The takeaway: Urban truck traffic is flat to declining, even as Internet commerce has exploded. More e-commerce will result in greater efficiency and less urban traffic as delivery density increases We likely are overbuilt for freight infrastructure in an e-commerce era Time-series data on urban freight movements suffer from series breaks that make long term […]
Growing e-commerce means less urban traffic Read More »
Why are America’s neighborhoods so segregated? For a lot of people, the answer requires reaching deep into history: explaining the rise of the subsidized mortgage market and redlining; racial violence in towns from Cicero, Illinois to Charleston, South Carolina; restrictive racial covenants; blockbusting; and on and on. But back in 1971, a professor named Thomas
Are racial “tipping points” overblown? Read More »
What City Observatory did this week 1. The suburbs: where the rich ride transit. In many cities, transit ridership is dominated by a transit dependent population: people who can afford to own private cars don’t use the transit system. But in some places transit is a mode of choice for higher income commuters. Daniel Kay
The Week Observed, August 21, 2015 Read More »
OK, we admit it. We’re data geeks. To us, sometimes — well, often — a single number or data set is compelling proof of an important proposition: bare-naked, and with no verbal embellishment or deeply personal anecdote or cutesy infographic. Here’s the simple number: since 2000, home prices in city centers have outperformed those in
Over at Belt Magazine, editor Anne Trubek is fed up with the overuse of planning cliches in writing about cities. She’s asking, nay demanding, that everyone stop using ten words: walkability liveability placemaking civic engagement sustainability smart growth mixed-use accessibility adaptive reuse gentrification She’s put her finger on something. These words are used, and over-used
The war of words: rhetoric and the city Read More »
As Robert Caro chronicled in his riveting biography “The Power Broker,” the great builder Robert Moses had a foolproof strategy for getting new highways approved. He’d take a little bit of money and get the project started, driving stakes in the ground and manufacturing expectations about future development opportunities. Then he’d dare the Legislature not
The edifice complex and our infrastructure problems Read More »
This isn’t actually a post about transit. It’s about land use. But we’ll get there in a second. Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, is responsible for one of the most widely-shared quotes in the urbanist world: “An advanced city,” he said, “is not one where the poor use cars, but rather one
The suburbs: where the rich ride transit Read More »
This isn’t actually a post about transit. It’s about land use. But we’ll get there in a second. Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, is responsible for one of the most widely-shared quotes in the urbanist world: “An advanced city,” he said, “is not one where the poor use cars, but rather one
The suburbs: where the rich ride transit Read More »
What City Observatory did this week 1. City home prices outpacing suburbs by 50 percent. Joe Cortright examines a new study prepared by investment firm Fitch looking at the growing value premium in central cities. Since 2000, home prices have grown 50 percent faster in urban centers than in their surrounding metro areas. For hard
The Week Observed: August 14, 2015 Read More »
Since 2000, home prices have grown 50 percent faster in urban centers than in their surrounding metro areas. If your are an urban data geek, like we are, this is big news. A dramatic shift in city-suburb price differentials strongly signals a deep and enduring market demand for cities. A new research report from investment
City home prices outpacing metro by 50% Read More »
