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...]
The Little-Known History of “Light and Air”
"Light and air" is a very common excuse that people give for why we must have basic zoning laws, and while nowadays a lot of people mean it simply in an aesthetic sense – another way of saying "I like to be able to look out a window and not see another skyscraper 50 feet away" (though for some … [Read more...]
Japanese transit and what it can teach us
For a libertarian urbanist blogger, I've always felt kind of embarrassed by my lack of knowledge about East Asian transit, considering that it's the only place left on earth with a thriving competitive private transportation market (they even have profitable monorails!). I've heard good things about … [Read more...]
Hard Truths About Why Conservatives and Libertarians Hate Urbanism
It's no secret that conservatives and libertarians don't have very warm feelings towards urbanism. But with their emphasis on upzoning and reducing parking minimums, shouldn't new urbanism and smart growth have at least some libertarian constituency? And given that local roads are paid for almost … [Read more...]