The Next American City back issues from January 2006:
from the editor
Jan 01, 2006; ... FIFTY YEARS AGO, TRANSPORTATION patterns for most Americans were fairly routine. Most men, corporate executives and janitors alike, woke up and took the train or drove to work at the same place each day. Most women went to regular destinations to shop or take the kids somewhere. Cargo moved ...
Kansas City: The Corridor to the Future
Jan 01, 2006; ... MANY ARE SURPRISED TO LEARN America's next great trading port is located some 1,500 miles away from the Pacific Ocean and more than 900 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Despite its inland address, Kansas City, Missouri, will soon be home to the first ever foreign customs inspection office on ...
letter
Jan 01, 2006; ... I FELT THE NEED TO WRITE IN RESPONSE to Matthew J. Kiefer's article on the Supreme Court's "Kelo" decision. Unfortunately, while Mr. Kiefer's piece on "Kelo" is well-reasoned, it is blind to the crux of the Court's decision. The disturbing aspect of "Kelo" is not that the Court sided with ...
Clashing Visions of a Third World Metropolis: Can Jakarta Work For All its Citizens?
Jan 01, 2006; ... INDONESIA'S CAPITAL, JAKARTA, IS, LIKE many Third World metropolises, a painful montage of extreme wealth and poverty. Luxury apartment buildings shoot above streets of small, ramshackle homes, huge mall complexes cast their shadows over vendors and beggars plying their trade on sidewalks and ...
Health by Design: The Crusade for Healthier Cities in the Sacramento Valley
Jan 01, 2006; ... ALONG INTERSTATE 80 IN CALIFORNIA'S Sacramento Valley, sprawling suburbs spring from the fertile agricultural land that has long been the economic and cultural center of the region. New developments of track homes and super-stores are named for the crops they supplanted: Walnut Grove, Wheatland, ...
Designing the Affordable House of Tomorrow
Jan 01, 2006; ... THE ARCHITECTURAL PROFESSION HAS long been blamed for keeping its head in the clouds instead of democratizing its skills and designing for those in need of better housing. Architects are not always attentive to pressing social and economic problems: most architectural firms would sooner design ...
Putting a Price On Driving
Jan 01, 2006; ... CAN MARKET INCENTIVES FIX AMERICA'S TRANSPORTATION WOES? AMERICA FACES TWO FUNDAMENTAL transportation problems. First, emissions from automobiles, trucks, and planes pose serious threats to public health and the environment. Second, commuters complain about traffic delays that are ...
Balancing Commerce and the Environment
Jan 01, 2006; ... IN AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS FAMOUSLY CANTANKEROUS ECOACTIVIST Edward Abbey railed against the National Park Service in his 1968 classic, Desert Solitaire, a memoir about his time spent as a ranger in Arches National Monument. In a section titled "Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the ...
Not Your Parents' Bus Transit
Jan 01, 2006; ... ARE NEW BUS RAPID TRANSIT SYSTEMS WORTH THE EXPENSE? THE ELECTRIC MOTOR OF LIGHT RAIL vehicles makes a distinctive high-pitched whir, letting people know their ride is approaching. From Portland to Dallas to Baltimore, cities have built light rail systems as an alternative to ...
To Drive or Not To Drive
Jan 01, 2006; ... FOR SOME DISABLED AND ELDERLY, THAT'S NOT EXACTLY THE QUESTION IMAGINE BEING DISABLED OR ELDERLY-and feeling trapped in your home. Last year, I surveyed 800 people in a California homecare program about their transportation patterns and challenges. They told story after story about being ...
Along the Tracks
Jan 01, 2006; ... A TALE OF TRANSIT AND DEVELOPMENT TRAINS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A KEY component of the development of America's West. During the frontier days, trains were the steel-grinding, coal-burning, whistle-blowing behemoths that hauled freight and passengers across the open country. Much as these ...
Transporting Climate Change
Jan 01, 2006; ... THE ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS IMPLICATIONS OF LOCAL CHOICES GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE HAS BECOME a very local problem for the Inuit. In the Arctic, average temperatures are increasing around twice the average global rate. The results have included increasing precipitation, thawing permafrost, ...
The Rise of the Aerotropolis
Jan 01, 2006; ... AIRPORTS ARE NO LONGER SIMPLY places where airplanes land and passengers and cargo transit. Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport is a case in point. About 58,000 people are daily employed on the airport grounds. Its passenger terminal-containing an expansive mix of shopping, dining, and entertainment ...
