Month: October 2019
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Here’s what climate change denial looks like
Pretending that climate change can be solved by widening roads to keep cars from idling in traffic is dishonest and reprehensible, yet that’s exactly what Portland’s regional government is doing. A new poll in Portland is promoting the discredited myth that cars idling in traffic congestion are a principal cause of climate change. Portland’s regional…
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Bartik: The verdict on business tax incentives
Political rationalizations and exceptionalism will always be used to justify giveaway policies With the possible exception of Greg LeRoy (who tracks state and local incentives for Good Jobs Now) and Amazon’s site location department, there’s no one in the nation who knows more about business incentives and their effectiveness than the Upjohn Institute’s Tim Bartik.…
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Revealed: the secret of a successful urban economy
One factor trumps all others in determining economic success: Educational attainment Brookings researchers pile on more evidence of this key fact, and outline strategies for increasing skills. But remember: talented workers are mobile, so you also have to have a great urban environment to attract and retain smart workers. Our friends at the Brookings Institution…
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How homeownership as wealth is rigged against people of color
Timing is everything in real estate, and mortgage availability cycles mean that people of color buy high and sell low. The Urban Institute has an informative new report charting the swings of home prices across the nation since 2000. It shows a familiar boom-bust-recovery pattern. Home prices surged through about 2006, and collapsed in the…
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Does walkability promote economic mobility?
A new study shows a tantalizing connection between more walkable places and intergenerational economic mobility City Observatory readers will be familiar with the findings of Raj Chetty and his colleagues in the Equality of Opportunity Project. In a revelatory use of big data, they used anonymized tax records to track the lifetime earnings of kids…
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Why its important for your city to be unequal
If your city isn’t unequal, it’s either poor or exclusionary Measured income equality, which is sensible goal nationally, is a perversely misleading indicator of which cities are the most just and and inclusive Income and wealth inequality in the United States are large and growing problems. In the past several decades most of the increased…
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The Week Observed, October 18, 2019
What City Observatory did this week 1. Our 5th Anniversary. October 17 marked 5 years since we started publishing our research and commentary at City Observatory. We reflect back on five years of work, and thank all those who made it possible, and especially you, our readers. 2. Rites of Way. A complex set of…
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City Observatory turns five
We observe our fifth birthday On October 17, 2014, we launched City Observatory, with the aim of providing solid, data-driven research on cities, and offering a timely and informed voice on urban policy issues. Five years–and a thousand posts later–we want to reflect on the journey we’ve taken and those who’ve helped, and spend a…
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Reduced demand: Tolling or restricting cars reduces traffic
We have urban traffic congestion because we heavily subsidize people driving in cities. Reducing subsidies and lowering road capacity reduces traffic and congestion. Why are we building highway capacity for users who won’t pay its costs at 90 percent discount? By now, we all know about “induced demand” the idea that when we build more…
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Buses, Bike Lanes, Crosswalks: Reclaiming public space
Renegotiating the right of way in public space They erased the lines on 24th Avenue. Just a few blocks from my house is NE 24th Avenue in Portland, a principal North-South route through the Irvington neighborhood. For the decades I’ve lived here, there’s been a painted yellow double stripe down the middle of the road. …
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The Week Observed, October 11, 2019
What City Observatory did this week 1. Transportation for America won’t be fooled again.. After years of getting rolled by the freeway lobby, it appears that T4America has finally said “Enough.” Transit and active transportation activists have been roped into an unholy alliance with highway advocates, pressing the federal government for more money for “multi-modal”…
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Won’t be fooled again: Transportation for America
Too often, progressive transportation advocates have been rolled by the highway crowd; No more, says Transportation for America Three principles for reform: Fix it First, Safety before Speed, Accessibility, not Mobility. There’s been a kind of Kabuki theatre around federal transportation funding legislation over the past two decades. Advocates for transit, biking and walking form…
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The Week Observed, October 4, 2019
What City Observatory did this week 1. We debunk the Wall Street Journal’s claim of an exodus of young adults from cities. Last week, the Wall Street Journal trumpeted an “exodus” of 25 to 39 year old adults from cities. Upon closer inspection, the data cited by the Journal simply don’t support this conclusion. When…
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No youth exodus from cities: WSJ is detecting noise, not signal
There’s no statistically significant news on young adults in cities in the latest Census release Pro-tip: Ignore changes smaller than the margin of error: they’re noise, not signal It’s hard to underestimate the journalistic zeal to report a contrarian story. In the world of urbanism, a recent favorite has been “young adults are leaving cities.”…
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A modest proposal: An EIS for the DMV
Many states subject housing approval to environmental reporting requirements; what if we extended this same principle to car registrations. Back in the early days of the environmental movement–the late sixties and early seventies, one lawyerly idea that was in vogue was the notion of requiring government policy decisions to be undertaken only after fair consideration…