Planners, like all professions, have their own useful mythologies. A popular one goes something like this: “Many years ago, us planners did naughty things. We pushed around the poor, demolished minority neighborhoods, and forced gentrification. But that’s all over today. Now we protect the … [Read more...]
Houston’s Beautiful (Yet Partial) Embrace of Market Urbanism
A metropolitan economy, if it is working well, is constantly transforming many poor people into middle-class people, many illiterates into skilled people, many greenhorns into competent citizens. … Cities don’t lure the middle class. They create it. – Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great … [Read more...]
Link list
1. Development blogger Roving Bandit criticizes UN-Habitat executive director Joan Clos for saying that Africa is "confronted with [...] the challenge of preventing the formation of new slums." I wonder if Clos thinks that the Lower East Side was born with yoga studios and Starbucks.2. A kidney … [Read more...]