Housing

Is Clay Chapman the Joel Salatin of homebuilding? At $80/SF for a custom, multi-century, structural masonry and timber frame home, he just might be. Scott Doyon enumerates the similarities, and challenges others to get involved.

October 16, 2012 - PlaceShakers

Richard Florida discusses why "quality of place", rather than job opportunity, is the determining factor in where creative-minded people choose to live.

October 16, 2012 - Urban Land Magazine

A New York state law on the books since the 1980s undervalues property tax rates on multimillion dollar residential buildings, providing astonishing discounts to New York City’s wealthiest homeowners.

October 16, 2012 - The New York Times

A new report argues that city-owned lands must be leveraged to increase D.C.'s stock of affordable housing, and indicts Mayor Gray's administration for not doing enough to keep up with increasing demand.

October 13, 2012 - Greater Greater Washington

Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan discusses the plan put forth by three Raleigh architects to densify the city's pre-existing residential neighborhoods by creating a new RA-50 or "Alley Residential" zoning classification.

October 12, 2012 - Fast Company Co.Design

An enterprising developer and experimental architect are pushing the boundaries between L.A.'s suburban style of single-family housing and its need for dense infill development on a site in the city's Echo Park neighborhood.

October 10, 2012 - The Architect's Newspaper

Ben Brown argues that design adaptations intended to accommodate America's swelling senior population by "aging in place" will be unable, on their own, to meet the challenge. He looks at one model of support that goes beyond universal design.

October 9, 2012 - PlaceShakers

A 22 acre parcel of federal buildings located within spitting distance of the National Mall could transform the heart of the Nation's Capital, as the GSA seeks ideas from developers on how to use its many current and soon-to-be abandoned buildings.

October 9, 2012 - The Washington Post

An emerging field of public interest design embeds architects and designers in communities that wouldn't otherwise be able to afford good design.

October 8, 2012 - The New York Times

The Wall Street Journal reports on the growing numbers of technology entrepreneurs who are buying luxury homes in beachfront areas around Los Angeles, earning the stretch from Santa Monica to Playa Vista the name "Silicon Beach".

October 8, 2012 - The Wall Street Journal

San Francisco's new experiment in low-income housing is a beautiful one; a new building combines eye-popping design and amenities you wish you had.

October 6, 2012 - Fast Company

No one should be surprised that at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards site, nothing is, or ever will be, as promised, writes columnist Roberta Brades Gratz.

October 6, 2012 - The Citistates Group

UCLA's Paul Habibi believes that L.A.'s lack of affordable workforce housing, the "donut hole" between subsidized housing and high-end housing preferred by developers, is harming the city's competitiveness. In a new report he outlines a solution.

October 5, 2012 - KPCC

Park La Brea, the nation's largest housing complex west of the Mississippi, like much of Los Angeles, has changed dramatically over the decades. Yet, an overwhelming sense of community and identity has endured.

October 5, 2012 - Los Angeles Times

Boasting some of the highest housing prices in the country, and rising, San Francisco is in desperate need of affordable housing. This November, the city's voters will have a chance to try to remedy the situation with two ballot measures.

October 5, 2012 - Next American City

Alex Steffen, a "leading voice in planetary futurism," muses on what he believes could be a way to move beyond NIMBYism and incremental urban planning, to provide an antidote to fundamentally broken city governance.

October 2, 2012 - Planetary Thinking

Smoking is physically harmful to smokers and non-smokers alike, but what about its impact on public space? Nate Berg reports on a new paper in Urban Studies based on interviews in Singapore -- where smoking has been regulated since 1970.

October 2, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) hasn't exactly unleashed a flurry of new sustainable, dense development. But, as the economy strengthens, innovative projects in Oakland, Syracuse, and Milwaukee are beginning to take flight.

September 28, 2012 - Urban Land Magazine

Do you know the effect your spiffy new development will have on the neighbors' health? Aaron Wernham and the Kresge Foundation think you could use a health impact assessment.

September 27, 2012 - Shelterforce Magazine

Beset by daunting challenges, and a summer of stinging articles and reports, the chairman of the New York City Housing Authority has announced a controversial plan to raise hundreds of millions of dollars by leasing land to private developers.

September 27, 2012 - The New York Times