In a recent post, I revealed the 91 large cities and counties that consistently fail to report complete data to the federal Building Permit Survey (BPS). But what about smaller jurisdictions, which often have weak record-keeping and slim staffs - and what about states made up of many such small … [Read more...]
Milton’s Zoning Referendum
"Wow!" the reporter said, "I knew you from Milton, but I didn't know you were from East Milton. Tell me what it feels like?" Well, until last week it was not that dramatic. East Milton is an old railroad-commuter neighborhood favored by affluent Boston Irish. It's separated from the City of … [Read more...]
The Foreign Buyers Are Taking Over (Not!)
A headline in the Boston Globe screams: "Boston's new luxury towers appear to house few local residents." The headline is based on a report by the leftist Institute for Policy Studies, which claims that in twelve Boston condo buildings, "64 percent do not claim a residential exemption, a clear … [Read more...]
An interview with David Block-Schachter, Chief Scientist of Bridj
Public transportation service provision is changing. As I already have mentioned in this post at Caos Planejado, microtransit services are growing in many cities around the world and one of the forefront companies on this field is Bridj, operating in Boston since June 2014 and Washington DC since … [Read more...]
Ending rent control may not lower prices for non-regulated units
That's one takeaway from a paper sent to me by one of its co-authors, Andy Garin, at MIT, on the effects of the end of rent control in Massachusetts in 1995 on property values in Cambridge. Fascinating topic, and much thanks to Andy for sending it to me – it's always nice when other people write my … [Read more...]
Old Urbanist on the failure of Boston’s newest park
Old Urbanist is one of my favorite urbanist blogs (and not just because of the name), and Charlie's got a post up about Boston that I think has a good market urbanist lesson in it. He describes how the formerly elevated Central Artery, buried by the Big Dig, was replaced with a park, with nobody … [Read more...]
Links: A private cable car line for Hamburg, a private downtown for Quincy, Mass., and no adaptive reuse for Brooklyn
1. Hamburg's newly-revitalized port could get a completely privately-funded cable car line, if the city allows it. 2. Quincy, Mass., a few T stops away from downtown Boston, is getting a new downtown from a private developer, replete with infrastructure and dense development. It's unique, … [Read more...]
Links
1. Maps of sprawl and gentrification in Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, and Boston. At first the picture looks bleak for cities, but Jesus – even downtown Detroit is growing! (More here.) 2. A real, live Texan (just kidding – he lives in Austin) replies to O'Toole on parking. 3. Why aren't (more) … [Read more...]