A red-hot urban development controversy will move one step closer to resolution at a hearing tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the 3rd Floor Council Hearing Room in the Montgomery County office building in Rockville, Maryland. At stake is nothing less than the purpose of historic preservation, and how preservation should be balanced with affordable housing […]
Nostalgia is Not Urban Planning
A cover story in yesterday’s Boston Globe asked “Would car traffic bring back the crowds?” for Boston’s historic retail district Downtown Crossing. A partial pedestrian mall since 1978 (commercial traffic is allowed), the Globe pondered whether the “solution” to the neighborhood’s woes would be a return of automobile traffic. The story quotes business owners who […]
Data and Decisions in Government
When I first heard about Baltimore’s CitiStat program, which uses city data to “provide timely, reliable services to Baltimore’s residents,” I envisioned a public sector version of an executive dashboard. The mayor (the program started under Martin O’Malley, it continues under Sheila Dixon) would have data at their fingertips through a computer interface or screen […]
Public Works and … Internet Voting?
Recently, a major city decided to take a different approach to investing in public works. Instead of deciding what new facilities to build for the population, they put it up for an online vote. Elected officials set aside $11 million taxpayer dollars to build the most popular proposals in each of the city’s nine wards. […]
Book Review: Rybczynski’s Last Harvest
Witold Rybczynski’s 2007 book Last Harvest: From Cornfield to New Town is truly a unique book: an accessible, detailed narrative of the process of real estate development. The book describes the construction of a subdivision named New Daleville in southern Chester County in suburban Philadelphia. Or exurban, rather, since the development is over 45 miles […]
Will Electric Cars Fuel Urban Sprawl?
Shai Agassi has an idea so revolutionary it’s convinced venture capitalists to commit hundreds of millions of dollars, major corporations to sign on, and the leaders of countries around the world scrambling to sign up to be the guinea pigs for his new technology. It’s also an idea that, as soon as it is heard […]
World Bank Policies and Public Participation
Among the various activities of the World Bank, some of the most visible and controversial are the infrastructure projects they fund around the world. The projects are intended to improve quality of life and encourage economic development, and include irrigation systems, road and rail improvements, dams, port facilities, and even dumps.(Shown the right is World […]