Tag: public policy

Categories
Up To Speed

The Myth of the Suburban Revival

The Myth of the Suburban Revival

Recent economics data released from the Brookings Institute have shown that job sprawl has spread outside of metro downtowns, including Cincinnati. Planning theorists however are at odds as to what this means with New Geography’s Joel Kotkin claiming the “triumph of suburbia” over the center city. However; his assertions seem to be based on several false assumptions in the market and does not take into account the millenial generations preference for walkable neighborhoods. Is this a City vs. Suburb debate or as Robert Steuteville claims a walkable vs. auto-dominated debate? More from Better Cities & Towns:

In his analysis, Kotlin ignores many inconvenient facts and trends that don’t fit his narrative of an inexorable, historical march to lower density in generation after generation. Real estate values have declined in the automobile-oriented suburbs relative to compact, mixed-use neighborhoods. There’s a growing preference for rental housing, and multifamily development has recovered far more quickly than single-family development. Multifamily development has taken on a new character in recent years. In the 1990s it was garden apartments in the suburbs. Now it is being built in urban, transit-served neighborhoods.

Categories
Up To Speed

Parking Demand Map Aids Planners

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/04/mapping-subtle-science-parking-demand/5402/

As Cincinnati planners continue to study and move forward on eliminating parking requirements in the urban core, planners in the Seattle area have devised a way to track the supply of parking in parts of the Seattle region. Seattle planners conducted the study by doing parking counts in the middle of the night and matching them up with rental rates and unit affordability. Could a similar map for Cincinnati shed more light on whether the region is providing for more parking than it needs? More from the Atlantic Cities:

On average, these buildings were supplying about 1.4 parking stalls per housing unit; residents were only using about 1 stall per unit. And that oversupply extended across the region, from the central business district to urban neighborhoods to the suburbs. The project also collected information from each of these buildings on how the parking was priced, how the rental units were priced, and whether those two costs were bundled together. All of that information from this building survey was then used, alongside data on land use, demographics, job locations, and transit to hone a model capable of estimating the parking demand on a given property, accounting for factors like its proximity to transit and the price of parking relative to rent.

Categories
Up To Speed

Atlanta aims to capitalize on shifting global trade patterns with new export plan

Atlanta aims to capitalize on shifting global trade patterns with new export plan.

The City of Atlanta has launched a new regional plan for growing exports. The plan is seen as a critical step to help continue growth in the nation’s 13th largest metropolitan region, and aims to capitalize on shifting global trade patterns. More from Brookings:

By 2012, a majority of the 50 top performing metropolitan economies worldwide were in developing Asia-Pacific countries. U.S. metros must take advantage of growing demand abroad by developing export and engagement strategies that build on their special assets in the global economy.

The region has already taken the first step. Two weeks ago, Mayor Kasim Reed announced the launch of an Atlanta Metropolitan Export Plan that will be developed in collaboration with some of the region’s key business, political, university and non-profit leaders. The next step will be to conduct a market assessment of regional industries, identify the metro’s strengths and weaknesses, and determine what policies and investments are necessary to grow exports.

Categories
Up To Speed

Is NYC getting it wrong by putting development ahead of infrastructure improvements?

Is NYC getting it wrong by putting development ahead of infrastructure improvements?.

New York City officials are looking to pass new regulations that will allow for taller and more modern buildings throughout east Midtown. The demand for office space in the area is extremely high and city leaders would love to capitalize on it, but others worry that the efforts may be short-sighted given the city’s strained infrastructure. More from the New York Times:

With district improvement bonuses, the City Planning study proposes to double the developable floor area on some sites around Grand Central, allowing enough additional square footage to give us a neighborhood of towering office buildings, some as tall as 1,300 feet or more. (For reference, the Chrysler Building is 1,046 feet to the top of its spire.)

But how will the added workers quartered in these new buildings get from their trains to their desks? The plan says that special assessments and payments in lieu of taxes will guarantee “pedestrian network improvements as development occurs.” There is nothing wrong with privately financed infrastructure improvements. But the study, if I read it correctly, gets it backward: first you put in the infrastructure, then you build the buildings. Look at the example of Grand Central, the private enterprise that spurred all this development in the first place.

Categories
Up To Speed

The Southeast continues to grow, but is it quality economic growth?

The Southeast continues to grow, but is it quality economic growth?.

The Southeast continues to attract a large number of jobs from states in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast. But it turns out that these jobs tend to be lower paying and lower-skilled jobs than those that are remaining and growing in those other regions. More from the Seattle Times:

Needy states bid against each other for data centers, which can be the slag heaps of the technology business with serious issues about high energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and whether the few jobs created are worth the massive giveaways the companies receive.

Google is clustering its engineering and executive talent in or near attractive cities. For example, the company is adding space quickly in San Francisco, including near the Embarcadero. You get what you pay for, and quality urban centers are increasingly magnets for the most sought-after employees.