In my City Talk column on Sunday, much of which was devoted to the new coffeeshop Foxy Loxy, I closed with a brief overview of how the removal of the I-16 flyover will actually improve traffic flow in the southwest…
Poverty rates are still higher in major cities (20.9%) than in suburbs (11.4%), according to a Brookings analysis of American Community Survey Census data, but the trends are both interesting and disturbing. America’s suburbs became home to 3.4 million people…
I’ve been following a number of related transportation issues: the congestion of suburbs (especially Atlanta), the toll on our economy if energy prices and spending continue to rise, and the general feelings about transit. The AJC has a fascinating piece…
In my City Talk column today — When third place isn’t so bad — I talk again about Ray Oldenburg’s theory of third places: In his book The Great Good Place, Oldenburg demonstrates why these gathering places are essential to…
The number of vehicle miles driven is one bit of data from the 2007 to 2009 recession and subsequent slow recovery that has been especially interesting to me. As Calculated Risk notes, we’ve now gone a record 44 months with…
I’ve put “methodology” in quotation marks because today’s column wasn’t based on the sort of straightforward numbers crunching that I do pretty often when looking at the economy. And that’s because I wasn’t looking at the economy but at crime,…
Fascinating and detailed piece in the Wall Street Journal: How to Build a Greener City From the piece: If the current rate of urbanization holds steady, cities will account for nearly three-quarters of the world’s energy demand by 2030. Most…
Earlier this week in the SMN, 4th district alderwoman Mary Ellen Sprague tackled the issue of billboards: Let’s put an end to ‘ugly’ Aside from the three easily spottable errors (argh), I found this to be a convincing and interesting…
Interesting piece from the Charleston City Paper that might have some logical extensions to Savannah: Nine ways to make Charleston a bicycle-friendly city. There’s considerable emphasis in the piece on the success of the wide bike lane for the Arthur…
In an earlier post — Will Savannah jump on the food truck bandwagon? — I discussed some of my serious doubts about whether Savannah is a viable place for a thriving food truck culture. But as I said in a…
Sometimes in arguing for the full restoration of the Oglethorpe Plan, Savannah preservationists get accused of various forms of nostalgia — of arguing for preservation for the sake of preservation, of ignoring contemporary needs.
But those accusations show a fundamental lack of understanding about the grid system established by General Oglethorpe when he founded the colony of Georgia in 1733.
There’s a great piece by Ryan Avent in the NYT this weekend: One Path to Better Jobs: More Density in Cities. Early on in the piece, Avent seems to be invoking Jane Jacobs’ concept of “squelchers” — those who oppose…
I’ve been tracking various developments in the world of “green”, sustainability, and transportation generally. So of obvious note from the AJC: Electric car charging station unveiled. From the piece: Atlanta is streamlining its tough permitting procedures to encourage apartment owners,…
In my City Talk column today in the Savannah Morning News, I write about the depressing news that the large vacant lot at the corner of Drayton and Charlton appears destined to be a surface parking lot for the nearby…
