YIMBY News for 11/8
0 views
Skip to first unread message
Eric Budd
Nov 8, 2018, 7:59:28 AM11/8/18
to yimby...@googlegroups.com
There's a Missing Middle for Commercial Spaces, Too
Strong Towns
KEYWORD SCORE: 52.56. affordability, apartment, building, cities, city, construction, density, design, developer, development, growth, house, housing, income, mixed-use, neighborhood, nimby, parking, plan, planning commission, price, project, property, rent, single family, single-family, sustainable, traffic, transit, transportation, urban, walk, zone, zoning
*Kevin Klinkenberg *is a Strong Towns member who is Principal at K2 Urban Design and blogs at The Messy City. We are reposting this article from his blog with permission. ------------------------------ Of the many encouraging trends in recent years for cities, I’m especially heartened to see the interest in Missing Middle Housing. Dan and Karen Parolek of Opticos Design have coined a term and created an image that is catching the world of planning and development on fire. It’s long overdue,
Share via:
The Beauty Contest: How Cities are Shaped by What We Think Others Think (Part One)
Strong Towns
KEYWORD SCORE: 50.78. affordable, affordable housing, apartment, building, cities, city, condo, demand, design, developer, development, displace, downtown, gentrification, gentrified, home, house, housing, housing price, income, land, municipal, neighborhood, parking, parking lot, plan, price, project, properties, property, redevelop, rent, segregate, segregation, single-family, supply, transit, urban, zone, zoning
Cities are complex adaptive systems. As human social creations, they are subject to all of the herd behavior and interrelated feedback loops that shape how humans behave in groups. This insight informs several central tenets of the Strong Towns approach: that local policy makers should make small, incremental investments instead of large, transformative projects; should design systems to adapt to feedback; and should aim for bottom-up action (chaotic but smart) over top-down (orderly but du
Share via:
Longtime head of The Delores Project departing from shelter for women and transgender people experiencing homelessness
Denverite
KEYWORD SCORE: 43.13. affordable, affordable housing, apartment, building, city, construction, density, design, developer, development, gentrifying, home, homeless, house, housing, housing authority, housing crisis, income, land, neighborhood, nimby, plan, project, property, real estate, urban, walk
In the 1990s, when she was managing fundraising and membership for the Denver Art Museum, Terrell Curtis had to pay close attention to detail as she juggled caterers, donors and art. When everything came together, she would have “a very successful event that enriches the museum and the community,” Curtis said. “Creating low-income housing is kind of like that. It just takes a whole lot more people and time. It’s like one big, long, very special event that impacts community for the long hau
Share via:
Support Middle Neighborhoods with a Federal Investment in Home Rehab
Next City
KEYWORD SCORE: 41.31. affordable, affordable housing, average house, cities, city, construction, demand, development, gentrifying, home, homeowner, house, housing, housing crisis, housing stock, income, land, neighborhood, occupancy, plan, price, properties, property, rent, renter, single-family
In many Baltimore neighborhoods such as Mt. Vernon, the housing stock is older and often, the cost of acquisition and renovation would exceed a home's appraised value. (Credit: Baltimore Heritage, via Flickr) Neither rich nor poor. Neither gentrifying nor in steep decline. “Middle neighborhoods” have recently captured the attention of community development circles (and are the subject of ongoing coverage in Next City). These neighborhoods, broadly defined as areas with households earning 80
Share via:
Amazon’s Choice of Crystal City Powered by Good Transit
Streetsblog Net
KEYWORD SCORE: 38.00. affordable, affordable housing, building, bus rapid transit, cities, city, commute, commuting, demand, density, development, downtown, growth, home, housing, housing option, infill, land, parking, real estate, rent, traffic, transit, transportation, urban, walk, zoning
Amazon’s reported choice of Crystal City, Virginia, for one of its two second headquarters gives the online retailer two key things it emphasized during its search: Strong transit and access to “talent.” The would-be HQ2 location is served by both the Blue and the Yellow lines of the D.C. Metro. The station also serves commuter rail to Virginia’s more distant suburbs. It is less than four miles south of downtown Washington, D.C. and within walking distance of Reagan National Airport. About
Share via:
The Beauty Contest: How Cities are Shaped by What We Think Others Think (Part Two)
