Slumchitecture
While policymakers — backed by real estate developers, the development industry, and the pressures of global capitalism — are pushing slum redevelopment models that replace informal settlements with high-rise blocks, some urban practitioners are using slums as models for redeveloping decaying neighborhoods in the West.
Why Tackling Urban Sprawl Is More About Proper Planning Than Eco-Towns & Green Buildings
“Townmaking,” one planner assured me, “is a complicated business. Without a guiding authority you’re not going to get the necessary level of sophistication. It’s necessary to have a long-term master plan that over time continues to add value to the development.”
For the new urbanists, building an eco-town is not a matter of building “green” buildings. For some, in fact, green buildings are non-starters, taking 25 to 65 years to recoup the energy used to build them; and once built, they can become quickly obsolete, saddled with already out-of-date technology.
“Everyone gets seduced by the ‘green bling,’” Stephen Platt of Cambridge Architectural Research told me. “Making the houses energy-efficient is the easy bit. The key problem is making this a long-term socially acceptable place where people will want to live and prosper.”
Time Square goes car free?
Mayor Bloomberg, “People avoid Times Square because the traffic is so terrible and people are getting pushed out into the streets – the sidewalks can’t handle it. People don’t come to look at cars stuck in traffic. They come to look at the lights, the buildings and the excitement, and this is going to have a lot more of it.“ The street closings (or openings, rather) will occur on Memorial Day, and the plazas will be completed over the summer. The permanent street closing to vehicles will occur on Broadway Boulevard at 47th Street to 42nd Street in Times Square and from 35th Street to 33rd Street at Herald Square, with crosstown traffic allowed. The rest of Broadway will follow a precedent set by the Broadway Boulevard project.
The Decline of Los Angeles
A century ago, when L.A. had barely 100,000 souls, railway magnate Henry Huntington predicted that the place was “destined to become the most important city in this country, if not the world.” Long run by ambitious, often ruthless boosters, the city lured waves of newcomers with its pro-business climate, perfect weather and spectacular topography.
As a result, L.A. surged toward civic greatness. By the end of the 20th century, it stood not only as the epicenter for the world’s entertainment industry, but also North America’s largest port, garment manufacturer and industrial center. The region also spawned two important presidents–Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan–and nurtured a host of political and social movements spanning the ideological spectrum.
Now L.A. seems to be fading rapidly toward irrelevancy. Its economy has tanked faster than that of the nation, with unemployment now close to 10%. The port appears in decline, the roads in awful shape and the once potent industrial base continues to shrink.
Reviving the City of Aspiration: A Study of the Challenges Facing New York City’s Middle Class
As the inflow of new arrivals to New York has surged to levels not seen since the 1920s, the cost of living has spiraled beyond the reach of many middle class individuals and, particularly, families. Increasingly, only those at the upper end of the middle class, who are affluent enough to afford not only the sharply higher housing prices in every corner of the city but also the steep costs of child care and private schools, can afford to stay—and even among this group, many feel stretched to the limits of their resources. Equally disturbing, even in good times, the city’s economy seems less and less capable of producing jobs that pay enough to support a middle class lifestyle in New York’s high-cost environment.
Effects of privatization and ownership in transition economies
The paper evaluates the effects of privatization in the post-communist economies and China. In post-communist economies privatization to foreign owners results in a rapid improvement in performance of firms, while performance effects of privatization to domestic owners are less impressive and vary across regions, coinciding with differences in policies and institutional development. In China relatively more estimates suggest that privatization to domestic owners improves the level of performance. Concentrated private ownership has a stronger positive effect on performance than dispersed ownership in the post-communist economies, but foreign joint ventures rather than wholly owned foreign firms have a positive effect in China. Worker or collective ownership does not have a negative effect. In the post-communist economies new firms are equally or more efficient than firms privatized to domestic owners, and foreign start-ups are more efficient than domestic ones. Privatization is not associated with lower employment. When accompanied by complementary reforms, privatization has a positive effect on economic growth. Three factors appear to drive the more positive effect of privatization to foreign than domestic owners. [Continue to read]
Real Estate Investors benefit from Green Building Momentum
According to McGraw Hill Construction, green building has actually grown in spite of the market meltdown. In its 2009 Green Building Outlook, the company noted that the value of green construction increased from $10 billion in 2005 to almost $50 billion in 2008. The study also suggested that by 2013, green construction could be valued at nearly $150 billion.
Hong Kong’s tri-level pedestrian street system
So if Copenhagen, Denmark is arguably the birthplace of the modern pedestrianization movement, what’s the leading city as far as a contemporary pedestrianization plan? It’d be difficult to beat what Hong Kong has done since 2000. As you can see in the plans above, Hong Kong’s newly annointed pedestrian streets aren’t just extensive within city districts, but extensive in districts throughout the city. Streets in green are pedestrianized full-time, blue is part-time, and those in yellow are traffic-calmed. For larger-sized plans check out the City of Hong Kong Transport Department’s Pedestrianization website. What’s notable about Hong Kong’s plan is that the City didn’t ask the question, “Should we pedestrianize streets”, but rather, “Which streets should we pedestrianize, and how much?“ The key criteria is the number and productivity of sources for pedestrian traffic such as subway entrances, markets, restaurants, shops, schools, and from that the three levels of pedestrianized streets, full-time, part-time and traffic-calmed are determined. Read more in the Urbanphoto article, Pedestrian Streets, Hong Kong Style.
China Should Send Western Planners Home
Chinese officials visiting the United States, Western Europe, Canada or Australia must wonder at the disconnect between the wasteland described by Western planners and the unparalleled quality of life enjoyed by people in the West.
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You don’t have to be an American or European to realize that the automobile has created mobile urban areas in which employers and employees have far greater choices or that mobility makes labor markets more efficient. It is not a mistake that housing built on inexpensive land on the periphery of urban areas has made it possible for so many millions to build up financial equity in their own homes, or enjoy the kind of privacy that the more wealthy or well-connected have enjoyed. Nor is it a mistake that nearby inexpensive land has been developed by retailers and other businesses who are, as a result, able to provide lower prices than would otherwise be possible.
The West has achieved its unparalleled affluence because planners were unable to impose their will to prevent suburbanization and the expansion of mobility. They could not hold back the democratization of prosperity.”
New York Mayor Proposes Charge on Plastic Bags
Recently New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed that NYC begin charging shoppers 6 cents for each plastic bag issued at the register. The policy is the latest attempt by the city to go green and reduce its environmental footprint, and it comes several months after Ireland introduced a similar tax that cut the use of plastic bags by 94%.
