Regionalism and metropolitan government are urban planning orthodoxy. The idea is that we need to have region-wide planning to meet the actual regional needs, which transcend boundaries. And also to have an equitable financing structure. So entities like Portland's Metro (a directly elected layer of regional government on the Oregon side of that metro area) and the Twin Cities' Metropolitan Council and region-wide tax sharing system are lauded. Because these regions have been fairly successful and seem to function well, their regional … [Read more...]
Archives for May 2017
Louisville Spent $2.4 Billion on New Bridges While Traffic Fell Sharply
The initial figures are in and the new Louisville bridges are on track to be as big a failure as predicted. I've written a lot about this $2.4 billion project to build two new bridges across the Ohio River. They are now open to traffic and collecting tolls. You may recall that Indiana and Kentucky's' own traffic projections predicted that the old downtown I-65 bridge + the new downtown bridge + the new east end bridge combined would carry less traffic in 2030 than just the existing downtown bridge I-65 bridge did in 2007. The new … [Read more...]
“What Makes You Think You’re Better Than Anyone Else?”
Some experiences of life are so universally known that they've become cliches. Yet when they happen to us we still can't avoid thinking of them as something remarkable, about which we must tell others as if we've made some new discovery about the human condition. For example, "you can never go home again." Conservative writer Rod Dreher surely knew this to be true, but he didn't let it stop him from trying anyway. After leaving rural Louisiana for a writing career in DC and New York, he returned home after being moved by the community that … [Read more...]
Rosa Parks House Shows How Pragmatism Killed Michigan
Did you know that in 1925 the marketing slogan of the city of Detroit was, "Detroit: Where life is worth living"? Did you know the Rosa Parks House in Detroit is now in Berlin? The former home of Rosa Parks in Detroit fell into severe disrepair. Her niece acquired the home but couldn't find anyone locally to fund repairs. But when Berlin-based American born artist Ryan Mendoza found out about it, he raised the funds to transport the house to Berlin and re-erect and restore it there. Dwight Gibson, the friend I quoted in my recent … [Read more...]
How the Pragmatic Mindset Undermines the Rust Belt
“Pragmatism killed Michigan.” When my consultant friend Dwight Gibson said this about his home state, I was taken aback. I always thought pragmatism was a good thing, and I think of myself as a pragmatic person in many ways. My first response to hearing somebody present an intriguing but nebulous policy idea is usually to say, “Yes, but what exactly am I supposed to do to make this happen?” Pragmatism, which we like to identify as a quintessentially American trait, indeed is often a good thing. But as with many other good things, it comes … [Read more...]
Rail in Legacy Cities vs. Federal Funds to Poorer Markets
Someone asked me to reconcile my recent paper on rail funding with my stance on Cal-Train electrification that the feds should prioritize funding towards poorer cities. Very good question because there is an apparent conflict there. My recent paper was positioned as a response to Trump's plan to completely eliminate rail transit capital grants while retaining the basic structure of federal transport funding. I think these grants should be retained, but routed to repairs on the core legacy transit system which have a very strong rationale. (I … [Read more...]
What Is Globalism?
I was talking with someone at dinner last night and he asked me what globalism was. I responded with four key elements: Borderless World: A belief in the ever freer movement of goods, services, capital, and people around the globe. Global Culture and Regime: A shared set of social, lifestyle, and political norms, along with supranational institutions that embody them, that explicitly supersede all national norms and institutions. Flat Earth Morality: A belief that all people and entities are to make decisions are in a way that … [Read more...]
The Feds Need to Stop Financing New Light Rail and Start Fixing Existing Subways
One of the dumber things we've been doing as a country is building a bunch of new roads, many of them dubious, when too many of our old ones are falling apart. But we're doing the same thing for transit too. Safety and reliability problems sent DC Metro ridership plunging 14% last year. (Somebody I talked to earlier today told me his stop had smoke in it just this morning). Boston's T collapsed in a snow storm a couple of years ago, and the American Prospect says it could be in worse shape than DC. New York's subways are getting more and … [Read more...]
The Landscape of Global Urbanization
I gave a lecture recently in New York on urbanization and global cities. I'm sharing a couple of segments of that as podcasts. The first is a short introduction to global urbanization. I talk about the radical rural-urban shift in human living patterns, the increase in city size (especially the growth of megacities), and the challenges arising from urban growth in the developing world. This podcast is a good basic introduction to the topic that will be very helpful for anyone to get an understanding of the basics. Some of the stats on … [Read more...]
The Great Non-Profit Die Off
Marc Lapides wrote an op-ed in Crain's Chicago Business calling for an 1871 accelerator for creating new non-profits. Most cities could actually use the opposite. What they need is an infrastructure for euthanizing non-profits that are past their expiration date. When I look around older cities, I frequently see that they've got a veritable armada of non-profits. Rarely do I see these making a huge difference in the trajectory of the city. The usual complaint about too many non-profits is that they aren't coordinated, and so often … [Read more...]