Michael Lewyn is a professor at Touro University, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, in Long Island. His scholarship can be found at http://works.bepress.com/lewyn.
Fun with transportation statistics
<p>   </p> <p> A few days ago, I was looking at a regional planning document and saw something startling: an assertion that transit ridership in my region has been going down. Since transit ridership has been going up nationwide, I smelled a rat. </p> <p> After digging around through a big pile of statistics, I realized that there are so many different ways of measuring transit ridership that one can easily prove either that ridership is going up or that ridership is going down. Some possible measurements include: </p>
We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us
<p> Last week, voters in San Francisco voted against a measure to compel the city to set aside $30 million for affordable housing. Opponents of the proposal argued that "the city already has spent more than $200 million on affordable housing in the past several years, and is building more units - some affordable, some not - than anytime in recent history." (1) San Francisco is not alone; government at all levels seeks to provide housing assistance for the poor. </p> <p> But at the same time, government zones and rezones property to protect "property values" (2) - in other words, to cause home prices to increase over time rather than decrease. So government makes housing expensive with one arm while trying to provide affordable housing with the other. </p>
Is the bad economy good for cities?
<p> <br /> A few days ago, someone asked a question on one of my listservs about the likely impact of America’s economic crises upon urbanism.<br /> <br /> The best answer is: it depends.<br />
A Planner's Prayer
A PLANNER’S PRAYER<br /> <br /> Next week, Jews around the world (including myself) will spend the day in synagogue for Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. On that day, we will pray for forgiveness for our sins. One Yom Kippur prayer, the Al Chet (Hebrew for “for the sin”) lists a variety of sins, requesting Divine forgiveness for each. (One English translation can be found at www.chabad.org/holidays/JewishNewYear/template_cdo/aid/6577/jewish/Text-of-Al-Chet.htm )<br />
Sprawl Hell and Sprawl Heck
<br /> <p class="MsoNormal"> Last Friday, I was in two different suburban environments in Atlanta.<span> </span>Both are sprawl by any normal definition of the term - car-oriented environments where residential streets are separated from commerce, sidewalks are rare, and densities are low.<span> </span>But the two places are as different as sprawl and new urbanism. </p>