1. Where's Scott?Scott Beyer spent his second week in the Oklahoma City area, finding a place in the relatively wealthy northern college suburb of Edmond, OK. This week he wrote for Governing about New Orleans' music noise issue, and profiled a man in Forbes who escaped Cuba by raft for … [Read more...]
Market Urbanism MUsings: Feb 5, 2016
1. This week at Market Urbanism: Nolan Gray's second article at Market Urbanism: Return to Sender: Housing affordability and the shipping container non-solutionthe belief that these projects could address the growing affordability crisis hints at a profound misunderstanding of the nature of … [Read more...]
Free parking isn’t free
Last week I wrote a piece for City Journal on how smart parking could allow New York City to implement variable pricing. Street parking sensors allow prices to change to maintain an empty spot on each block, as parking expert Donald Shoup recommends. By eliminating the incentive to drive around … [Read more...]
Libertarians at the Reason Foundation oppose latest California parking minimum reform bill
From Baruch Feisenbaum, who's the Reason Foundation's transportation analyst (disclaimer: I did an internship at Reason magazine a few years ago), surprising agreement with the American Planning Association's California branch on the parking minimum reform bill (or at least, it surprised me): The … [Read more...]
“This is the dirty secret of California’s Density Bonus law…”
Inclusionary zoning – everyone wants to talk about it! Dave Alpert at GGW started the discussion with his pro-IZ piece, and hot on the heels of Emily's post earlier today, I got an email from a California developer who wishes to remain anonymous: This is the dirty secret of California’s Density … [Read more...]
APA California hints (strongly) at opposition to parking minimum reform bill
Minimum parking requirement reform bills have been floating around the California legislature for a while – last year it was AB 710, and this year it's AB 904, both authored by East Bay Asm. Nancy Skinner.This email blast to members from the American Planning Association's California chapter … [Read more...]
What good is form-based zoning when you just keep everything the same?
"Form-based zoning" is something that I've never entirely understood. It's always explained to me as regulating form not use, and generally the example given is that form-based zoning will require certain design aesthetics but not dictate whether something is used as a residence or a place of … [Read more...]
Laneway housing in Vancouver and beyond
Vancouver holds a special place in most urbanists' heart – a sort of supercharged version of Portland, with its stunning skyline and bold embrace of density and transit. In addition to the glassy forest of skyscrapers, it also passed a law enabling laneway housing under former mayor Sam Sullivan's … [Read more...]