Author: James A. Bacon
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Big Brother Is Not Watching… Yet
Spanish scientists have devised a way to make GPS accurate to within six feet, a development that will make it possible to improve maps and directions in cities where tall buildings block satellite signals, find and reserve parking spaces, and eventually to create smart traffic systems with GPS-guided cars. All very cool. But there’s a…
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Playing with Other Peoples’ Money
I have started following Charles Marohn’s blog, “Strong Towns,” and am gratified to see that great minds think alike. In his most recent post, Marohn applies the thinking of Nassim Taleb, author of “Antifragility,” to the discipline of building more prosperous, livable and fiscally sustainable communities. (See my post, “Fragility, Antifragility and Virginia.”) One of…
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The Limits of the Creative Class
In a blog post on “New Geography,” Joel Kotkin unloads with both barrels on Richard Florida and the ailing cities that paid him big consulting fees to help reinvent themselves — for the most part unsuccessfully — as “hip and cool” places appealing to the creative class. Kotkin’s riff was inspired, apparently, by a recent…
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Surprise! Latinos Not a Monolithic Bloc!
A week ago, I asked whether the high concentration of Latinos in certain Northern Virginia neighborhoods was best described as “segregation” or “self separation.” Are Latinos the victims of residential discrimination, or do they voluntarily cluster together for reasons of income (they can afford to live only in certain neighborhoods) or culture (they like being…
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The Stroad to Hell …
by James A. Bacon Americans, asserts Charles Marohn in his book “Thoughts on Building Strong Towns,” do not understand the difference between streets and roads. That conceptual confusion has resulted in untold billions of dollars in bad investment as traffic engineers have melded the two in what Marohn and others have contemptuously term “stroads.” I…
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Food Insecurity… or Child Neglect?
by James A. Bacon We read today in the Times-Dispatch about the trials and tribulations of one Ashley C. Williams, who recently tested positive for cocaine last month while awaiting trial in Richmond for the death of her two-year-old son. The boy died of starvation and dehydration on May 30, 2009, weighing only 14 pounds.…
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Living the High-Line Life
Converting an eyesore into a celebrated park, New York City’s High Line showed how smart urbanism can create wealth.
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Doubling Down on a Broken Growth Model
by James A. Bacon I’ve just finished an extraordinary little book. “Thoughts on Building Strong Towns,” that has helped crystallize my thinking on the fiscal trap of the “suburban sprawl” model of growth and development. The author, Charles Marohn, is a Minnesota-based civil engineer, urban planner and executive director of the Strong Towns organization, and,…
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Chug-a-Lug, New York, Here I Come
It’s spring vacation, and I’m off to the Big Apple. Or should I say, the land of the Big Gulp. Or Big Nanny Bloomberg’s day care. Whatever you call it, it should be fun and I will blog intermittently, if I can. My goal: to buy a large cup of sugary soda before the mayor…
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NoVa Segregation — or Self Separation?
Guess whose schools are getting more segregated? Nearly four out of five Latino students in Northern Virginia are enrolled in predominantly minority schools, according to the Los Angeles-based Civil Rights Project. “About 7 percent of those students went to ‘intensely segregated minority schools’ — ones where less than 10 percent of students were white and…
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Sequestration and Resilience in Washington Region
Of the 3.1 million people employed in the Washington metropolitan area, 450,00 work for the federal government or military. No question, Washington stands to get hammered by sequestration and other budget cuts. But Mark Muro and Jessica Lee with the Brookings Institution argue in “Sequestration Shock: Smart D.C. Metro Will Figure It Out,” that the…
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Bend, Buckle and Crack
The case for the proposed Charlottesville Bypass is collapsing like an old bridge. Even a VDOT consultant questions how well Skanska-Branch’s design for the controversial highway can handle projected traffic loads.
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Holding the Line in Henrico
by James A. Bacon Sidney Gunst has never been reluctant to express his ardent views on the failings of government and has never been shy about chastising public officials, even to their face. But the former real estate developer has never felt as determined as he is today to challenge the status quo. The latest…
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A Partial Explanation for Spreading Food Insecurity
by James A. Bacon Food insecurity is increasing in Virginia. Don’t take my word for it — that’s what the people at Feedmore, which runs Central Virginia’s food bank, tell me. The food bank operation, founded in 1980 to provide emergency food relief to poor Virginians, now addresses a chronic need. The organization has evolved…
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Stirrings of a Parking Revolution
by James A. Bacon Parking may be the most under-appreciated factor driving urban economics. Street parking takes up valuable space that could be used for bicycle lanes and sidewalks. Parking lots and garages create walkability dead zones in the urban fabric. And drivers add to congestion in busy urban centers as they drive around and…