Strong Towns
KEYWORD SCORE: 37.13. affordable, apartment, building, cities, city, demand, gentrification, gentrifying, home, house, housing, housing price, income, neighborhood, price, property, rent, supply, urban, walk
We’re bringing you something a little outside our usual box this week. *Erica Barnett*, a Seattle-based journalist, and *Ben Klemens*, a Washington, D.C.-based economist and author, are working on a book about how economic and game-theory principles can help explain sociocultural phenomena. In this, the second of two guest posts, they use a computer-generated model to examine how a much-discussed urban phenomenon—gentrification—is best understood neither as top-down conspiracy nor as the i
Share via:
On Ballot Measures, a Progressive Sweep
CityLab
KEYWORD SCORE: 36.53. affordability, affordable, affordable housing, building, cities, city, community benefit, commute, construction, design, development, funds, home, homeless, housing, housing crisis, income, land, municipal, neighborhood, plan, project, properties, property, rent, rent control, supply, transit, transportation, urban
Yesterday, voters chose new leaders. They entrusted them with the responsibility to draft legislation; and soon, those officials will guide cites, counties, states, and the nation. But, with hundreds of ballot measures in at least 37 states—and more on local polls—voters were also given the opportunity to shape policy themselves. A “blue wave” may not have overwhelmingly swept Congress, but there was undoubtedly a progressive wave across ballot initiatives, even in conservative states and
Share via:
Voters Said No in California, but Other States Have Rent Control Battles Looming
CityLab
KEYWORD SCORE: 35.69. affordability, affordable, affordable housing, apartment, cities, city, co-op, condo, construction, developer, housing, housing crisis, hud, income, middle-income, neighborhood, price, rent, rent control, rent-control, renter
Yesterday voters in California rejected Proposition 10, which would have repealed current restrictions on how much city governments can control or cap rents. It was a bill that activists succeeded in getting on the ballot and it's no surprise California was a battleground: According to recent HUD data, 54 percent of all California renters are “rent-burdened”—meaning they spend more than a third of their income on rent—and 29 percent are “severely” rent-burdened, meaning they spend more tha
Share via:
Here are your 2019 candidates for Denver mayor (so far)
Denverite
KEYWORD SCORE: 35.59. affordable, affordable housing, building, cities, city, density, developer, development, displace, gentrification, growth, home, homeless, housing, income, land, neighborhood, plan, project, public hearing, real estate, rent, sustainability, traffic, transit, transportation, urban, walk
The mayor of Denver is the most powerful city official around. The office sets the city budget, the clearest way to decipher the head-of-city’s priorities. It’s kind of like looking at your (my) bank statement and realizing you (I) have a problematic addiction to Chinese noodles. Except instead of noodles, more important things like housing, transportation and public health are at stake. Denver’s mayor, who is elected to a four-year term, has the Denver City Council’s number when it comes
Share via:
Harnessing the Sun to Power Equitable Development in NYC
Next City
KEYWORD SCORE: 33.53. affordable, apartment, building, city, co-op, development, home, homeowner, house, housing, housing stock, income, land, neighborhood, open space, plan, price, project, public space, rent, renter, single-family, sustainable, urban
A rooftop is covered with solar panels at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York. The Manhattan skyline is at top. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Along the peninsula of the South Bronx, a concentration of warehouses are responsible for billions of dollars of industry. The waterfront is home to manufacturing, waste treatment, food distribution. “And all that activity surrounds an impoverished residential core,” says Toby Sheppard Bloch, chief venture officer for the HOPE Program, a workforce developme
Share via:
The Unconventional Beauty of Montreal’s New Bonaventure Expressway
CityLab
KEYWORD SCORE: 33.16. building, city, condo, construction, design, development, downtown, growth, home, housing, income, land, neighborhood, plan, project, real estate, rent, sustainability, traffic, urban, walk, zone
Since 1967, off-island visitors to Montreal would swoop in from the south, over the Champlain Bridge, pass the iconic Farine Five Roses sign, and arrive via the Bonaventure Expressway; passing over a derelict no man’s land of factories and slums known as Griffintown before arriving in the heart of the city. “The idea was to build an elevated expressway to get cars through the area as quickly as possible,” says Simon Pouliot, an urban designer with the City of Montreal who has worked on the
