This column from The Portland Tribune chews out the city's "light-rail mafia" and claims that the only people benefiting from Portland's elaborate transit plans are the power players making the decisions and their developer friends.
"When you get right down to it, just who do all these expensive light-rail lines, aerial trams, high-rise condo developments and proposed convention-center hotels really benefit?"
"If you want to know the answer to that, as good of a place as any to start is a new book by local antiplanning guru Randal O'Toole called 'The Best-Laid Plans.'"
"As O'Toole sees it, the whole planning process has been taken over by a 'light-rail mafia' – which has managed 'to direct rail construction contracts and urban-renewal subsidies to themselves.'"
Read the full story: The city works – for those in power
Desperate measures: Advocates weigh draining Lake Powell to fill Colorado River
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Eastern Nebraska is running out of electricity
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Maryland’s $15 billion bridge project gains key approval
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‘No clear next steps’ for Chicago's permanent festival grounds
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California, Hawaii, Rhode Island approve housing propositions
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FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS)
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority