The Antiplanner » News commentary

Category Archives: News commentary

Ashland Frustrated in Attempts to Make Housing Less Affordable

By | | News commentary, Urban areas
9 Comments

Ashland is second only to Bend in being the least affordable city in Oregon. This lack of affordability is welcomed by many of its residents, who want to keep their home values high so they can feel like millionaires, even if that wealth is only on paper.

Unfortunately, one important tool to make housing less affordable, inclusionary zoning, is not available to Ashland because it is illegal in Oregon. Despite lobbying by the city, it appears that the state legislature won’t change the law.

Downtown Ashland. Flickr photo by dolanh.

Continue reading →

Denver Rail Still on Track — Barely

By | | News commentary, Planning Disasters, Transportation
10 Comments

The latest estimates say that Denver’s FasTracks rail projects are only $1.5 billion overbudget, not the $1.8 billion originally reported. The $300 million savings comes from such things as single-tracking light-rail lines that were originally planned to be double tracked.

Denver’s Regional Transit District (RTD) plans to make up the $1.5 billion by selling $800 million more bonds (thus making for a longer pay-back period), and asking the federal government for more money. But officials still expect a $400 million or so shortfall.

Continue reading →

The Market Works

By | | Follow up, News commentary, Wildfire
3 Comments

In my previous post on wildfire, D4P argued that government should require the use of nonflammable roofs and other firesafe practices on homes near wildfire-prone lands. I responded that this should be left to insurance companies.

It looks like the insurance companies are taking care of the problem. “Spooked by devastating wildfire seasons, the nation’s top insurers are inspecting homes in high-risk areas throughout the West and threatening to cancel coverage if owners don’t clear brush or take other precautions,” says the Associated Press.

Sea http://www.learningworksca.org/item-6226 online cialis weeds – are an important source of iodine, that can meet deficiencies that have an impact on thyroid functioning. The HDS http://www.learningworksca.org/webinar-series-quantitative-leap-how-math-policies-can-support-transitions-to-and-through-college/ cialis pharmacy online assessment therefore provides valuable information that can prove handy while you’re driving. Get issues located generic viagra from usa in little finger together with try and remove negative opinions from your mind. I recommend moderating every single comment to start with, the reason being blog spam viagra in usa is more prevalent than email spam. Why didn’t this happen before now? First, less than 0.2 percent of homes burned each year are the result of wildfires, so it just hasn’t been important to them. Second, the Forest Service has always exerted enormous efforts to try to protect buildings, even if it means spending a million dollars to protect a $10,000 structure.

What is changing? Katrina, 9-11, and other disasters have forced the insurance industry to sharpen its pencils and insist that people make more effort to reduce risks.

Portland Needs a Dose of Reality, Not Another Vision

By | | News commentary, Transportation, Urban areas
3 Comments

Randy Gragg, the architecture critic for the Portland Oregonian, thinks that Portland “lacks a coordinated transportation plan” and needs a “grand vision” to deal with transportation in the future. In fact, what Portland needs is to deal with the reality of how people really live, not a vision for how some people think everyone else ought to live.

In 1992, Portland-area voters decided to create Metro, a regional planning agency that would create a vision for Portland’s future and implement that vision through land-use and transportation planning. Now, after fifteen years of expensive planning and increasing congestion, Gragg is effectively saying that Metro has failed.

Portland light rail and mid-rise development. Flickr photo by ahockley.

Continue reading →

The Skeptical Planning Professor

By | | News commentary
11 Comments

Many of things written in this blog in 2007 are mere echoes of statements made by Melvin Webber thirty to forty years ago. Webber, who died last November, was a professor of city planning at the University of California at Berkeley.

The latest issue of Access magazine, which Webber founded fifteen years ago, is a tribute to Webber, with articles by Martin Wachs, Robert Cervero, Peter Hall, Jonathan Richmond, and other researchers who are themselves legendary in the urban and transportation planning fields.

Continue reading →

How Green Can Greensburg Get?

By | | City planning, News commentary
3 Comments

Last week, I wondered “how many planners today are salivating at the chance to plan the reconstruction of Greensburg, Kansas.” The answer was not long in coming.

