What Baltimore and Detroit are doing, here. As they lose population, they are taking down whole blocks of blighted housing stocks to create open land.
Category: urban planning
The 30 minute commute–as it always was…
From Andrew Sullivan’s blog here. Seems like the sort of assertion that could be tested out using agent-based models of cities. Any takers out there?
Richard Florida is wrong-headed
At least according to Mario Polèse here in City Journal.
Money quote:
The conclusion to draw from all this isn’t that cities can do nothing to promote economic development. It’s that they should avoid academic fads and quick fixes, which are no substitute for obvious policy goals like competently providing mandated services at reasonable cost, keeping streets safe, and not taxing and regulating away businesses—good governance, in sum, and even that comes with no guarantee to work.
Singapore’s approach to housing
Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan (again), the piece is here. HDB buildings are ubiquitous in Singapore.
Read all the comments–it’s hard to imagine this as a viable approach in the US, although it might well be in other places around the globe.
Discoverers and Discoveries 