Comments for New Urbanism Blog

Comment on The over-supply of single-family housing by Rajan Mistry

Rajan Mistry — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:58:40 +0000

I reckon we ought to leave many of them that people are likely to buy up soon, unless they are in the way of a larger scale urban development.

As for the rest of them, I have the wonderful idea of returning a suburb to nature by; removing the services/utilities from the area, taking all dangerous human products (including the glass in the windows/light bulbs), as well as all the doors.

And that’s it! … I have a good feeling this will begin vegetating quickly, possibly harbouring a few interesting animals that need some shelter.

Of course there are many dangers, such as wildfires, eventual collapse, being an eyesore and of course, being frequented by degenerates. My experimental curiousity is not inhibited by reality.

Comment on Shrinking Cites – what’s the cure? by Rajan Mistry

Rajan Mistry — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:39:51 +0000

The city must indeed be broken into pieces that are manageable, and have the necessary infrastructure (hopefully, already in effect).

Unfortunately, this is a difficult task considering that the government is not authoritarian enough to demand urban revisions in shrinking cities, regardless of the long-term benefits.

With that in mind, I think the only option would be for local governments — city and county — to administer very strict green belt ordinances that will remove possibilities of surrounding sprawl and force a densification of a safe core space.

For the safety of the townspeople, would it be right to say, “You can live in the safety core, or you can bugger off to another town?” — Personally, I’d like to think a city can do this.

Comment on The over-supply of single-family housing by Kevin Klinkenberg

Kevin Klinkenberg — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:19:48 +0000

That’s certainly true JoAnne, if we focus on typical single-family, medium to large lot housing. The key, however, is to look beyond that – to forms of housing that have been undersupplied for decades, and work in that realm. We’re already seeing recovery and strong building in some of those sectors, and I suspect we’ll see quite a bit more over the next decade. For the typical SFD, though, it appears that it will be dismal for quite some time. Thanks for the comment-

Kevin

Comment on The over-supply of single-family housing by JoAnne Loftus

JoAnne Loftus — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:42:20 +0000

“Nearly 25 years from now, if no new single-family detached houses on medium/large lots are built, supply will STILL exceed demand”

How is the housing market supposed to recover when supply has outpaced demand for 25 years? It seems like we’ve dug ourselves into a very deep hole and the light at the end of the tunnel is decades away.

Comment on The over-supply of single-family housing by Kevin Klinkenberg

Kevin Klinkenberg — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:43:33 +0000

Seems to open right away on my Mac, Tom – like a .pdf file. Not sure what you might have to do.
Will definitely see you at CNU 20-

Kevin

Comment on The over-supply of single-family housing by Tom Dolan

Tom Dolan — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 05:35:31 +0000

Hi Kevin:

This report looks fascinating.I’m not finding an easy way to open a .ashx file. Any tips on how to open it? I can’t seem to find it elsewhere online in a format I can open.

Time is clearly on our side. See you in Palm Beach?

Comment on Cites are not Statistics by Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:19:29 +0000

Like this post! The Ed Glaeser / Richard Florida view of cities as creative places, innovative hubs and econmic powerhouses, and the scientific/ technology-centric Smart Cities school are in danger of overlooking this fundamental issue; cities are about people; – even the non-creative non-innovative types.