A few days ago, Mayor Bloomberg made a startling announcement: The 7 train extension to New Jersey is still on. The idea was first floated last year as a replacement for the canceled trans-Hudson commuter rail ARC project, but it was a hard sell then, and at $10 billion, it’s still a hard … [Read more...]
London Planning Politics Breeds a Rare NIMBY Strain: Preventative Anti-NIMBY NIMBYism
Ministry of NIMBYs is more like it! Talk about man-bites-dog: London’s Ministry of Sound, perhaps the world’s most famous nightclub, has gone on an all-out offensive against new residential skyscrapers near its home at Elephant & Castle, in Southwark. Their latest target is a … [Read more...]
Why Preserve a Broken Cornice Line?
There’s a lot that bothers me about preservation policy, but one of the weirdest has to be rules that make it difficult to fill in gaps in building height. I’m not a big fan of the idea that historic neighborhoods have to stay the same “scale” forever, but it boggles my mind … [Read more...]
On Favored Quarters, Off-Center Skyscraper Districts, and Poverty
Following up on my post yesterday skyscrapers in Europe, I’d like to explain why, in detail, central business districts are generally superior to off-center ones like La Défense outside Paris or Washington’s Virginia suburbs. It’s not that I just enjoy the spatial symmetry and … [Read more...]
Old Urbanist on New Public Housing
Charlie Gardner at Old Urbanist, one of my favorite urbanist blogs, has a great post that echoes what I said a few days ago about the latest wave of American public housing projects. Here he first quotes a Nashville public housing official: “Part of the problem with public housing in the … [Read more...]
How Europe Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Skyscraper
I often hear from people who are defending Washington, D.C.’s height limit argue that the restriction gives the city a “European” feel. I disagree with this for a number of reasons – the city has much fewer historic downtown buildings, and the ones it does have are much younger … [Read more...]
The War on Drugs Is a War on Cities
Ken Burns’ new documentary Prohibition is excellent and highly recommended on its own merits, but urbanists should take special note of its urban themes. Cities have always been caricatured as centers of licentiousness, and the booming cities of turn-of-the-century America, teeming with poor … [Read more...]
Affordable Housing vs. Density: The Unintended Consequences of Zoning Bonuses
California Assembly Bill 710 was introduced to earlier this year to tackle the problem of municipalities requiring onerous amounts of parking for new development, widely recognized as one of the main impediments to transit-oriented development and infill growth. The bill would have capped city and … [Read more...]
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