Earlier this year I recorded two podcasts for the community radio program Design Minded in Indianapolis with Lee Alig and Steve Mannheimer, former architecture critic of the Indianapolis Star. We talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of architecture and design in the city. Here's the first episode. If the player doesn't display for you, click over to listen on Mixcloud. Here's the second episode. If the player doesn't display for you, click over to listen on Mixcloud. Cover image credit: Miyin2 CC BY-SA 4.0 … [Read more...]
The City of Tomorrow
Last fall I moderated a panel on the city of tomorrow at Propmodo's Building the Future event that was part of NYC Real Estate Tech Week. Propmodo is a trade publication focused on the proptech industry. Proptech is heavily concentrated in a few cities like NYC. But if you are in the real estate business, following the proptech world in Propmodo or elsewhere helps give you a sense of the profound change in the real estate business being driven by technology. In the panel we talk about the disconnect between the radically different urban … [Read more...]
Scaling Superstar Cities
My latest Manhattan Institute report is now available. It's called "Scaling Up: How Superstar Cities Can Grow to New Heights" and it examines the well-known problem of housing costs in coastal superstar cities. I argue that some of these cities simply forgot how to grow during the decades during which they suffered from external constraints (the Depression, World War II), followed by decades of decline. (Even the city of San Francisco lost population for three straight decades). I also explain why the average resident of these cities does … [Read more...]
Building Strong Towns
My latest piece is a review of Chuck Marohn's new book Strong Towns over at City Journal. Here's an excerpt: Strong Towns, the book and the namesake organization, resulted from civil engineer and urban planner Charles Marohn’s discovery that the highway projects he designed showed a negative return on investment. The local taxes generated by new road construction and expansion didn’t even cover the costs of the roads themselves, much less any other city services. Marohn calculated, for example, that it would take 37 years’ worth of … [Read more...]
If You Improve It, They Will Come
My latest piece is now online at City Journal. It's a recap of the Indianapolis BRT and Columbus free downtown transit success, as well as a look at Kansas City's contemplation of free transit citywide. Thanks to a commenter here who originally alerted me to KC's plans. Here's an excerpt: Kansas City is considering the complete elimination of transit fares. In major cities, fares commonly pay for a substantial amount of the overall cost of service operations, and trains and buses are often overcrowded. In Kansas City, though, fares cover only … [Read more...]
Downtown Columbus Bus Commuting Surges
Here's another bit of transit good news in the Midwest. The share of workers in downtown Columbus using transit to to comment rose from 5% to somewhere between 10-14% in only about a year. Columbus underground has the story. This ridership surge is a result of the C-Pass program, which provides a free bus pass to downtown workers. I've argued for a while that small cities should have fareless transit. Their farebox recovery is generally very small. Overall ridership is low. And the system is mostly below capacity. What's more, the riders of … [Read more...]
Indy’s Cost Effective Transit Improvement Plan Is a Model for Low Density Cities
My latest piece is online at CityLab. It's a look at the transit improvement plans in Indianapolis as the city's first Bus Rapid Transit line on September 1st. Indy's system is a model for how lower density cities with auto-centric cultures can start making major improvements in their transit offerings in a capital efficient way. (Transport guru Yonah Freemark likewise holds the Indy system in high regard, writing in Streetsblog back in 2017 that it is going to be "like launching a brand new transit system."). Indy is upgrading its system in … [Read more...]
New York Needs to Think Like a Growth City Again
My latest article is now online in City Journal, and is about the need for New York to start thinking like a growth city again. It's interesting to contrast NYC with the case of Atlanta I recently wrote about. Atlanta has seen decelerating growth indicating it may be nearing maturity. New York long ago transitioned to maturity. But then the city started to experience growth once again, entering, if not its historic boom era growth, at least a much higher demand phase. But it has been unable to respond to the problem. In part I argue that comes … [Read more...]
Atlanta as a Maturing City
My latest piece is now online over at City Journal. It's a look at Atlanta, now bouncing back from a very rough 10-12 year period, but looking increasingly like a city that is maturing rather than a go-go boomtown in its hypergrowth phase. Here's an excerpt: Though still growing rapidly, Atlanta’s fortunes have taken a hit in the new century. From 1980 to 2000, metro Atlanta grew in population by an astonishing 82.3 percent, outdistancing Dallas–Fort Worth and Houston. But in the 18 years since 2000, its population growth rate was only 39.6 … [Read more...]
What Can We Do For America’s Most Challenged Cities?
My latest Manhattan Institute study was just released, discussing the particular difficulties facing America's most distressed cities. Post-industrial metro areas with less than one million people that have experience significant decline are in a different category than other places. In addition to demographic and employment challenges, they tend to have low end economies, low levels of educational attainment, and very few elite caliber assets such as an R1 research university around which to rebuild. I suggest that speculative economic … [Read more...]
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