Experts Consider Streetcar in Indianapolis

29 February 2008 - 5:00am

Business leaders in Indianapolis are looking to replicate the success of Portland, Oregon, by creating a task force to pursue plans for a streetcar system in the city's downtown.

"If the introduction of modern streetcars to one West Coast city can be replicated here, Indianapolis would see new, higher-density housing and related retail and restaurants shadowing the line. Fallow areas crossed by the tracks would become fertile for new investment."

"At least that was the case in Portland, Ore., a city mesmerizing to Indianapolis civic leaders, who last month formed Downtown Indianapolis Streetcar Corp."

"Yet the economic development potential—and the practical value of being able to better move people in one of the nation’s leading convention and sporting event cities—is an intoxicating risk."

Full Story: Desirable?
Source: Indianapolis Business Journal, February 27, 2008
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It has been estimated that half of all Americans, and two-thirds of urban Americans, live in suburbia. Here are the key questions: Does suburbia exist because it is the natural "culmination of urban development"?