Author: James A. Bacon
-
Tempe, Tofu, Bean Sprouts…. or Bacon.
Who would have figured? PETA has selected Richmond, Va., as the 10th most “vegan friendly” city in the United States, behind Boulder, Colo., Las Vegas (really?), Salt Lake City, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Portland and, at the No. 1 spot, Austin. Writes PETA : It’s somewhat ironic that a city that’s historically been…
-
The Buried Treasure under our Noses
by James A. Bacon It is a truism that roads, highways, rail and other transportation assets are key determinants of real estate value. Less widely recognized is the fact that proximity to the “information superhighway” also affects real estate value. In 2010, Google spent $1.9 billion to buy a 2.9-million square foot building adjacent to…
-
MOOCs and the Honor Code
In an interview for its June issue, Virginia Business interviewed University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan about Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs). University professors are teaching six MOOCs this year. On the positive side, Sullivan said, the experience is changing how the professors are teaching their classes on the Grounds and promoting the UVa brand…
-
Stakes Alive!
Back in March volunteers with the Countryside Homeowners Association in Henrico County planted some 500 live stakes along severely eroded sections of Westham Creek. We were rubes. We didn’t know what we were doing. Our hope was to establish thickets of Red Osier Dogwood and Black Willow along the waterline that would produce a dense…
-
Floyd, a Street Cyclists Can Call their Own
by James A. Bacon The City of Richmond doesn’t have many tangible results to show for its bicycle-friendly policies so far. Painting white bicycle symbols on a few streets to designate sharrows — lanes where cars should be on the look-out for bicycles — contributes only marginally to making streets safer for cyclists. But the…
-
A Call for Clemency
by Carrington Brown My life would have been a lot simpler had I not met Dustin Turner almost five years ago. Dustin has been in prison for 18 years for a crime he did not commit — a crime to which his SEAL swim partner has admitted. Unless Governor Bob McDonnell accepts a recently filed clemency…
-
Granny Flats Making a Come Back — Hoorah!
by James A. Bacon Cities across The United States and Canada are liberalizing their zoning codes to allow more “accessory units” like basement apartments, granny flats and even tiny houses in the back yard, reports the Wall Street Journal. The trend is especially evident in regions with housing shortages and high real estate prices like…
-
VDOT Terms Conservationist Alternative an Impractical “Thought Exercise”
by James A. Bacon The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has fired back at conservation groups opposing Northern Virginia’s Tri-County Parkway, asserting that their proposed alternatives would cost $6 billion to implement compared to an estimated $450 million to build the parkway. Ignoring the realities of the transportation planning process, says VDOT, the “substitute vision”…
-
Who’s Got More Smart Growth – MD or VA?
by James A. Bacon State-level incentives to encourage smart growth proved to be of limited effectiveness in Maryland because they did not dissuade local governments from pursuing local priorities, according to a new study of the Washington metropolitan area scheduled to be published in Urban Studies. The study by Amal K. Ali, a geography professor…
-
Dead End Thinking in the Richmond Region
by James A. Bacon Sometimes, I despair for the transportation future of the Richmond region. If there is a problem, the first instinct of our civic leaders is to raise taxes to subsidize initiatives of unknown economic viability. The latest case in point is a set of recommendations issued by a work panel to the…
-
Has Washington Reached Escape Velocity?
by James A. Bacon It was long the conventional wisdom — which I shared, by the way — that the Washington regional economy was cruising for a bruising when the federal government encountered its inevitable reckoning with fiscal reality. Well, sequestration, a sort of semi-reckoning, has kicked in, and the Washington economy appears to be…
-
Baby Bull
by James A. Bacon New York City, home to the “masters of the universe” and Wall Street, is typically thought of as the center of the financial world. And by most measures it is. But the city ranking No. 1 in New Geography‘s ranking of 2013 best cities for financial-activities jobs was… (drum roll)… Richmond,…
-
Crunch, Rumble, Shake. Georgia Tech Goes MOOC.
The tectonic plates of higher education continue to shift and slide. The latest rumble you heard emanated from Atlanta, where the Georgia Institute of Technology recently announced that it would offer an online master’s degree in computer science at less than one-third the cost per credit hour. Georgia Tech is partnering with Udacity, a company…
-
Battle for the Battlefield
The Manassas Battlefield has become the scene of yet another irreconcilable conflict: this one involving VDOT, the park service and local residents.
-
Good Decision — but What Was the Reasoning?
Richmond City Council should get out of the business of designating and changing bus routes for the GRTC, the Greater Richmond transit corporation. So says a transit study task force in a newly released study. States the study: The Task Force recommends this responsibility be transferred to the GRTC Board of Trustees who is responsible…