The year is 2030. Protesters gather around yet another apartment building where long-term residents are being evicted to accommodate newcomers. We must be in San Francisco. No, we’re in Oakland. Guess again. It’s Hayward. Or, Concord. Or perhaps, Santa Rosa. In 2030, these and many other Bay Area communities may realize that their neighborhood has … Continue reading »
cities
How metropolitan public transit can benefit wages and employment
By Daniel G. Chatman and Robert B. Noland — Cities may become more productive when they expand their public transportation networks, if public transport investments lead to larger employment clusters and encourage metropolitan population growth. The benefits of such changes to physical agglomeration (or clustering) caused by transit improvements may consist of several different aspects, such … Continue reading »
Old days, fast times
There’s a lot of discussion about speed these days – from the possible advantage of seconds that some users on the internet would get were broadband “net neutrality” to go away to the market-disrupting micro-mini-milli-second competition among “flash mob” stock traders to debates over the speed-up “bullet trains” might provide. It seems as if we … Continue reading »
When seeking the city solution on climate, don’t forget the suburbs
Our cities have the potential to be a key climate change solution. Already they are hot-beds of innovation in local and global approaches to the nexus of sustainability and quality of life. People who live in cities drive less, use less energy to heat, cool, and light their homes, and even their water and sewer … Continue reading »
City crime, country crime
A recent report announced that the huge financial company UBS will be moving back from a suburb of New York into Manhattan, “because it has come to realize it is more difficult to recruit talented people in their 20s to work in the suburbs.” What a (literal) turnaround! For about a generation, roughly from the 1970s … Continue reading »
Ugly or needy
Many American cities have faced the quandary of how to deal with panhandlers. (This issue is sometimes confused with the problem of the homeless; some panhandlers are homeless, many are not.) Neighborhood homeowners find their presence an irritant and fear that they depress property values; shop owners suspect that they scare away customers; and tourists … Continue reading »