Are Suburbs Authentic?
Andrew Potter, who recently wrote a delightful book on what is “authentic,” has now come out in defense of the suburbs. Potter challenges James Kunstler’s view of the suburbs as having no “sense of place.” “This is the sort of thing that could only be argued by someone who has either never visited a suburb, […]
Planning Student Proves Consultants Are a Waste of Money
Spending around $1,000, 20-year-old Daniel Jacobson, a Stanford University undergraduate student, has written a 140-page streetcar feasibility study for Oakland, California. The city of Oakland itself had already spent $300,000 on a streetcar study back in 2005, and planned to spend another $330,000 for further study this year. Of course, the Jacobson’s study is filled […]
Urban Planners’ Employment Act
Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has introduced a “Livable Communities Act” that promises more than $4 billion in federal grants to communities that promote smart-growth principles. The Senate held hearings on the bill last week, and a somewhat similar bill has been introduced in the House by Representative Albio Sires of New Jersey. The Senate bill […]
More High-Speed Spending
Here’s a brilliant idea from a disappointing governator who ran as a fiscal conservative but then helped his state run up tens of billions of dollars of deficits: build a “demonstration” high-speed rail project from Los Angeles to San Diego. The trains would use existing tracks and so would be moderate-speed rail, not true high-speed […]
Transit Agencies vs. Transit Unions
A recent article in the Washington Post highlights new tensions within the transit industry. Most federal transit grants are legally dedicated to capital improvements, but the recession has left most transit agencies short of operating funds, so they have been lobbying Congress to allow them to use more federal funds for operating subsidies. The main […]
