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suburbs
The pros and cons of elevator suburbs
Submitted by MLewyn on Sun, 03/31/2013 - 9:40amAs I was looking through my Twitter feed last night, I noticed an article on Canada's "elevator suburbs"- suburban streets (often, but not always, in low-income areas) filled with mid-and high-rise apartment buildings and shops, with lower-density housing on side streets. How do these places s... read more »
Kotkin and Florida, Part II
Submitted by MLewyn on Thu, 03/21/2013 - 11:03amRichard Florida has responded to Joel Kotkin's attack on "creative class" centered policies. Kotkin doesn't really deny Florida's point that places with high-skilled workers have higher wages, but says that wage gains in high-skill cities are outweighed by high housing costs. Florida agrees.&n... read more »
My Generation Chooses Urbanism (More Than Its Parents, Anyhow)
Submitted by MLewyn on Mon, 12/10/2012 - 12:55amWhile I was rummaging through some old files at my parents' house, I discovered two books that I thought were pretty interesting: the school directory for the boarding school I attended in the late 1970s, and the 1999 alumni directory for the same school.
As a new urbanist, my first thought wa... read more »
Nonsense about Nixon and Reagan
Submitted by MLewyn on Wed, 11/14/2012 - 12:33pmA recent article in the New Republic has the reassuring (to me) headline: "Republicans Can't Afford to Ignore Cities Anymore." I'm certainly all for Republicans not ignoring cities, but there was a passage in the article that made me want to bang my head against the nearest brick wall.
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The (Not Quite So) Suburban Jewish Holiday
Submitted by MLewyn on Fri, 10/12/2012 - 1:22amI have written about the uneasy relationship between Judaism and suburbanization: low density makes it difficult for Jews to live within walking distance of synagogues and generally makes it difficult to create a cohesive community.
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Who Should Really Favor "Burning Down The Suburbs"?
Submitted by MLewyn on Wed, 08/15/2012 - 9:20amNational Review's website contains an article accusing President Obama of "Burning Down the Suburbs." The article's basic claim is in the first paragraph: "Obama is a longtime supporter of “regionalism,” the idea that the suburbs should be folded into the cities, merging schools, housing,... read more »
Sprawl With A Human Face
Submitted by MLewyn on Mon, 07/23/2012 - 10:27pmI just did something I wanted to do since moving to New York: visited Levittown, a historic postwar suburb. Photos of my visit are here.
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The no-lose argument
Submitted by MLewyn on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 8:46amThere will always be those who argue that the suburb-dominated status quo is inevitable.
When cities were declining, they had an easy case to make. They could argue: "look, cities are declining so suburbia is inevitably the wave of the future!"
Then when cities started to gain populatio... read more »
NPR talk with Ellen Dunham Jones: Retrofitting Suburbia
Submitted by kapoppel on Thu, 06/21/2012 - 3:48pmEllen Dunham-Jones, CNU Board Chair, was recently featured on NPR's TED Radio Hour discussing America's suburbs. Making the case that "the biggest urban revitalization projects are in the suburbs, not downtown centers," Dunham-Jones clarifies that due to the building of the suburbs without thinking ... read more »