Category: Infrastructure
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Should Virginia Beach Subsidize a New Arena?
by James A. Bacon United States Management (USM), a Virginia Beach development company, wants to build a $200 million, 18,000-seat arena and sports complex adjacent to the city’s convention center, which, it claims, will create jobs, boost the local tourism industry, bolster city property values and bring events to Hampton Roads that enhance the regional quality…
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McAuliffe Hits Private IT Outsourcing
By Peter Galuszka Just a decade ago, privatizing and out-sourcing traditionally government work was all the rage. Virginia’s Democrats and Republicans alike saw a philosophical advantage in fending off Information Technology, road maintenance and other work to for-profit, private companies who supposedly – if you believed the hype then –could always do things better, faster…
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The Great U.S. 460 Swamp
VDOT had loads of warning that wetlands could kill the U.S. 460 project but the state charged ahead with a design-build contract that everyone knew could explode.
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How Charlotte Stays Economically Competitive
Envision Charlotte, a public-private partnership in Charlotte, N.C., has set the goal of reducing energy consumption in the city center by 20%. The initiative has achieved 8.4% savings so far, saving businesses in the central business district an estimated $10 million or more, Envision Charlotte and Duke Energy announced last week. “We have cracked the…
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Finally, Some Sense on Climate Change
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in Consumer Protection, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Health Care, Infrastructure, Insurance, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Pulling the state’s head out of the sand, Gov. Terry McAuliffe has reversed his predecessor’s policy on addressing climate change. He has reestablished a 35-member panel to see what the state can do to deal with what many scientists believe is an impending crisis. McAuliffe revived the panel first created by Democratic…
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Two UMW Daughters of the ’60s
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in Business and Economy, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Environment, Federal issues, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Just a few days ago, Elena Siddall, a Mathews County Republican activist and Tea Party Patriot, posted her account on the Rebellion of being a social worker in New York in the 1960s and the wrong-headedness of Saul Alinsky, a leftist organizer who had had a lot of influence back in the…
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U.S. 460: Peeling Back the Onion
by James A. Bacon Structuring the U.S. 460 Connector as a public-private partnership (P3) shielded the $1.4 billion project from much of the oversight required for conventional Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) projects, found a confidential report by VDOT’s Assurance Compliance Division and the Office of the State Inspector General. As a consequence, the McDonnell administration…
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Denying Truth on the Outer Banks
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Insurance, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka North Carolina’s Outer Banks have always been a touchstone for me – in as much as anyone can associate permanence with sandy islands being perpetually tossed around by tremendous wind and water forces. The Banks and I go back to 1954 and Hurricane Hazel when I was an infant. They mark many…
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Virginia Transportation in the Slow Lane
by James A. Bacon Alvin and Heidi Toffler once wrote about the mismatch in speeds at which private corporations and governments evolve in response to social, economic and technological change. Nowhere is that differential more obvious than the automobile sector. The automobile industry is a Ferrari blazing down the Interstate at 120 miles per hour while government is…
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Will Virginia Cities Be among the 600?
Madrid-based GOWEX, which specializes in creating wireless smart cities, aims to bring free Wi-Fi connections to 600 cities around the world by 2018 in partnership with Cisco, the American networking giant. (Read details in the “Datamorphosis” blog.) The Spanish company has an interesting business model. Everyone with a smart phone can get on the Wi-Fi…
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Must Read of the Day: Complex Cities
As former Bacon’s Rebellion contributor EM Risse likes to say, urban planning isn’t rocket science — it’s a lot more complex. Ed’s quip came to mind when reading the latest post by Charles Marohn on the Strong Towns blog. The thrust of Chuck’s post is that local government leaders act as if towns, cities and counties…
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The Rise of Walkable Urbanism and “the End of Sprawl”
by James A. Bacon The Washington metropolitan region is the national model for “walkable urbanism” in the United States — more so even than metropolitan New York, according to the findings of “Foot Traffic Ahead: Ranking Walkable Urbanism in America’s Largest Metros,” a report released this morning by LOCUS, an organization of smart-growth real estate developers, and Smart…
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Tea Party Populism vs. Eric Cantor
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Political analysts and the media are still trying to tease out the meaning of soon-to-be-former House Majority leader Eric Cantor’s primary loss last week to an obscure college professor. Two major themes seem to be emerging. One is what the Tea Party’s role was and what the Tea Party really is. The…
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Nash Nails Neanderthal GOP
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Infrastructure, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and EntitlementsBy Peter Galuszka Imagine Norfolk spending $300 million for light rail only to have it covered in salt water. Or consider that Virginia’s statewide mean temperature has risen 0.46 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since 1975. Or that, due to carbon dioxide emissions, the sea level on the Virginia coast is expected to rise by two…
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Brat and Cantor: Two Unsavory Choices
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka The hottest political race coming up is the Republican primary this Tuesday involving the 7th Congressional District now represented by Eric Cantor, a powerful conservative who is House Majority Leader and could possibly one day be Speaker of the House. His opponent, college professor David Brat, has gotten much national attention because…