Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Liberalizing Cities From The Ground Up
Kamala Harris has pledged to build 3 million new housing units. Setting aside the methods, what does that mean? And, would it "end America's housing shortage"?
Five years ago everything in California felt like a giant (land use policy) dumpster fire. Fast forward to today we live in a completely different world. Yimby activists have pushed policy, swayed elections, and dramatically shifted the overton window on California housing policy. And through this process of pushing change, Yimbyism itself has evolved as well. Learning by Listening Yimbys started out with a straightforward diagnosis of the housing crisis in California. They said, “…housing prices are high because there’s not enough housing and if we want lower prices, we need more housing”. And they were, of course, completely right…at least with regards to the specific problem-space defined by supply, demand, and the long run. As Yimby’s started coalition building, though, they began recognizing related, but fundamentally different concerns. For anti-displacement activists, the problem was not defined by long-run aggregate prices. It was instead all about the immediate plight of economically vulnerable communities. Increasing supply was not an attractive proposal because of the long time horizons (years, decades) and ambiguous benefit for their specific constituencies. Yimbyism as Practical Politics Leaders in the Yimby movement could have thrown up their hands and walked away. But they didn’t. Instead they listened and developed a yes and approach. The Yimby platform still embraces the idea that, long run, we need to build more housing, but it now also supports measures to protect those who’ll fall off the housing ladder tomorrow without a helping hand today. Scott Weiner’s SB50 is a great example of this attitude in action. If passed, the bill will reduce restrictions on housing construction across the state. It targets transit and job rich areas and builds in eviction protections to guard against displacement. At a high level, it sets up the playing field so that renters in a four story […]
There are two general attitudes among urbanists towards the transportation omnibus bill that Congress has been struggling to pass in recent years (?). Some, like Streetsblogs and a number of political advocacy groups, hope for swift passage because of the bill’s transit spending. Others, like Cap’n Transit, balk at all the highway spending, and cheer on the gridlock. And here’s one other reason to be on Cap’n Transit’s side: no new bill means no federal regulation of rapid transit. Right now, the federal government only has the power to regulate safety on rail lines that feed into the national mainline network, and could therefore, at least in theory, run into a freight train. This includes all intercity trains (Amtrak and possibly All Aboard Florida), commuter trains (Metro-North, Caltrain, etc.), and the occasional light rail line using an older right-of-way that’s still connected to the national network (e.g., New Jersey’s River Line). Self-contained “rapid transit” networks – subways, elevated trains, and new light rail and streetcar lines – are beyond the feds’ reach. To many legislators, the Fort Totten crash on DC’s Red Line in 2009, operated by WMATA, was evidence that federal regulation is needed. (WMATA’s MetroRail is actually one of the most technologically advanced systems in America – or at least it was, until after the crash when they turned the ATO off, which drives the train while the operator opens and closes the doors.) There was a big outcry about it right after the crash and a few times since then, and the debate seems to be coming up again. But despite the liberal leanings of most transit enthusiasts, you’d be hard pressed to find one who thinks that federal regulation will do WMATA – an admittedly heinous agency that needs to be reined in – any good. […]
Pretty interesting article in the NYT today about the Gotham West development that recently broke ground on Manhattan‘s far west side. But I think the part about affordable housing could use some context: But the bulk of the project will be affordable units, 682 of them, or more than half the total homes….
Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks London’s Shard skyscraper (shameless article-I-wrote-about-London-skyscrapers plug) looks like Pyongyang’s Ryugyong Hotel. Koryo Tours, the only tour group that offers westerners package to North Korea, plays up the similarities on its blog: To the eyes of us all at Koryo Tours it looks like Renzo Piano has been copying Pyongyang… (Note the following is not 100% accurate – but close!…
There’s been a lot of handwringing by American lefties over the austerity plans that Germany is asking indebted eurozone governments like Italy and Greece to implement in exchange for bailouts, but many aspects of the plans – especially labor market deregulation – are long overdue no matter which side if the aisle you sit on (in the US, at least). In searching for information on the deregulatory aspects of Prime Minister Mario Monti’s “Save Italy” austerity plan, I came upon this interesting bit on transport deregulation in Corriere della Sera. I’ve never actually studied or spoken Italian, but hopefully this is a workable translation, if a bit literal: The recipe that the Antitrust Authority has chosen for taxi liberalization will double the number of licenses, but with each driver receiving a second one as compensation….
Scrapping viaducts like this would make California HSR cheaper, faster to build, and easier to maintain, without a loss in quality The recent peer review report recommending that California delay construction on the first segment of its high-speed rail project has caused a bit of consternation in the transit twittosphere. Blogger The Overhead Wire wrote, “Sorry, but defunding HSR won’t make local agencies $10b richer.” I replied, “But it might start a long-overdo convo on costs,” and he responded (and many agreed): “and then nothing will get done in my lifetime and costs won’t matter….
Enormous viaducts like this are one reason for the project's ballooning cost estimates Well, the other shoe has finally dropped: the California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group is recommending that the state legislature not authorize the issue of $2.7 billion in bonds to begin paying for the state’s planned $98.5 billion high-speed rail line….
Cornell-Technion has released another “fly-over” video, this one focused on the interior. But it does shed a bit more light on what the development will look like from the ground, and it ain’t pretty – the campus will be laid out in a fairly Corbusian plan, replete with lots of concrete plazas and grassy knolls (especially near the campus’ northern gateway to the rest of the island), and no retail space in sight. The empty spaces in the video are packed with students milling around, admiring the beautiful grassy fields and sloping moss interiors. But anyone who’s ever been to one of New York‘s many towers-in-a-park high-rises or zoning code-enabled privately-owned public spaces knows better than to believe that what New Yorkers really want is a bunch of grass and concrete to hang out on….
Stanford's (losing) vision for Roosevelt Island, with requisite acres of green Big news out of New York City: Stanford pulled out of Bloomberg’s applied sciences university “competition” after Cornell got an enormous donation, leaving the upstate university the front runner to build a new campus, likely on Roosevelt Island. This comes with up to $100 million in state subsidies, plus free land and invaluable planning acquiescence. …
