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Recently I’ve been delaying posting a few things because I wanted to wait till I had more time to cover them, but I’m realizing that I’ll probably have new things to write about on the 15th (which is when regular posting will hopefully resume), so have at it – your first ever premium link list: 1. The Bowles-Simpson Plan is out (but apparently it’s not the final plan that will be presented to Obama), and it looks like a great deal for market urbanism. Their “Zero Plan” is a broad base, low rate approach that eliminates all tax deductions and credits, including not only the mortgage-interest rate deduction that we’ve discussed earlier, but also the tax break that businesses get for providing employees with parking that Shoup criticized a few weeks ago. (By the way, that first linked TPM article is by far the most comprehensive and concise outline of the plan that I’ve seen in the media so far.) 2. Cap’n Transit gives an overview of his local community group’s proposal for eliminating parking minimums in a politically-palatable way. Spoiler: it involves everybody’s favorite transit maps – frequency maps! People involved in DC’s recent moves towards parking reform should especially take note, since the success of their plan depends on the definition of “good transit service.” 3. Reinventing Parking has a post on illegal parking extortion in developing countries. In India and Bangladesh, which Paul Barter discusses, the problem is parking contractors illegally raising prices. In Bucharest, though, where I used to live, the “extortionists” were much less organized, usually gypsy street kids, who didn’t do much to stop you from parking, don’t actually provide protection for the car, and probably aren’t going to do anything to your car but guilt trip you if you don’t pay them. In either […]
Another week without posts (from me, at least), another giant consolation link list! I’ve got a lot of them piling up and probably won’t be back to regular posting for a few more days, so I’ll try to spread them out over a few posts. 1. Wendell Cox’s Demographia came out with its 2010 Demographic Residential Land & Regulation Cost Index and finds, surprise surprise!, that sprawling Sunbelt and Southern cities have both the least regulated housing markets the most affordable housing. Bill Fulton finds a few faults with the study, including its tendency to lump all land use regulation (whether pro-sprawl or pro-density) together. What surprises me more, though, is that the report seems to only take into account “new detached housing,” and yet its conclusions are being reported as being applicable to “housing” writ large. I didn’t read it in detail, but I don’t see any evidence that multifamily residences or the right to build densely and without parking were even considered. 2. Slum (re)development will probably be one of the biggest urbanism stories of the century, and Mumbai seems to be making some fateful decisions. I’m having trouble finding comparisons of how different countries are doing it, but I suspect the most successful, attractive, livable developments will be the ones where local squatters are given property rights and are allowed to control the pace of redevelopment. Anything else is likely to breed popular resentment and will probably result in a lot of glitzy megaprojects built by political insiders that aren’t well-integrated into the surrounding city. 3. The NYT has a story on a “split” among environmentalists over density, although it seems like the pro-density camp is clearly winning, at least institutionally within the environmentalist movement. I think a more interesting story is how people who are first […]