Can Regionalism Save Philly Transit?
Jan 01, 2006; ... PHILADELPHIA'S METROPOLITAN region is defined by the rail infrastructure that links its downtown to suburban communities in every direction. Its network of commuter rails, subways, elevated trains, trolleys, and buses-all operated by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA)-is the ...
The High Cost of Free Parking
Jan 01, 2006; ... The High Cost of Free Parking BY DONALD C. SHOUP. AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION. 733 PP. $59.95, HARDCOVER. AMERICA'S LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE automobile, and the toll it has taken on both the built and natural environments, has been well documented. Surprisingly, then, UCLA planning ...
Suburban Sweatshops: The Fight for Immigrant Rights
Jan 01, 2006; ... Suburban Sweatshops: The Fight for Immigrant Rights BY JENNIFER GORDON. CAMBRIDGE: HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS. 384 PP. PRICE $27.95, HARDCOVER. EVERY EVENING ON THE NEWS WE hear about another proposed law aiming at some sort of social change, whether it concerns stem cell research, crime ...
Sprawl: A Compact History
Jan 01, 2006; ... Sprawl: A Compact History BY ROBERT BRUEGMANN. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS. 264 PP. $27.50, HARDCOVER. Whether it be Lewis Mumford's The City in History, Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Joel Garreau's Edge City, or most recently, Joel Kotkin's The City: A ...
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Valley
Jan 01, 2006; ... I MOVED TO WOODLAND HILLS, California, only because my fiancée got a new job there. My new home was Warner Center, a collection of office buildings and apartment complexes in one of the many interconnected towns of the San Fernando Valley, about fifteen miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles ....
from the editor
Jan 01, 2006; ... THE THEMES OF THIS ISSUE-THE future of suburbia and Philadelphia-have an unusual connection to both The Next American City and my own life. This summer, TNAC settles into our new offices at the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Urban Research in West Philadelphia. And this summer I move ...
Toronto as a Canvas: The Conflict over Street Art
Jan 01, 2006; ... LAST MARCH AT THE ARTLAB GALLERY in Toronto, a show opened to great buzz-but not for any traditional artist. The gallery walls were filled with art from the city streets, ranging from graffiti to stenciling, from beercan sculptures to life-size Val Kilmer cut-outs. Curious Torontonians packed ...
A New Dynamic: Atlantic Yards Challenges Brooklyn Progressive Politics
Jan 01, 2006; ... BROOKLYN, KNOWN FOR ITS TREE-LINED streets and historic row houses, is becoming a more popular venue for large-scale development. One of the most controversial new projects is developer Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards. The project-if built as proposed-will consist of 7,300 apartments, ...
Public Review, or Lack Thereof, over Atlantic Yards
Jan 01, 2006; ... ONE OF THE MOST CONTENTIOUS IS issues surrounding the Atlantic Yards project is the decision to bypass the City's Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP), a procedure requiring extensive public review. Instead, "under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR), the economic development ...
Greening the Rustbelt
Jan 01, 2006; ... Could a Sculpture Garden of Metal Flowers Form Part of an Eco-friendly Future for a Struggling Town? THERE IS NO HOUSING BUBBLE IN THE Rustbelt cities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. Economic decline began shortly after World War II as manufacturers-enticed by cheap labor and ...
In Search of the "Real OC"
Jan 01, 2006; ... EXPLORING THE STATE OF AMERICAN SUBURBS JUST AS PEOPLE START "DISCOVERING" that Orange County, California, is cool, the executives at FOX television come up with a show, The OC, covering the lives of two families living in ocean-front McMansions in wealthy Newport Beach. The fact that ...
Farming on the Fringe
Jan 01, 2006; ... CAN TAX INCENTIVES SAVE CALIFORNIA'S FARMLANDS? WHEN MOST PEOPLE THINK OF CALIFORNIA and its economy, thoughts usually turn to Hollywood and the high-tech industries in Silicon Valley, rather than the acres of avocadoes and endless miles of cattle ranches stretching throughout the ...
Suburbia: Homeland of the American Future
Jan 01, 2006; ... FOR THE BETTER PART OF A HALF-CENTURY, America's leading urbanists, planners, and architects have railed against the growth of suburbia. Variously, the suburbs have been labeled as racist, ugly, wasteful, or just plain boring. Despite the criticism, Americans have continued to vote with their ...
