planning policy
« Previous EntriesStealth density vs high rise density
Thursday, June 10th, 2010Living in walkable, urban neighbourhoods is becoming trendy. And communities are defined as “walkable” when virtually everything you could need from groceries to clothes to plumbing supplies can be acquired on foot.
But to support those businesses, you need a dependable large supply of consumers. Walkable places therefore tend to have higher housing density than less-walkable […]
Do a Jane’s Walk!
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010Jane Jacobs was an urban thinker ahead of her time. When the great thinkers of the day were promoting freeways and auto-centric suburban development, she spotted what was being lost. To her, the best cities and neighbourhoods were organic, constantly evolving communities, or networks of relationships. People knew each other and looked out for each […]
Think small: A non-market housing supply solution?
Saturday, January 9th, 2010Planners and politicians in many cities — especially those with high housing costs — face a dilemma when it comes to providing non-market housing (sometimes called social housing). The most cost effective solutions in terms of dollars per unit can be to build a big apartment block in a struggling area of the city where […]
Urban scenarios under high oil prices
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009How much will life in the cities change if gasoline costs significantly more than it does today?
Will the city be able to offer the housing, transportation options or amenities that its residents may prefer if fuel becomes a more expensive item relative to the family budget?
These are some questions I’ve been pondering lately and would […]
Lesson from India on affordable housing
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009In dynamic, popular urban cores there is a constant dilemma about housing affordability. Because more people want to live in an area than there are homes, rents and sale prices can be high.
One solution is to demand a certain number of rental units or non-market units for sale when developers build out a new area […]
Car-free communities in the 21st century
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 Older neighbourhoods in European and some North American cities often work well as pedestrian and cycling zones because they emerged before the automobile existed. Any new community, by law, typically has to allow for automobiles both in roadway allowances and parking regulations.
But what would happen in the 21st-century if you built a community that deliberately […]
Special civic advocates for walking? cycling?
Sunday, May 10th, 2009Cities need to offer residents and businesses a variety of transportation options to maximize livability. Only facilitating automobile travel makes for a polluted, congested, and concrete-freeway-based environment. Only facilitating bikes or walking in 21st century life and you hamper citizens’ ability to go any distance or carry very much while doing it. As recently […]
Enough doomsday talk, focus on livability
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009Almost everyday in the newspaper or the blogosphere some group attempts to make headlines forecasting what we could call “eco-doom” for cities. Whether the prediction is rising sea levels, fires, plagues of locusts (or killer bees) the result is misplaced attention.
Here’s an example via Planetizen: Sea Levels are Rising: It’s Time to Decide Which Cities […]
Urban Chickens or Pigs Anyone?
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009It looks like barnyard animals could be making an urban comeback in North America.
The Toronto Star summarized a Dutch firm’s idea of farming pigs vertically, in multi-storey buildings. Apparently it’s more ecologically responsible:
Proposed by the Dutch architectural firm MVRDV, the argument is that it’s more efficient to raise swine in highrise farms than on the […]
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 […]