Has urban America learned its last lesson on downtown parking? After forty years of declining fortunes, have we deduced that giving people cheap, abundant, convenient places to park their cars failed to save our city centers? Have we finally realized that demolishing 100-year-old buildings to form new garages and lots did not stem the vacancy
Maybe it was the bohemian misfits converging in a once-floundering SoHo that prompted this approach. Perhaps it was the rediscovery of Classical values in 15th century Florence that spurred a continent toward unprecedented economic growth after centuries of stagnance. More likely it was neither. Quite simply, people operated on an hunch (mostly unconscious) that something
Cities large and small have borne the brunt of criticism from economic development experts for investing heavily in sports venues, in an effort to bring people back—and thus to help revitalize—their old downtowns. I’ll admit it: I’ve been one of these critics in the past as well, heaping three successive blog articles of scorn to
One of the biggest yet quietest challenges in managing capital improvement projects is maintaining a basic level of functionality during major upgrades. My suspicion is that the implementation of major capital improvements is usually quiet because—more often than not—these upgrades take place with few disruptions. Think about it: the basic etymology of “infrastructure” reveals how
I don’t usually highlight topical events, and certainly not in a way that they become central to a blog post. But in this case, I just couldn’t resist—the news is too timely, and it eerily echoes a subject I’ve covered on this blog as well as a rewrite at New Geography: the jurisdictionally defined speed trap.
My latest is now posted at New Geography. Truth be told, it’s not exactly a brand new article; I originally featured it here last December, as an exploration of municipalities (mostly in Ohio) that use speed traps as a primary means of generating revenue. Since then, I have significantly revised the final analysis, including material
Here’s a rarity for me: plunging right into the photographs, with nary an introduction. I don’t think it’s necessary this time. A few months ago, I was leaving Cleveland, Ohio on Interstate 71, headed southwestward toward Columbus. (Yes, that VW Beetle in front of me really is missing its rear windshield, in 25 degree weather.) While
At a superficial level, American suburbs have reached a point of inflection in terms of their dependency on automobiles. The past decade has introduced mandatory sidewalk ordinances within many (if not most) metropolitan jurisdictions, as well as an expansion of mass transit into many of the newer, fast-growing exurbs. But these initiatives are just a
After a decade of persistent turbulence within the airline industry, it is no surprise that scarcely a year goes by that one of the big carriers merges with a second, or a third files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Among industries that the American Customer Satisfaction Index evaluates, airlines elicit some of the lowest scores—if
Impeded by byzantine zoning regulations, compliance with historic preservation standards, or anti-density community activists (aka NIMBYs), infill development is typically challenging enough to implement in an urban setting. Auto-dependent cities in America—which are the majority—remain littered with parking lots wedged between two older, surviving structures that pre-date the car. Those lots serve as a reminder
Has urban America learned its last lesson on downtown parking? After forty years of declining fortunes, have we deduced that giving people cheap, abundant, convenient places to park their cars failed to save
Maybe it was the bohemian misfits converging in a once-floundering SoHo that prompted this approach. Perhaps it was the rediscovery of Classical values in 15th century Florence that spurred a continent toward unprecedented
Cities large and small have borne the brunt of criticism from economic development experts for investing heavily in sports venues, in an effort to bring people back—and thus to help revitalize—their old downtowns.
One of the biggest yet quietest challenges in managing capital improvement projects is maintaining a basic level of functionality during major upgrades. My suspicion is that the implementation of major capital improvements is
I don’t usually highlight topical events, and certainly not in a way that they become central to a blog post. But in this case, I just couldn’t resist—the news is too timely, and it
My latest is now posted at New Geography. Truth be told, it’s not exactly a brand new article; I originally featured it here last December, as an exploration of municipalities (mostly in Ohio)
Here’s a rarity for me: plunging right into the photographs, with nary an introduction. I don’t think it’s necessary this time. A few months ago, I was leaving Cleveland, Ohio on Interstate 71,
At a superficial level, American suburbs have reached a point of inflection in terms of their dependency on automobiles. The past decade has introduced mandatory sidewalk ordinances within many (if not most) metropolitan
After a decade of persistent turbulence within the airline industry, it is no surprise that scarcely a year goes by that one of the big carriers merges with a second, or a third
Impeded by byzantine zoning regulations, compliance with historic preservation standards, or anti-density community activists (aka NIMBYs), infill development is typically challenging enough to implement in an urban setting. Auto-dependent cities in America—which are