Share via:
Will the Death of the Mall Bring Back Downtowns? Maybe, Maybe Not
Strong Towns
KEYWORD SCORE: 31.44. building, cities, city, design, development, downtown, growth, home, homeowner, housing, land, mixed-use, neighborhood, parking, parking lot, plan, project, redevelop, rent, sales tax, urban, walk
Malls have been understood as the antithesis of traditional urbanism ever since the inception of the multi-store complexes. Possibly no other type of development quite so embodies the Growth Ponzi Scheme as the shopping mall: it requires massive and costly of up-front public infrastructure, is built to decline, and at the end of its life, it either sits abandoned or receives a second life (usually at additional public expense). Rising to popularity in the 1950s riding a wave of subsidies an
Share via:
By HUD's count, the number of veterans experiencing homelessness in metro Denver is up slightly from last year
Denverite
KEYWORD SCORE: 29.38. affordable, affordable housing, city, construction, demand, development, home, homeless, house, housing, housing and urban development, housing authority, hud, income, project, regional, rent, urban
Slightly more veterans were experiencing homelessness in the Denver area this year, according to HUD’s Annual Homeless Assessment Report. According to the figures released Monday, 566 veterans were counted in metropolitan Denver during the one-night point-in-time survey of people experiencing homelessness in January. Last year it was 548. It was 358 in 2013, the year that saw the lowest figure among veterans since 2011, when the number was 1,322. Numbers have fluctuated in Denver. National
Share via:
CityLab Daily: In the Midterms, Watch for a Suburban Wave
CityLab
KEYWORD SCORE: 29.25. affordable, affordable housing, cities, city, density, home, homeless, house, housing, land, multimodal, plan, project, rent, rent control, supply, transit, transportation, urban
*Keep up with the most pressing, interesting, and important city stories of the day. Sign up for the CityLab Daily newsletter here.* *** The Changing Map *Surf’s up, suburbs: *The current political geography of the United States was forged eight years ago, when Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in a landslide election. That created a new normal of Republican dominance of rural districts, while the Democrats became even more of an urban party. This year, Democrats have
Share via:
The Comcast of Transportation?
Strong Towns
KEYWORD SCORE: 28.16. apartment, bike-share, building, bus service, cities, city, density, design, house, income, land, land-use, mobility, multi-modal, parking, plan, price, project, rent, resilient, transit, transportation, urban, walk
At Strong Towns, we’ve been guardedly positive about recent innovations in personal transportation, ranging from ride-hailing services to dockless bike-share and electric scooters. There are some good reasons for optimism about these trends, from the point of view of someone who wants to see our places become productive and fiscally resilient: - A combination of services like Uber/Lyft and scooters that address the “last mile” problem can make it feasible and convenient for a
Share via:
CityLab Daily: On Ballot Initiatives, a Progressive Sweep
CityLab
KEYWORD SCORE: 27.63. affordability, affordable, affordable housing, cities, city, design, downtown, house, housing, land, project, public space, rent, rent control, segregate, transit, transportation, urban
*Keep up with the most pressing, interesting, and important city stories of the day. Sign up for the CityLab Daily newsletter here.* *** What We’re Following *Taking the initiative:* The national story may be that Democrats flipped the House of Representatives and Republicans held the Senate, but when it comes to voters weighing in on state and local laws, progressive causes carried the day. Urban policy priorities on the ballot got a thumbs-up from voters in a midterm election that saw hi
Share via:
Top Urbanist Action: Vote Out the Bums
The Urbanist
KEYWORD SCORE: 25.75. affordable, affordable housing, city, funds, home, homeless, housing, land, real estate, rent, transit, transportation, urban, walk, zoning
Well it’s Election Day and polls close at 8pm. Find your nearest ballot box here or drop it in the mail box in time to get postmarked today. No postage necessary this year. There’s no rule against procrastination. Get that ballot in. Here how The Urbanist Election Board landed in our endorsements: - *Yes on I-1631* – Carbon Pollution Fee that invests in clean energy - *Yes on 1-1639* – Gun Safety - *Yes on 1-940* – Police Accountability - *Adam Smith for 9th Congressional Distric
