Urban Issues

NYU in Oklahoma? What a Great Idea

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When I heard that New York University (NYU) was creating a new campus not in some global capital but in Oklahoma—the fairly conservative west-south-central region of the United States—I was shocked, but also thrilled.  read more »

Hong Kong 2021 Census: The Evolving Urban Form

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According to the 2021 census, Hong Kong grew from a population of 7.337 million in 2016 to 7.413 million. This article describes the population and population densities of Hong Kong and its major areas.  read more »

Transit’s Growth, Decline, and Pending Demise

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Who said the following? “The basic objective of our Nation’s transportation system must be to assure the availability of the fast, safe, and economical transportation services needed in a growing and changing economy.  read more »

Planners Plan

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It’s in the job title: Planner.

Most government planners — pretty much the transport and housing sectors are what we are discussing today — became planners to meet their personal need to impose order on chaos, to improve society, and, in theory, help everyone even if they need a nudge or two along the way.  read more »

Downtown San Francisco is Beyond Redemption

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The recent announcement that Ian Jacobs, a scion of the famous Toronto-based Reichmann real estate clan, was coming to buy upwards of $900 million of San Francisco real estate, has offered the beleaguered California city a rare moment of hope.  read more »

Rethinking the Housing Affordability Crisis, Part 2

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If you haven't read Part 1 yet, you can find it here.

Yonah Freemark, a senior research associate with the Urban Institute in Washington, DC, is someone I had the occasion of meeting a couple times in my career. A little more than ten years ago he worked for Chicago’s Metropolitan Planning Council, an independent nonprofit organization created in 1934. MPC’s mission then, and since, has been to challenge inequity and create stronger Chicago neighborhoods and communities.  read more »

A Piece of Civic Infrastructure That Works

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How communities choose to shape their built environment and neighborhoods can powerfully impact a place’s sense of connectedness and how local relationships develop. However, in our time of digital distractions and social distrust, so many projects designed to promote social capital fail to meaningfully bring people together.  read more »

Rethinking the Housing Affordability Crisis, Part 1

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Let’s talk about the nation’s housing affordability crisis.

I recently downloaded some 2023 third quarter data from the National Association of Realtors.  read more »

The Benefits of Congestion Relief

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Data published by the University of Minnesota Accessibility Observatory a few months ago reveals some of the benefits of congestion relief that resulted from the COVID pandemic.  read more »

Progress Traps, Snap Crap, and A Plasma Bank Called Freedom

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There is a strip mall not a stone’s throw away from my house that contains a Georgio’s pizza, a daycare center, and a plasma bank called “Freedom”. I live in a neighborhood in Cleveland that has a poverty rate upwards of 50%. For those not in the know, plasma banks are places where people sell their blood from which plasma is extracted through intermediaries, such as Freedom, to be sold at scale to pharmaceutical companies for various research and development purposes so it ultimately translates into high-end products that can be sold on the knowledge economy market.  read more »

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