When a Cheap House Isn't a Bargain
Jan 01, 2006; ... A NEW INDEX FACTORS TRANSPORTATION COSTS INTO HOMEBUYING DECISIONS FOR MOST AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS, wealth is perceived as the value of the family home. But it turns out that a relatively inexpensive home with a three-car garage in a remote suburban subdivision is not the same "deal" as a ...
Exurbanization and Gentrification
Jan 01, 2006; ... HOW THE TWO PATTERNS HAVE BEEN LINKED SINCE THE BEGINNING OF URBAN HISTORY MOST CONVENTIONAL HISTORIES OF postwar urban America focus on the decline of the central city, as neighborhoods emptied out, and the rise of the suburban periphery, as highways, factories, and subdivisions ...
Re-Designing Education
Jan 01, 2006; ... PHILADELPHIA'S CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL FOR ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN JUST A BLOCK AWAY FROM INDEPENDENCE HALL, a small high school has started a quiet educational revolution. The Charter High School for Architecture and Design (CHAD) offers a unique curriculum in the spatial and visual arts ...
The Pros and Cons of Philadelphia's Business Improvement Districts
Jan 01, 2006; ... CENTER CITY'S BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT HELPED SPUR NEW GROWTH, BUT BIDS STILL STRUGGLE IN SOME OUTLYING NEIGHBORHOODS OVER THE LAST FIFTEEN YEARS, business improvement districts (BIDs) have sprung up all over Philadelphia, attempting to mimic the success of the Center City District ...
A BIDs Primer
Jan 01, 2006; ... AS MUNICIPAL BUDGETS SHRINK AND the demand for municipal services grows, business owners and governments are increasingly turning to business improvement districts (BIDs) to augment and even substitute for the role of government. Sometimes referred to as special service districts or special ...
Gambling on Philadelphia's Future
Jan 01, 2006; ... CAN CASINOS FIT INTO A BIG CITY DOWNTOWN? PHILADELPHIA DOESN'T NEED TO become the next Atlantic City. Even without casinos, Philadelphia has had plenty of success. Over the last ten years, this city of 1.5 million has experienced an urban renewal that has made it one of the most ...
The Cultural Contradictions of the Creative Age
Jan 01, 2006; ... AS I STOOD CRAMPED INTO A RUSH hour MUNI bus inching down San Francisco's Divisadero Street, I heard someone calling out, "Dan? Dan?" Considering I live in Philadelphia and my first name is one of the nation's most common, I didn't jump up. But when I glanced towards the back of the bus, I saw ...
in memoriam: Edmund N. Bacon
Jan 01, 2006; ... EDMUND N. BACON, PHILADELPHIA'S renowned city planner, died on October 14, 2005, at age 95. As Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission from 1949-1970, Bacon's visions spurred some of that era's largest urban redevelopment projects, including Penn Center, Market East, and ...
The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America
Jan 01, 2006; ... The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America BY XAVIER DE SOUZA BRIGGS, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION PRESS, $29.95, PAPERBACK, 353 PAGES. GROWING UP, MANY OF US LEARNED to think of poverty as a "lack of income." But the reality in American cities is not nearly ...
The New New Left: How American Politics Works Today
Jan 01, 2006; ... The New New Left: How American Politics Works Today BY STEVEN MALANGA. IVAN R. DEE, PUBLISHER, $22.50, CLOTH, 157 PAGES SOME OF THE BIGGEST BATTLES IN OUR cities in recent years have been fought over living wage laws, public funding for projects like stadiums and convention centers, and ...
Fixed Up, Looking Sharp: Prefab Housing Goes Green Gracefully
Jan 01, 2006; ... AS COUNTLESS RECENT ARTICLES IN shelter magazines have shown us, prefabricated housing can be beautiful, modern, and green. But can it be beautiful, modern, green, and affordable? I started to ask this question three years ago, when I led a team of architecture, engineering, and ...
LETTERS
Jan 01, 2006; ... CREATIVES TAKING FLIGHT: A COMPOSER RESPONDS As a composer who has recently decided that the Bay Area is too expensive a place to live, I read with great interest Daniel Brook's essay, "The Cultural Contradictions of the Creative Age." Musical institutions of large American urban ...
from the editor
Jan 01, 2006; ... YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED TO FIND that, in a magazine about the city of the future, we've built an entire issue around the theme of historic preservation. But preservation is just as important to a city's beauty and flourishing as are growth, demolition, and change. Every day, whether or not they ...
Sex in the City
Jan 01, 2006; ... As the city gentrifies, will a red-light district called "The Block" disappear? Should anybody care? ON A SNOWY MONDAY NIGHT IN December, the lights of the packed bars are warmly tempting. A thousand dancers work in the 28 strip bars here-bars like Flamingo Lounge, Lust, and Two O'Clock ...
