Archive for January, 2009
Stimulus and Suburbia
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009A number of urbanista bloggers have expressed disappointment with President Obama’s stimulus package and its focus on road infrastructure over transit (and tax cuts over transit).
As vehicle miles are declining and dense urban areas gentrifying, advocating for better transit certainly makes sense from a long-term planning perspective.
However, I think there is a good argument to […]
Is infrastructure spending the answer?
Monday, January 19th, 2009Many North American cities face crumbling infrastructure along with a need to offer residents new mass transit options. During the current economic slow down, the conventional wisdom seems to be that investing in infrastructure is a win - win, offering short term employment and long term needs.
But, what if many of the people needed to […]
Transit should be an essential service
Friday, January 16th, 2009A transit strike has afflicted Ottawa — Canada’s capital city — for over five weeks. Ottawa usually has a fairly good transit system, relied on by many people who have chosen not to have a car (or a second family vehicle) as well as those who cannot afford one.
People who have made the ecologically and/or […]
Havana and the US Embargo
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009Havana Cuba is one of the more fascinating places to visit in a world rapidly becoming generic. It also represents a phenomenal piece of world urban history — and some of it may not survive much longer. Threats include further decay from a lack of resources to maintain colonial and other historic buildings and streets […]
Not the time for short term thinking
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009Many smart business leaders and investment managers are taking advantage of the economic slow down to stop, think, and put into place the foundations for the next 5 to 10 year business cycle — and even thinking much further ahead than that.
Unfortunately, it seems that many city governments, and those at other levels that impact […]