This is the last of my entries prompted by my recent trip to Columbus. I've noted before that Columbus and Indianapolis are twin cities in many ways, though with some important differences. One of those differences is that the civic discussion in Indianapolis today is heavily driven by the urgency of reversing the decline of Marion County as the city of Indianapolis increasingly loses out demographically and economically to its suburbs. In Columbus, by contrast, I didn't sense nearly the same concern about suburban competition. While again I … [Read more...]
Archives for June 2014
Dallas: A City in Transition
Dallas Skyline. Source: WikipediaI was in Dallas this past week for the New Cities Summit, so it's a good time to post an update on the city. I don't think many of us realize the scale to which Sunbelt mega-boomtowns like Dallas have grown. The Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area is now the fourth largest in the United States with 6.8 million people, and it continues to pile on people and jobs at a fiendish clip. Many urbanists are not fans of DFW, and it's easy to understand why. But I think it's unfair to judge the quality of a city without … [Read more...]
Los Angeles Union Station: Looks Great And Works Well, Too!
This is part of the series North America's Train Stations: What Makes Them Sustainable or Not? Photo of welcome desk looking into the grand waiting room on the right and the former ticketing hall on the left; courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Let me recap the theme of this series: to compete against the car and win over commuters, stations must ease connections between modes. How LA does this matters, nationwide, for it helps build a strategy that breaks transit out of today’s trap of red ink and taxpayer dissatisfaction. Transit’s case … [Read more...]