Sheldon Silver's rent control … [Read more...]
London congestion pricing, then and now
It's already Sunday and I've exhausted my cache of unread blog posts from the week, so I went in search of new blogs to read and can across this really good one: Spatial Analysis. A post from December has this set of maps – private turnpikes in 18th century London and the congestion zone map in the … [Read more...]
LaHood’s revealingly stupid reply to the WaPo’s HSR criticism
The WaPo earlier this week ran an editorial against California high-speed rail, and on Friday ran a response from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. As the dedicated anti-California HSR blog High-Speed Train Talk says, the letter does a pretty good job of summing up everything that's wrong with … [Read more...]