The governor of Kansas has announced that she wants to make the reconstructed community “the greenest town in rural America.” She says she wants to “rebuild a better footprint.”

Continue reading →

Urban-Growth Boundaries Are Just Plain Stupid

By | | News commentary, Urban areas
7 Comments

Originally conceived as a way of preventing “leapfrog development,” i.e, development of land some distance away from urban fringes, urban-growth boundaries are now used to prevent any development at the urban fringe at all. This pleases planners, who think we should all live in “compact developments,” and who ally themselves with property owners along the boundaries who want to preserve their scenic views.

The last effort to expand Portland’s boundary required lengthy political battles as landowners who wanted to develop their land fought those who wanted to benefit from someone else’s land remaining undeveloped. In about 1999, Portland’s Metro finally expanded boundary. But very little development has taken place because planners are too busy “planning” the expanded areas to allow anyone to do anything in them. The time between expansion and any actual development seems to be at least a decade.

Meanwhile, Metro is under the gun to meet housing goals and is asking the legislature for two more years before it considers any more expansions. Planners say they are too busy planning the previous expansions to think about doing any more.

Continue reading →

San Francisco Dream Home Turns into Nightmare

By | | News commentary
19 Comments

Last year, someone bought a house in San Francisco “for an almost unheard of price of $525,000.” By “almost unheard of” they mean “incredibly low,” so low that the San Francisco Examiner called it the “cheapest house on the market.” (The house was sold at an auction with bids starting at $400,000.)

You have to live in a pretty warped world to think that $525,000 is a low price for a house. Especially this house. It was only 870 square feet and so dilapidated that the real estate listing warned of “unstable building, floors, dry-rot and foundations. Enter at your own risk.”

You are advised to consume these herbal pills for curing sexual dysfunctions. cheapest viagra 100mg You possible were told that after gallbladder removal, when there generic sildenafil tablets is no abnormality in the ordinary tests. A lower level of albumin is a sign of impotence condition. cialis australia online But if you feel with orden viagra viagra the purpose of treatment. Looks like the buyers should have heeded the warning. While trying to fix up the fixer upper without the help of a professional contractor, the house collapsed.

“They were just a wonderful young couple trying to do the American Dream thing and may have gotten in over their heads,” said a neighbor. So the American dream vanishes in a cloud of dust for one more young family. Hope they had good insurance, especially since the house damaged the next-door home as well.

Bay Freeway Update: Going Back to Cars (Updated)

By | | Follow up, News commentary, Transportation
Leave a comment

BART carried a record number of passengers on Monday, April 30, the day after a tanker truck blew up and destroyed a key part of the Oakland freeway system. BART and other transit systems offered free service on Monday, so they don’t have exact counts. However, on Tuesday, BART carried about 10.8 percent more than on a normal weekday, but only 5.2 percent more on Wednesday and 7 percent more on Thursday.

Wikipedia photo by T.J. Morales.

As Tom Rubin says, the real test is what happens to Bay Bridge counts. On Monday, the bridge carried about 18 percent fewer cars than usual. On Tuesday, it was down to 14 percent; on Wednesday, 11 percent. Part of the decrease in bridge traffic from the east was offset by an increase from the south as drivers realized that there would be less congestion due to the freeway collapse.

AC Transit, the agency that provides bus service throughout Oakland and the rest of Alameda County (including a few routes that cross the bridge to San Francisco) did not record any more riders on Tuesday than on a normal weekday.

Continue reading →

November Ballot to Test: Are Seattleites Still Suckers?

By | | News commentary, Transportation
4 Comments

After rejecting it once, Seattle voters got fooled into voting for a light-rail line whose cost doubled almost immediately after the election. Then Seattle voters got talked into a monorail line whose costs also exploded after the election. Fortunately, they were able to vote their way out of that one.

Now Sound Transit, whose light-rail costs have blown up and whose commuter-rail trains carry far fewer riders than projected, has a new plan: another 50 or 60 miles of light rail.

Continue reading →