Creating Satellite Towns to Accommodate Growth Makes Sense.
Media Release – Urban Planners Do Not Always Give Us Greater Sustainability: A Time for a Paradigm Shift
Provincial and municipal governments are attempting to increase density and transit use in most Canadian cities. Rather than increasing affordability and mobility, that approach is doing the opposite. The report argues that cities should embrace, rather than reject, urban dispersion.
High City Density, High Prices: Neglecting roads is no good for ‘smart growth’
You have to admit that whether you agree with him or not, Wendell Cox offers a fresh perspective. It’s long been de rigueur for professional urban planners and left-of-centre middle-class lay-people alike to opine on the benefits of “high density” areas: These concentrations of large groups of people are supposed to be better for the environment, better for the economy and better for society. Residents are said to use cars less, walk more and consume fewer resources. Some even claim they’ll breathe fresher air. But in a commentary released Thursday by the Macdonald-Laurier institute, Mr. Cox – an urban policy authority himself – dares to suggest just the opposite. What “radical densification” has done, he says, is drive down the quality of life for Canadians living in the country’s major cities.
New “extreme” Urbanism
I think that the City of London in the UK is taking efforts to decrease urban sprawl a bit too far. The National Post
Brookings Economist Decries Transit Subsidies, Calls For Privatization
In his new book, Last Exit: Privatization and Deregulation of the U.S. Transportation System, Brookings Institution economist Clifford Winston contends that transit subsidies are largely the result of labor productivity losses, inefficient operations and counterproductive federal regulations.
Urban Sprawl Rules Choking Toronto Development: Building Industry
“Provincial guidelines intended to contain urban sprawl in the Greater Toronto Area are choking development, according to the building industry, pushing the value of single-family homes above $500,000 in 2010 as developers struggled to find land they are allowed to build upon.”
California Needs To Revive Progressive Practices
“California futurist Joel Kotkin anticipates the unequivocal restoration of the United States as the most dynamic country in the world. With its population increasing at a record-setting pace, he argues, the U.S. will grow younger as the rest of the world grows older.”
Why the Great Plains are Great Once Again
“The cities of the plains—from Dallas in the south through Omaha, Des Moines, and north to Fargo—have enjoyed strong job growth and in-migration from the rest of the country.”
Megacity, Schmegacity – It’s Time For The Microcity!
The megacity was supposed to be more efficient and less costly, with a new arrondisement system that promised suburban-style service for everyone. But even with the best intentions, it’s just created more layers of arrondo-bureaucracy, piled atop mega-bureaucracy, piled atop blue-collar-ocracy. It’s become obvious that bigger is not more efficient. It’s slower, more bureaucratic and less friendly.