Recently in Cities Category
Eminent Domain as Central Planning by Nicole Gelinas, City Journal Winter 2010
An over-broad definition of blight (it includes "underutilization") allows cities to condemn land and buildings that aren't blighted at all. (Oklahoma has the same problem, which undermines our state constitutional protection against government seizing land for private use. "In the 1930s...'substandard' and 'unsanitary' meant 'families and children dying from rampant fires and pestilence' in tuberculosis-ridden firetraps. In 2006, by contrast, the UDC's consultants found 'substandard' conditions in isolated graffiti, cracked sidewalks, and 'underutilization'--that is, when property owners weren't using their land to generate the social and economic benefits that the government desired."
Hartford: It's A Parking Place -- Courant.com
Sounds like Tulsa:
"Since 1960, the number of parking spaces in downtown Hartford increased by more that 300 percent -- from 15,000 to 46,000 spaces. This change has had a profound and devastating effect on the structure and function of the city (see accompanying maps) as one historic building after another was demolished.... Over the period that parking was being increased by more than 300 percent, downtown was losing more than 60 percent of its residential population, and the city as a whole lost 40,000 people and 7,000 jobs....
"The contrast between, Say, Portland and Hartford is stark in terms of economic vibrancy and social vitality. Hartford looks more like the hundreds of other American cities that have hollowed out their core to accommodate automobiles.
"With more that 700 parking spaces for every 1,000 employees, Hartford has the dubious distinction of being near the top of the list for parking -- up there with cities such as Detroit and Buffalo."
According to DTU's website, downtown Tulsa has 38,300 parking spaces and a daytime population of 34,000. That's 1,126 parking spots per 1,000 employees.
Urban Review STL: Growth of auto related structures
Steve Patterson shows with photographs how pre-war auto-oriented development accommodated cars while maintaining a pedestrian-friendly environment.
news from me: Arnold Stang, R.I.P.
The voice of Top Cat and Herman the Mouse has fallen silent at age 91. Mark Evanier shares some memories, including Stang's response to the offer of a limo ride to a New York recording session: "No, I like to walk. You don't stay in touch with the city in the back of a limo."
Field of Schemes: Winston-Salem: Okay, that stadium didn't work out so well
Public-private ballpark partnership turns into a totally public $48.7 million burden on the taxpayers, on the heels the failure of a 2004 $250 million Dell Computer subsidy -- Dell is closing and laying off over 900 employees. When will cities wise up and stop playing at the corporate welfare casino?
Streetsblog New York City » Building Codes to Deal With Abandoned Big Boxes
"To their credit, the city planners [in Charlotte, N. C.] have begun pushing developers of new big box stores to agree to language in the rezoning agreement that puts some requirements on the retailer if the store goes vacant: keep up the building, help market it to new tenants, don't put a noncompete clause on the property. But that doesn't give the city any leverage against abandoned commercial properties built without any such requirements."
The Judge Report - Fifty Years
From the New York Post: "Drive through nearby run-down Amsterdam [N. Y.] to see the product of 50 years of state economic development efforts." Robert N. Going replies:
"If left to our own devices and own resources and own markets, I wonder what Amsterdam would have looked like today?
"In 1970 alone more than 27 million dollars in outside funds passed through here and not without a little corrupting effect....
"I remember one of the great problems our outside experts were attempting to solve for us was the critical problem of traffic jams in our downtown.
"That's the one project at which they were sensationally successful."
Field of Schemes: An anniversary few noticed: 100 years & Forbes Field
"Now remembered as a small intimate ballpark that has long since been demolished, at the time Forbes Field was the most massive monument to professional sports ever built.
"It was built entirely with private funds, and it ushered in a sort of competition among team owners to build similar ballparks, places like Fenway, Wrigley, Comiskey, Ebbets, and Navin in Detroit....
"My theory: Now that the real ballparks of a bygone era have inspired construction of numerous "retro ballparks," MLB is not wedded to keeping the old dinosaurs around. In short, Fenway and Wrigley have served their usefulness in prompting the kind of new construction that has made team owners around the country lots of money. If dumping them for shiny new models is in the cards, MLB would not have a problem with that."
Detroit Votes To Demolish 1923 Lafayette Building
More vandalism from the Detroit Undevelopment Authority.
Architecture - Demise of Gehry Design for Nets Arena Is Blow to Brooklyn - NYTimes.com
Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff: "Arenas are notorious black holes in urban neighborhoods, sitting empty most of the year and draining the life around them."
