Archive for the ‘ Planning ’ Category
(also via Metafilter) Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal, long nicknamed the “Lavender Lake” for its copious oil slicks, has gained a new title : Superfund Site. New Yorkers respond with really cool photography. While some developers bow out in light of the recent news, other area developers, hoping for a speedy cleanup of the industrial waste and, [ READ MORE ]
(via Metafilter) Model cities are useful to city planners and architects. But they’re also beautiful. [ READ MORE ]
Positive feedback from tourists and merchants have convinced Bloomberg to make the temporary closings in Midtown permanent, despite worsening traffic flow. [ READ MORE ]
[Straight from Metafilter] Tishman Speyer Properties is defaulting on its $5.4 billion, high profile acquisition of the enormous Stuyvesant Town apartment complex in Manhattan, resulting in million in losses for investors and possibly “signaling the beginning of what is expected to be a wave of commercial-property failures”. The failure is the result of an aggressive [ READ MORE ]
Alec MacGillis has written an article (that I haven’t yet read) for The American Prospect titled The Ruse of the Creative Class. The byline: Cities that shelled out big bucks to learn Richard Florida’s prescription for vibrant urbanism are now hearing they may be beyond help. [ READ MORE ]
A New York appeals court voted 3-2 against the use of eminent domain for Columbia’s expansion into West Harlem. The finding seems to list the usual culprits, like a flimsy blight finding, and (probably rightly) suggests that the decision to use eminent domain and the subsequent necessity of finding a public purpose were made in [ READ MORE ]
And now after winning its eminent domain case, destroying a neighborhood, and exacting tax concessions, Pfizer has decided to abandon its New London campus and move 1400 jobs across the river to Groton. “I’m sure that there are people that are waiting out there to say, ‘I told you so,’ ” Mr. Pero said. “I don’t know [ READ MORE ]
From the press release: NYCEDC’s Economic Research and Analysis Department has launched NYC Economics on NYCEDC.com. With this initiative, our readers and clients will get more out of our products and NYCEDC’s economic research will become more accessible. The content is organized around four modules: Data Resources, Economic Impact Analyses, Publications, and Frequently Asked Questions. Data Resources With [ READ MORE ]
The city has made a deal with Thor Equities to purchase 6.9 acres in the heart of Coney Island for $95.6m. Fortunately, this will put the redevelopment of Coney Island a little closer to public input, or at least it would if Bloomberg were not the mayor. [ READ MORE ]
Well, I wasn’t going to blog this ugly event (to which JS brought my attention), but seeing as the NYPost has picked it up in addition to the NYTimes and as it’s on the front page of reddit.com, I guess I can mention it briefly. I consider Mac, the professor in the dispute, to be [ READ MORE ]
Herrick, Feinstein LLP, a law firm I consulted and worked for some years ago and now home to a couple of Columbia UP graduates, has created a blog (Herrick ZONE) with information on NYC land use and environment plans and news. [ READ MORE ]
John Forester, Scott Peters, and Margo Hittleman have put together a site of planning practitioner profiles called ‘Practice Stories‘. Practitioner profiles let us hear directly from planners, educators, and organizers about the practical challenges and opportunities they really face. Crafted from edited transcripts of interviews with experienced practitioners speaking about how they handled specific, memorable projects [ READ MORE ]
Nancy Odendaal is touring African planning programs to coordinate a program on educating planning for the challenges of planning African cities, which DM told me yesterday is the hot focal point for study now. She is blogging about it. [ READ MORE ]
[From 3quarksdaily] The City Planners Cruising these residential Sunday streets in dry August sunlight: what offends us is the sanities: the house in pedantic rows, the planted sanitary streets, assert levelness of surface like a rebuke to the dent in our car door. No shouting here, or shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt than the rational whine of a power mower cutting a straight swath in the discouraged [ READ MORE ]
Slate has an article on bicycle parking, which I’m sure will be of interest to at least one of the readers of this blog. [via metafilter] [ READ MORE ]