Category Archives: City planning

Former Houston mayor Bob Lanier joined a group of realtors and developers in opposing new ordinances that would impose more standards on new developments, says the Houston Chronicle. Because of Lanier’s popularity — he had an 78 percent approval rating when he was term-limited from office — and reputation as a “kingmaker,” What is Kamagra? It is an effective, reliable, functional and pocket-friendly medicine available in three different forms of consumption which includes* Kamagra levitra no prescription tablets * Kamagra jellies * Kamagra soft tablets Any of these forms can be obtained through any of authorized pharmacy. This is because tadalafil soft tabs is known to lead to depression in certain individuals, as well. – Neurotransmitter Imbalances & Abnormalities in Brain Physiology Neurotransmitters are chemical “messengers” in the brain that regulate mood, thought, and memory. Fortunately, the advanced ayurvedic treatment to eliminate PE is there to solve your problems, aid you best levitra price in forgetting your past traumas and help you lead a better and healthy life that you deserve. If any medicine affects your sex life, then you can take 100mg of kamagra jelly within a day. look at this now cialis tab his endorsement is likely to have a lot of influence.

The Chronicle also reports that the developer group, which calls itself Houstonians for Responsible Growth, gave each member of the city council a copy of the Ultimate Antiplanning book. While this is flattering, it probably won’t have quite as much impact as Lanier’s endorsement.

The Portland suburb of Wilsonville wants to see a mobile home park redeveloped into “workforce housing.” A buyer made an offer on the park, but the deal fell through when the city’s prescriptive plans proved to expensive for the developer.

The city wanted “five- to eight-story buildings with structured parking underneath,” says the developer. Such construction “requires concrete and steel construction,” which is expensive. As a result, “affordability goes out the window.”

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“The built environment really does matter to health,” says Lawrence Frank, the author of several reports that find that people who live in walkable neighborhoods are less obese than people who live in neighborhoods that lack sidewalks and other walkable amenities. Frank was “the first one to make a connection between land use and obesity,” says an admirer.

Walkable or not, the photographer who lives in this neighborhood is “in love with living in Atlanta.”
Flickr photo by rhagans.

So reports of his latest study are particularly revealing. Looking at Atlanta neighborhoods, he found that people who prefer to exercise have similar obesity rates whether they live in walkable neighborhoods or not. Meanwhile, people who prefer to drive have somewhat higher obesity rates, but they too are similar whether they live in walkable neighborhoods or not.

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Beaverton Round, a transit-oriented development in a Portland suburb, is going bankrupt — again — for the third time. It has already received more than $10 million in subsidies, and some people want to give it even more.

The Beaverton Round. Photo by John Charles.

“All residential construction is subsidized,” says Portland planner Carl Hosticka. So he sees nothing wrong with throwing more good money after bad.

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Most city residents don’t want density. But they also don’t want urban sprawl. How do we deal with this conundrum? The obvious (but stupid) answer is to put all new residents in a few extremely high-density developments. That solution prevents sprawl without densifying most existing neighborhoods.

So I was not surprised when Jim Karlock pointed out to me that Portland City Commissioner Sam Adams proposed in a speech last week that Portland “should plan to accommodate our share of projected regional growth — Metro anticipates 300,000 more Portlanders by 2035 — within 1/4 mile of all existing and to-be-planned streetcar and lightrail transit stops.” This would, he said, “encourage responsible, transit-supportive development while protecting our existing single-family neighborhoods from undo growth.”

By which, I presume, he means “undue growth.” (I previously mentioned a news report of this speech but had not read the complete text.)

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I got so involved in writing about the history of San Jose last week that I neglected to make some important points about the planned development in North Bethany, near Portland, that set me off on that rant. Fortunately, some of these points are brought out in an article in the Beaverton Valley Times.

First, planners are projecting that North Bethany will have about 10 homes per acre, which is fairly dense considering that a lot of acres will be devoted to streets, parks, etc. “Net” density — the density of the land actually used for residential — is generally about 25 to 50 percent denser than “gross” density, which means planners are thinking of average lot sizes of 3,000 to 3,400 square feet. Nearby developments built in the 1970s average 6 units per acre, while more recent developments have 7 to 8 units per acre.

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