Construction

Affordable Housing Versus Better Wages

9 May 2008 - 11:00am
Boston Globe

Massachusetts wants to require affordable housing developers to pay construction workers a "prevailing wage", but with costs already totaling $200,000 or more per unit, the proposal may ultimately decrease the amount of affordable housing built.

The Challenge of Vertical Construction

23 April 2008 - 9:00am
The Idaho Statesman

A 17-story condominium tower in Boise, Idaho is being built on a 32-foot-wide footprint. Workers talk about the challenges of constructing such a skinny building.

In the Eye of Beijing's Boom

18 April 2008 - 5:00am
National Geographic

This article from National Geographic looks at the construction boom that is rapidly changing the face of Beijing.

Keeping Construction Projects From Blocking Sidewalks

13 April 2008 - 1:00pm
Philadelphia Inquirer

One Philadelphia councilman wants his city to follow the lead of more pedestrian-friendly New York and ensure that construction projects don't interfere with sidewalks.

Cycling The Contours of Miami

9 September 2007 - 4:01pm

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle. ~Ernest Hemingway

Sleepless in Shanghai, #2

28 March 2007 - 8:24am

Two moments in this trip bring home the pace of change here. Sunday morning, 8am, I wake up in the Zhongshan Park section of west-central Shanghai. Head out into the backlanes of the superblock behind the hotel and construction on a high-rise gated apartment building is already at full tilt. Two other construction projects intitimate in my life... a dorm across from our apartment in Manhattan, and a restaurant next to the Institute in Palo Alto, are definitely not on the same aggressive shifts.

Next moment, Wednesday evening 11:18pm at our hotel in Pudong, I glance out the window before bed and see a line of cement mixers 10-12 deep waiting to unload at the construction site across the street.