Share via:
Calgary’s New Public Library Opens with Ambition and Style
CityLab
KEYWORD SCORE: 25.59. building, city, demand, design, downtown, home, house, income, land, mixed-use, municipal, neighborhood, open space, parking, parking lot, project, public space, redevelop, rent, transit, urban, walk
When Craig Dykers came to Calgary in 2013 to view the land his architecture firm would build a library on, he found a metaphorical vacuum. “It was a very empty place, a lot of empty parking lots, gravel parking lots, really nothing to define the area,” he recalls. Nearby, Calgary’s cultural district and its sometimes-bustling downtown had attractions that compelled people to visit, spend money, and leave. Looking northeast however, Dykers could see the East Village where Fort Calgary orig
Share via:
Amazon Throws Curveball Near the End of HQ2 Saga
Next City
KEYWORD SCORE: 23.50. apartment, building, cities, city, commute, development, housing, hud, land, municipal, neighborhood, plan, properties, real estate, redevelop, regional, rent, renter, transportation
Overlooking the Sunnyside Yards in Queens, toward Long Island City and Manhattan in the background. (Credit: NYCEDC) Our long national nightmare is (almost) over. No, I’m not talking about the media barrage of vitriolic and sometimes violent political messaging in the run-up to today’s election. I’m talking about the saga of Amazon’s “HQ2,” the process of selecting a location for the behemoth company’s second headquarters — which, it turns out, will never happen as promised anyway. Related
Share via:
How boomer homeowners blocked affordable housing | https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/11/millennials-home-buying-generation-priced-out/574840/?utm_source=Sightline%20Institute&utm_medium=web-email&utm_campaign=Sightline%20News%20Selections
Sightline Institute
KEYWORD SCORE: 20.94. affordable, affordable housing, apartment, city, developer, home, homeowner, housing, price, sustainable, urban
“Discussions around a lack of affordable urban housing often focus on developers and speculators as the villains, but homeowner opposition to new apartments is a large part of the problem,” said Randy Shaw, the author of a new book *Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America*. Sightline Institute researches the best practices in public policy for a sustainable Pacific Northwest. Read more at http://www.sightline.org. The post How boomer homeowners blocked affordable h
Share via:
What If Hip Hop Can Make Architecture and Planning Better?
Next City
KEYWORD SCORE: 19.34. city, comprehensive plan, design, funds, housing, income, land, neighborhood, occupancy, plan, project, rent, urban
Participants of an Aug. 2018 Hip-Hop Architecture Camp in Chicago. (Credit: M.O.D. Photography, courtesy of Michael Ford) In Feb. 2017, the city of Madison, Wis., was developing its comprehensive plan. Michael Ford noticed that the plan, which projects 20 years into the future, had no input from young people. Related Stories - How to Become a Social Impact Designer Without Going (Permanently) Broke - Calgary Could Remake Housing Design for Seniors - Architects Are Worried Ab
Share via:
Nationwide, Transportation Measures Rolled to Victory
CityLab
KEYWORD SCORE: 19.00. cities, city, commute, construction, design, funds, house, land, mobility, multimodal, project, property, regional, sales tax, sustainability, transit, transportation, urban, walk
On Tuesday, Democrats won a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in eight years. In an era of declining federal support for transportation, the so-called Blue Wave of more liberal lawmakers may lift the spirits of beleaguered commuters and road users, particularly those who depend on urban transit. So is the clutch of new governors’ seats that Democrats picked up. But perhaps more likely to result in meaningful change in how Americans get around were hundreds of
Share via:
Why road pricing is inherently equitable: Faster buses
City Observatory
KEYWORD SCORE: 18.28. bus service, city, commute, commuting, demand, express bus, growth, income, land, neighborhood, parking, price, rent, transit, transportation
*Road pricing is inherently fairer to the poor because it speeds up buses* As economists, we’re keen on the idea of road pricing. The reason we have congestion and delay is because we charge a price for peak hour road use (zero), that doesn’t come close to covering the costs of providing roadway capacity and reflecting the delays that road users impose on others with their choices of when and where to travel. A road user fee that makes these go faster is inherently equitable Invariably, th
Share via:
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages