Every week we read more than we can write about on the blog. To avoid letting good commentary and research fall by the wayside, we’re going to publish weekly excerpts from what we’ve been reading.
Brian Fallow, “Key dodges funding issue“, The New Zealand Herald.
One of the problems with the reliance on a property tax for half of local government’s revenue (on average nationwide) is that the twin trends of an ageing population and declining home ownership mean a growing proportion of ratepayers will be elderly, with limited income growth from which to pay ever-rising rates bills.
Elisabeth Easter, “Auckland: Seven secret cycleways”, The New Zealand Herald.
Slowly but surely, Auckland is becoming a city for cyclists.
Thanks to the good people of Auckland Transport, a series of easy rides (mostly all off-road) have been identified as Great Auckland Rides, explained by individual “passports” downloadable from their website.
Via Copenhagenize.
Via Copenhagenize
Adam Hengels, “Only Two Ways to Fight Gentrification (you’re not going to like one of them)”. Market Urbanism.
When considering gentrification, we must accept the fact that rich people don’t just vaporize by prohibiting the creation of housing for them. If housing desires cannot be met in upscale neighborhoods, the wealthy can and will outbid less affluent people elsewhere. With that in mind, there are only 2 solutions to stem the tide of gentrification. The first solution is widespread liberalization of zoning. This is particularly needed in already desirable locations where incumbent residents have effectively depopulated their neighborhoods over several decades. The only other solution is to eradicate rich people altogether. This, I hope, is not what people have in mind when they declare class war.
Inspired (to put it mildly) by Copenhagenize, here’s a local interpretation for K Road.
(TransportBlog)
Steve Mouzon, “Cheapways” (the thoroughfare formerly known as the Freeway), Original Green. Mouzon describes the destructive nature of urban highways. This post and others from his “Sprawl Series” inspired numerous TransportBlog posts including “Proximity and Integration (The Metropolitan Revolution)”.
It is so named because it has likely destroyed over a trillion of dollars of real estate value around it in the US and drains municipal coffers across the country of billions in property taxes and sales tax revenues. As a matter of fact, most Cheapways destroy substantially more real estate value than the several-million-per-mile that it costs to construct them.
Cheapways were originally built to allow people to move to sprawling suburbs but work in the city. City-dwellers don’t need them to get to their jobs downtown, of course, because they’re living there already. So make no mistake: Cheapways weren’t built for the city, but for the sprawling suburbs.
Steve Pearlstein, “Debunking the conventional wisdom about conventions”, The Washington Post.
Washington finally has a great new (tax-subsidized) convention hotel to go along with its great new (subsidized) downtown convention center. The glass-and-steel building is about as light and inviting as a 1,175-room hotel can be. With the completion of the Marriott Marquis, Washington is now positioned to compete for more and bigger national meetings and conventions.
Unfortunately, in the hypercompetitive world of (subsidized) conventions, there is never a good time to rest on your laurels.
Before long, local boosters will join with the Convention Industrial Complex (CIC) to try to convince us that our billion-dollar investment will all be for naught if we don’t pony up more public funds to expand the existing facilities so that we can go toe to toe with Chicago and Vegas or keep up with the competition from San Diego and Nashville. That’s already happening in Boston, one of Washington’s big rivals, where the Massachusetts legislature has just approved $1.1 billion in additional financing for convention center expansion. And it’s only a matter of time before it happens here again.
Angie Schmitt, “Are Engineers Allowed to Speak Up for Reforming Their Profession?”, Streetsblog Network. Chuck Marohn of Strongtowns who coined the term STROADS and created the brilliant “Conversation with an Engineer” recently had his professional license challenged by a fellow engineer.
The charges were quickly dismissed by the Minnesota licensing board, but the incident has raised questions about engineers’ freedom to speak openly for reform and challenge institutional dogma.
Marohn’s message is often critical of the American Society of Civil Engineers, arguing that spending less on infrastructure would lead to smarter long-term decisions. The challenge was put forward by Jeffrey Peltola, a fellow engineer who is active in the MoveMN campaign to increase taxes for transportation spending in Minnesota. Marohn has been an outspoken critic of the group.
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Holy guacamole this is useful.
…but not as useful as avocados.
Incidentally I had avocados for lunch. As good as they are, though, they’re not as good at getting me home as the wheels on the bus going around and around.
Although as I discovered, the wheels don’t always go where I need to. Went to the big game at North Harbour Stadium last night; on the bus, as is my wont. Free bus back to Takapuna after the game, yay! Expecting to get a connection to Glenfield, however, I see that late night buses from Takapuna go only to points north and south. No late services to points west i.e.. to the greater bulk of north shore suburbia.
Doesn’t make any sense to me. Would any bus company reps care to comment? Had to get a taxi till my money ran out then walk the last 2km. Not happy, especially since the Blues lost. OK, grump over.
Yabbut it takes a really special person to eat a bus… (a London beetroutemaster perhaps?).
Did you know that avocados have all the nutrients that humans need to live on? I am told that some people live on buses too, but generally older ones.
“Strong towns” That is a good one, up there with “Smart Growth”. I really do get amused with the way US lobby groups bastardise the language to create a branding for their idea and make it hard for anyone to argue with them regardless of merit. Defining the language to control the debate was used heavily by the communist movement but I think it goes back to Loyola and the counter reformation. And then some dick wants to use professional complaints processes to censure them. Good grief.
Really? And I thought it was traffic engineers who are particularly adept at using language (technical jargon in their case) to lock out the debate!
(Lights paper…stands back.)
yeah, a topical example is FHO, Fixed Hazardous Object, or what is known to actual humans as a tree.
#TEspeak
Gentrification does not always restrict supply. It really depend how it is done.