Resurrecting Death and Life
Jan 01, 2006; ... Why Jane Jacobs' followers still misunderstand her most important contributions to urban thought THE DAY AFTER HER DEATH IN APRIL, newspapers across North America eulogized Jane Jacobs. Reporters and op-ed writers praised her masterwork, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, as ...
Engineering the Perfect Suburb
Jan 01, 2006; ... A California naval base becomes an experiment in suburban living IN THE HEART OF ORANGE COUNTY, California-the poster child for postwar suburban sprawl in the United States-lies a 1500-acre former military base, one of the last remaining major development sites in a 3-million person ...
Paving Paradise: The Century Building Debacle and the Future of Historic Preservation
Jan 01, 2006; ... It isn't every day that the National Trust for Historic Preservation steps into a local development debate with this advice: turn a massive marble-clad downtown building into a thousand-unit parking lot IN THE LATE-NIGHT HOURS OF OCTOBER 20, 2004, bulldozers began demolishing one of the ...
Preservation in the Progressive City: Debating History and Gentrification in Austin
Jan 01, 2006; ... A city taskforce, spurred on by activists, planned to save East Austin by rolling back historic preservation laws MOST RESIDENTS CONSIDER AUSTIN, Texas, an enlightened, progressive city. Home to one of the nation's premier research universities, a renowned live music scene, Lance ...
Will Bethlehem Turn Steel into Gold?
Jan 01, 2006; ... By the end of the year, Bethlehem's famous abandoned steel mill could be a casino-but does the city have even better ways to bring in cash? IF THE SLOW DEATH OF BETHLEHEM STEEL WAS TRAGEDY, then the imminent slots-and-lofts redevelopment of its idled riverside steelworks is ...
Looking East
Jan 01, 2006; ... The Asian megacity is set to become this century's predominant urban form, which means Western preservationists have much to learn from Bangkok, Dhaka, and Mumbai THE HILLS AND BEACHES OF TODAY'S Indian megacity Mumbai were for centuries little more than a series of sleepy islands ...
Saving High-Rise Public Housing
Jan 01, 2006; ... After imploding many of its most loathed towers in the 1990s, the Chicago Housing Authority decided to save two historic developments from the scrap heap MOST PUBLIC HOUSING IN THE UNITED States is decrepit and getting worse. Today, tenants of crumbling garden apartments or dreary ...
Crosses from Rubble
Jan 01, 2006; ... After Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Christian groups stepped in where government agencies left off. Here, the tale of a tenacious widow, a transplanted family, and three Matts on a mission EMMETT WALLACE IS 49 YEARS OLD. Until last fall, the farthest he had ever moved from his ...
An Outsider Peers into the FEMA Trailer
Jan 01, 2006; ... Our hero sets out to do a good deed by helping FEMA rebuild the Gulf Coast. But he finds himself waylaid for weeks by a strange tribe of nomad bureaucrats in an outpost near a Mississippi Piggly Wiggly LAST FALL I MADE A PHONE CALL TO TEST THE FEMA WATERS. I was quickly pulled ...
Fifteen Minutes With... Brent Warr, Mayor of Gulfport, Mississippi
Jan 01, 2006; ... The mayor of Gulfport, Mississippi talks about his city's lowest moments after Katrina, the importance of casinos, and the tremendous help he's gotten from outsiders as his city digs out from one of the most devastating storms in history WHEN HURRICANE KATRINA STRUCK the Gulf Coast last ...
Planet of Slums
Jan 01, 2006; ... Planet of Slums By Mike Davis. New York: Verso. Cloth, 228 pages. $24 An urban scholar looks into the earth's future and sees a heap of filth ORDINARY CITIZENS OF BEIJING SHOULD worry: the 2008 Olympics are coming. To beautify the city before the eyes of the world, the slums need ...
Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina
Jan 01, 2006; ... Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina Edited by Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. A new collection of essays offers lessons for rebuilding after Katrina, but may be a bit too late THE ...
The Place You Love is Gone: Progress Hits Home
Jan 01, 2006; ... The Place You Love is Gone: Progress Hits Home By Melissa Holbrook Pierson. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Hardcover, 208 pages. $25.95 An unapologetic sentimentalist takes on sprawl-and loses WHY DID MELISSA HOLBROOK PIERSON write The Place You Love is Gone'? In a series ...