City planning

Rearranging the Park Benches 0
- February 4, 2013
Our cities are in trouble. Most have huge unfunded pension and health-care obligations. Their infrastructure is old and so poorly maintained that it can’t power a football stadium for the full length of a game. Their schools have significantly lower high-school graduation rates than the suburbs, even after accounting for differences in incomes. Housing in […]
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Neglecting the Basics 0
- January 14, 2013
Portland is proud of being a livable city. Sure, its streets are crumbling, city buildings are neglected, and its schools are crappy. But don’t worry; it’s a livable city. A building so ugly that Willamette Week newspaper uses the “ugly” tag for any article that refers to it. The Antiplanner noted last February that the […]
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Cities Growing Faster Than Suburbs–Not!0
- June 29, 2012
A return to the cities and rejection of the suburbs is an article of faith among smart-growth planners, and their wishful thinking is often supported by breathless media reports. The latest news comes from 2011 Census estimates, which the Wall Street Journal reports as revealing that the “cities outpace suburbs in growth.” MSNBC reports that […]
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If They Only Had a Streetcar 0
- May 7, 2012
Kansas City sold $295 million worth of TIF bonds to revitalize a part of the city known as the Power & Light District. The developer who benefitted from this money says “the development was successful as part of a broader effort to re-energize the city’s downtown.” Unfortunately, tax revenues are less than a third of […]
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Department of Irony 0
- October 20, 2011
Officials from Aurora, Colorado are in a tizzy because someone conducted some focus groups to see what taxpayers thought of a $300 million subsidy to a proposed hotel. Such focus groups “violate the ethics code for economic development organizations in the region,” said Tom Clark, the executive vice-president of Denver’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Apparently, […]
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Now, This Is Ridiculous 0
- August 9, 2011
What’s the most ridiculous zoning rule or decision you’ve ever heard of? Here’s a candidate: Alexandria, Virginia (which wants a Portland-like streetcar) has told property owners in one neighborhood that replacement of rusty chain-link fences violates the city’s historic preservation ordinance. “While many feel that [chain-link] fences have negative connotations, this material has played an […]
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