How can Spider-Man possibly afford to live in New York? And how can we make the city more affordable for dear Aunt May? In the first episode of my brand new YouTube series on pop-culture urbanism, we dig into the Sam Raimi "Spider-Man" trilogy to uncover the housing problems (and solutions) of … [Read more...]
Urban Design and Social Complexity
This week’s column is drawn from a lecture I gave at the University of Southern California on the occasion of the retirement of urban economist Peter Gordon.One of my heroes is the urbanist Jane Jacobs, who taught me to appreciate the importance for entrepreneurial development of how public … [Read more...]
Market Urbanism MUsings March 25, 2016
1. This week at Market Urbanism: Emily Washington described The Need For Low-Quality Housing in America's most desirable cities.People of very little means could afford to live in cities with the highest housing demand because they lived in boarding houses, residential hotels, and low-quality … [Read more...]
Market Urbanist Meetup [Manhattan Edition] March 22, 2014
Market Urbanists will be gathering again in New York City for an informal meet up. Last year, we explored the fascinating ethnic neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This year, we'll meet in Midtown Manhattan, where some ethnic enclaves are nestled amongst towers and bustling streets.Come … [Read more...]
NYU 2031: Rise of the Mole People
A few things.First of all, the New York Times in 1992 on the postmodern skyline blight that is the Sony Building (then still the AT&T Building): This proposal marks the latest instance in which landlords have tried to recreate ill-conceived or little-used arcades and plazas, which generated … [Read more...]
The Zoning History of New York’s White Brick Apartments
The rehabilitation of the postwar glazed white brick apartment building continues apace, with the condoization of 530 Park Ave., a 1941 (okay, almost postwar) 19-story white brick building. I happen to like New York's postwar white brick buildings, and am even warming up to the red brick variants – … [Read more...]
Why do condos even exist?
It sounds like a dumb question – they exist because people like the security of owning a home combined with the services and lower costs that apartments offer, duh! But upon further reflection, condominium-style tenure can be a bit problematic.The main problem, as I see it, is that a building … [Read more...]
Tokyo’s surprising lack of density
Wendell Cox has received his fair share of criticism from this blog, but his post last week about Tokyo's surprising lack of density is very interesting. Sure, Tokyo's suburbs are dense enough to be connected by job centers by rail, but the core is almost completely low- and lower-mid-rise, and thus … [Read more...]