When we think of gentrification and displacement, we typically envision a hipster – young, professional, and probably white – in the Mission District or Brooklyn at the peak of the real estate boom. But this archetype, while not inaccurate, is just the tip of the iceberg. Displacement, which is distinct from gentrification, occurs in many … Continue reading »
urban planning
California’s infill backlash
For environmental and economic reasons, we want jobs and people to move back to our cities. People living in cities pollute less because they don’t drive as much and tend to live in smaller homes. Economically, they can save a lot of money on transportation and energy costs, while thriving neighborhoods can create cultural and … Continue reading »
Take a hike!
Walking is a sufficiently novel idea to be the subject of newspaper stories — as if our ancestors hadn’t been doing it since long before Homo sapiens evolved. Anyway, walking is the hot new thing in D.C., according to the Washington Post: “Walkable” is a feature sparking sales and energizing future development and redevelopment, according … Continue reading »
How ‘Moneyball’ can make a great downtown
Michael Lewis’s Moneyball was more than a book about how the small-market Oakland Athletics employed unconventional, statistics-based methods to beat bigger-money teams in the game of baseball. The genius of the book — and I’m probably biased here as a lifelong Oakland A’s fan — was its ability to expose human beings’ flawed sense of … Continue reading »
$300 slum house? Worthy but worthless
The Economist published an article last month on the competition to build a $300 house intended to improve the lives of slum dwellers. The article came from a blog post in the Harvard Business Review by Vijay Govindarajan, of Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, and Christian Sarkar, a marketing consultant, who set out to explore the … Continue reading »