“Ann Arbor is really a suburb masquerading as a city.” Say two professors, Matthew D. Lassiter and Rick M. Hills, in a must-read “other voices” in the Ann Arbor News today titled “Time to Back up Greenbelt.” They chastize the city for bowing to the wishes of NIMBY neighborhood associations, suggesting three changes in the […]
I was sent a link by JJW to a New York Times story about an effort to construct 2,000 condos in downtown Newark, NJ in an effort to “revitalize” the city. Haven’t we learned this lesson before: purchasing and razing large areas of a city to construct new housing does little or nothing to help […]
Here’s Ted Rall on the Unbearableness of Being Tom Friedman: “The Tao of Tom: Live it. Be it. Cash in on it.”
The city council is ready to approve a new traffic light on Plymouth Road where two U-M students were struck and killed one week ago after leaving prayers at the Ann Arbor Islamic Center, although city council member Mike Reid is saying he needs “more information”. I’m not sure what sort of problems Mr. Reid […]
Apparently Urban Planning graduate students are a feisty bunch. According to Murph, after University Party member and MSA’s Architecture and Urban Planning representative Tristan deBarros sent an email to all the urban planning students asking them to email all the student government representatives in support of a resolution that would seek to install a Taco […]
In a letter to the Borders Group CEO Gregory P. Josefowicz last year, a group of professors, activists, book publishers, and intellectuals criticized a new policy which, they alleged, would reduce the variety of books avaliable in their stores, and squeeze out books published by small companies: ” … Denied shelf space in a major […]
Here’s a nice photo essay about Portland, Oregon. It’s a bit simplistic, but gives you a good idea what people mean when they say “New Urbanism.” The link was sent to me by my friend Ben King, known on this website’s comments as “Ben.” He’s started a blog called “The Dread Pirate King.”