One of the great ironies of urban economies is the wide disparity between the price of parking and the price of housing in cities. Almost everyone acknowledges that we face a growing and severe problem of housing affordability, especially in the more desirable urban neighborhoods of the nation’s largest and most prosperous metropolitna areas. As […]
Parking: The Price is Wrong Read More »
The red state/blue state divide is a persistent feature of American politics. Political differences among states are also associated with important economic differences, and a similar patterns hold across and within metro areas. Big cities are more likely to be blue, and smaller towns and rural areas are red. The more densely populated portions of
Is life really better in Red States (and cities)? Read More »
For the past several months, Portland’s City Council has been wrestling with various proposals to raise additional funds to pay for maintaining and improving city streets. After considering a range of ideas, including fees on households and businesses, a progressive income tax, and a kind of Rube Goldberg income tax pro-rated to average gasoline consumption,
How Should Portland Pay for Streets? Read More »
If you’ve hung around enough espresso joints, you’ve probably heard someone order a “tall, non-fat decaf latte.” This is what baristas often call a “why bother?” That would also be a good alternate description for the Metro Climate Smart Communities Plan. Framed in glowing rhetoric, the plan purports to be a two-decade long region-wide strategy
Metro’s “Why Bother” Climate Change Strategy Read More »
There is a central and unacknowledged problem in urban transportation: The price is wrong. Underlying traffic congestion, unaffordable housing, and the shortage of great urban places is the key fact that we charge the wrong price for using roads. Nowhere are the effects of mispriced roads more apparent than on-street parking. Only for car storage
Parking: The Price is Wrong Read More »
The Myth: Traffic congestion is getting worse The Reality: Congestion has declined almost everywhere It’s a common movie trope – a busy commuter rushes out of his downtown office at 5pm, hoping to get only to enter a citywide traffic jam. In reality, traffic congestion across the country has been in steady decline thanks to
The four biggest myths about cities – #4: Traffic is getting worse Read More »
If your impression of cities came entirely from watching the evening news, you might think that cities are saddled with ever-increasing traffic congestion and rising crime rates. From talking to your Great Aunt Ida at Thanksgiving, you’d think that New York was more dangerous for children than the suburbs and that Los Angeles was still
The four biggest myths about cities – #1 Cities aren’t safe for children Read More »
A new report detailing the “costs” of congestion twists the data to become little more than talking points for the highway lobby. For transportation geeks, Halloween came early this year. A new report claims that traffic congestion is costing us $124 billion a year and is “draining” our economy. But just as those ghoul and
Boo! The annual Carmaggedon scare is upon us. Read More »
Density, land use patterns and the transportation system interact to determine how well cities fulfill their fundamental task of bringing people together.
Urban Form & Transportation Read More »
