Well, that's not exactly the headline on the front page of the Wall Street Journal last week. The actual one was "Drop in Traffic Takes Toll on Investors in Private Roads" (subscription required). The Journal nails that part of the story, but only briefly addresses the way that the private companies that build these roads have already reacted by shifting to more favorable (to them) contracts arrangements that virtually guarantee their profits. One of the theoretical benefits of privatizing a government asset or service through a lease or … [Read more...]
Archives for November 2013
Is Economic Development Dead?
[ This week's guest post is from Sam Hersh. I'll hopefully have more of my own perspectives on the de Blasio phenomenon in the future. In the meantime, here's his take - Aaron. ] When Bill De Blasio won New York’s mayoral election a few weeks ago, it came as no surprise to anyone. His impassioned analogies to New York’s “Tale of Two Cities” and his call for a city that provided not just for the wealthiest one or two percent, but for all, appealed to the growing sense that New York is an increasingly unfair and unequal place. The angst … [Read more...]
Blurring the Lines
"We believed then as we do now, that the sharing economy can democratize access to goods, services, and capital — in fact all the essentials that make for vibrant markets, commons, and neighborhoods. It’s an epoch shaping opportunity for sustainable urban development that can complement the legacy economy. Resource sharing, peer production, and the free market can empower people to self-provision locally much of what they need to thrive. Yet we’ve learned that current U.S. policies often block resource sharing and peer production. - From the … [Read more...]
The Mayor As Entrepreneur-in-Chief
[ Ramsin Canon is one of the most keen left political observers I know in Chicago. Among other things he's been the politics editor at Gapers Blocks, a union organizer, and is now a law student I believe. Needless to say, he's no fan of "neoliberalism", even when practiced by those on the left. Here he provides his frame and critique of the current reigning governance model in our various levels of government re:cities. I may revisit this topic with my own thoughts in the future, but I'd like to make a couple of observations here. 1) Canon sees … [Read more...]
Cincinnati’s Culture of Self-Sabotage
Perhaps the most interesting urbanist election Tuesday was in Cincinnati, where the main issue in the campaign seems to have been the under-construction streetcar project. John Cranley, a Democrat who vowed to halt construction, as well as to cancel a pending parking privatization contract, was elected by a significant margin over Roxanne Qualls. Given that an anti-streetcar city council was elected as well, it seems likely Cincinnati will halt the project. Let me stipulate that I was never really that big a fan of the streetcar. Not evil, … [Read more...]
The Tough Realities Facing Smaller Post-Industrial Cities
A couple weeks ago the Economist ran a leader and an article on the plight of smaller post-industrial cities, noting that these days the worst urban decay is found not in big cities but in small ones. They observe: Partly, this reflects the extraordinary success of London and continuing deindustrialisation in the north of England. Areas such as Teesside have been struggling, on and off, since the first world war. But whereas over the past two decades England’s big cities have developed strong service-sector economies, its smaller industrial … [Read more...]