Author: James A. Bacon
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What the New Retail Revolution Means for Building Vibrant Communities
by James A. Bacon WEST PALM BEACH, FLA–Americans between the ages of 16 and 34, known collectively as the Millennial Generation, are exerting a powerful influence upon the economics of the retail industry and thus, indirectly, upon real estate development and community revitalization. That was the message I got from a presentation by Kennedy Smith,…
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New Urbanism Needs a Re-Boot
by James A. Bacon WEST PALM BEACH, FLA–Since its genesis three decades or so ago, the New Urbanism movement looked to the 1920s as the golden era of urban development in the United States. City builders had adapted to the rise of the automobile as dominant transportation mode while retaining continuity with previous urban forms…
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West Palm Beach, Ho!
Blogging will be spotty the next few days. I’m off to another conference, this time the Congress for the New Urbanism. I’ll participate in a panel discussion, “Understanding the Role of Sustainable Urbanism in the Conservative Agenda,” making the case that the phrase “conservative smart growth” is not an oxymoron. I’ll also bone up on…
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NoVa Prosperity Under Pressure
Northern Virginia remains the economic engine of the state but it faces major challenges. Job creation isn’t keeping up with population growth and income inequality is growing, concludes the Commonwealth Institute in a new report, “Under Pressure: The State of Working Northern Virginia.” Employment grew at a strong pace in 2011: The region added 25,000…
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New EPA Regs and the Virginia Economy
Six coal-fired power plants in Virginia accounting for 35% of the state’s coal-generated electricity could be forced to shut down prematurely by new and proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations, according to a report, “Economy Derailed,” published recently by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). In a state-by-state breakdown, the ALEC report stated that Virginians could…
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The Agenda 21 Hobgoblin
by William O’Keefe The late H.L. Mencken once observed that the “whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed… by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of which are imaginary.” The volume of blogs and other communications from Tea Party members over the U.N. Agenda 21 make me think that…
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Virginia Tobacco Bonds in Technical Default. Is Anyone Paying Attention?
by James A. Bacon Alarming news about Virginia bonds. The NYT reported last week that Virginia is one of three states that have tapped special tobacco-bond reserves to pay their bond holders — “something analysts consider a technical default because it effectively means the bondholders are being paid with their own money.” The underlying problem…
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Walkable Places Where Glitz Is King
Image source: Wikipedia by James A. Bacon Pound for pound, square foot for square foot, Las Vegas packs in more glitz than any other location on earth — more than Hollywood, more than the Ginza, more than Broadway, more than Dubai. Where else can you find a world-class tourist destination built around replicas of the…
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Still No Final Design as C’ville Bypass Approaches Construction
by James A. Bacon I’m back from Vegas (nothing happened there that had to stay there, by the way), and I’m catching up on what I missed while I was gone. It seems that the Charlottesville Bypass had one of its periodic flare-ups, as many citizens got it into their heads that they should be…
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How Smart Buildings Will (Indirectly) Shape Human Settlement Patterns
by James A. Bacon I had one overriding question when I came to the Niagara Summit: Will the new investment driven by cutting-edge Building Automation technology have an influence upon human settlement patterns? More specifically, will the technology of smart buildings make existing commercial buildings so obsolete that it will make sense to tear them…
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M2M, Big Data and Energy Conservation
by James A. Bacon The movement to squeeze more energy costs from commercial and industrial buildings in the United States has only begun to fulfill its potential. That’s the dominant impression I have so far from attending the biennial Niagara Summit here in Las Vegas. This conference brings together scores of players, from giants like…
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Bacon on the Job: Boning up on Smart Buildings
Here I am in sunny Las Vegas, actually doing work. I’m attending the biennial Niagara Summit organized by Richmond-based Tridium, where my wife works as financial director. Niagara is a software platform for connecting distributed devices — sensors, monitors, control devices — that work behind the scenes in an increasing number of the things we…
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The Emerging Education Paradigm: Virginia Tech’s Math Emporium
There are no professors in Virginia Tech’s largest classroom, the Math Emporium, writes Daniel De Vise with the Washington Post, only “a sea of computers” and a staff of instructors who roam the lab and dispense assistance as needed. Welcome to the brave new world of higher education, in which 8,000 Tech students a year…
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A Win-Win Way to Restructure Virginia’s Tax Code
Restructuring Virginia’s tax code by taxing services and using the proceeds to roll back business and income taxes would stimulate $340 million in additional investment, create 77,000 jobs and increase real disposable income by $2.78 billion under one of nine scenarios studied by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy in a new study, “Tax…
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Do Houses Pay their Own Way?
by James A. Bacon There is a widespread sentiment among Virginia county officials that houses are money losers for local governments, especially when families have school-age children. Families do not pay enough in property taxes to cover the local share of the cost of K-12 education. Neal Barber, president of the Community Futures consulting firm,…