1. Austin Contrarian comes out in favor of a Republican proposal to lower bus drivers' wages. I wish more liberal urbanists (i.e., urbanists) would comment on issues like these. I don't see (m)any of them vociferously defending transit labor unions, but I also don't see them criticizing them for … [Read more...]
Links
1. Maps of sprawl and gentrification in Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, and Boston. At first the picture looks bleak for cities, but Jesus – even downtown Detroit is growing! (More here.)2. A real, live Texan (just kidding – he lives in Austin) replies to O'Toole on parking.3. Why aren't (more) … [Read more...]
From the comments: Parking minimums in Houston
In a comment to yesterday's post on land use in Texas, baklazkhan notes that in spite of the libertarian myth of Houston as a completely (or even relatively) laissez-faire city with regards to land use, it actually has pretty strict parking minimums: Additionally, it's interesting to compare the … [Read more...]
A far-too-long rebuttal of Randal O’Toole on parking
Donald Shoup and Randal O'Toole – they just can't get enough of each other! Donald Shoup, you may recall, is the granddaddy of free market parking policy, and Randal O'Toole is the self-styled Antiplanner. Though they both claim to be libertarians, they seem to have some pretty fundamental … [Read more...]
NYC’s horrible parking privatization plan
In the past, Market Urbanism has not been very pleased with municipal parking privatization schemes. While we are pro-privatization in theory, in practice, many of the schemes turn out to be seriously deficient in market credentials. For one, true privatization would mean giving the "owners" full … [Read more...]
Even a HUD project in a high-density Bronx neighborhood can’t escape the parking minimum
This should come as no surprise to anyone who's taken a look at America's absurdly restrictive minimum parking requirements, but Streetsblog has come up with a really great example of really bad parking policy in action: The HUD-sponsored project, located on Bathgate Avenue between 183rd and 184th … [Read more...]
Links
1. China's high-speed rail scandal. So much for Obama's State of the Union shout-out.2. Boston, Philadelphia, and DC are all moving towards parking reform – both of minimum off-street requirements (unfortunately to be replaced with maximums in most cases) and of underpriced curb parking – but … [Read more...]
Jamaica, Queens upzoning was great, but don’t forget the parking minimums
In Next American City, Aaron Barker discusses the failure of NYC's massive rezoning in the highly transit-dependent black and immigrant neighborhood of Jamaica, Queens: One of the centerpieces of [NYC's] initiative to house an expected 1 million new arrivals in the coming decades was the Jamaica … [Read more...]