Development
Streetsblog Basics
T.O.D. in Brooklyn: Turning Parking Lots into Housing
Some reading ahead of tomorrow's big Transit-Oriented Development forum at NYU...
October 31, 2006
The Cost of Sprawl on Low-Income Families
Via the Manhattan Institute's new blog, Streetsblog learns of a pdf-formatted report entitled A Heavy Load: The Combined Housing and Transportation Burdens of Working Famillies, which looks at the housing and transportation expenses paid by lower income families in a number of cities. The report, published by the Center for Housing Policy, a K Street think tank, finds that lower-income families in central cities spend significantly less on the overhead of life than suburban and exurban ones.
October 17, 2006
Ride a Bike & Get the World’s Best Cookie Half-Price
While we're seeking great streets, we've found an exemplary store in Manhattan's Build a Green Bakery. This tiny East Village shop sells organic pastries, coffee and tea in an all-sustainable setting. The owner, City Bakery's Maury Rubin, made the space an environmentalists' showroom. He chose walls of wheat and sunflower husks and colored them with a milk-based paint. His floor is cork and his tabletop is responsibly-harvested bamboo, with recycled denim under the display counter. And get this: If you transport yourself to the store by bicycle, you get a 50% discount.
October 13, 2006
Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway: Important Meeting Tonight
The Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway Inititiave is one of the most inspiring and visionary development projects going in New York City right now. The project is very grassroots. Over ten years ago, three Brooklyn residents, Brian McCormick, Milton Puryear and Meg Fellerath got it in their heads that Brooklyn's waterfront should have a bike path and linear park just as good as the popular Hudson River Greenway in Manhattan (see the rendering of Columbia Street at right).
October 12, 2006
Planetizen Interview With Amanda Burden
Planetizen publishes a Q&A with New York City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden. She says some great things and below are excerpts.
October 11, 2006
Important Manhattan Transportation Forum on Thursday
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is holding a day-long forum on Manhattan's transportation future. Enrique Peñalosa, former Mayor of Bogota, Colombia, will be the keynote speaker. This should be a great event. Peñalosa is the inspiring and visionary politician who transformed his city of 7 million into a model for sustainable urban transportation.
October 10, 2006
Can Sprawl Be Beneficial?
Panelists on suburban sprawl: Eugenie Birch, James Russell, Robert Bruegmann and Alexander Garvin.
October 4, 2006
Breaking: Bloomberg to Announce Big Sustainability Plan Today
In California With Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
September 21, 2006
Community Forum on Atlantic Yards
Tuesday, September 12, Time?NYC College of Technology, 285 Jay Steet, Brooklyn.Community Forum on Atlantic Yards Project.
September 12, 2006
Dead Ball
Whatever you think of the idea of a highrise cluster in Downtown Brooklyn, you have to worry that the sponsors of the Atlantic Yards project suggest that creating jobs and housing justifies the kind of planning that discourages street life. Among the lowlights of the marathon August 23 "public hearing" on the draft Environmental Impact Statement covering the Atlantic Yards, consider these signs:
August 29, 2006