Urban Design Curriculum

The fact that we have political systems that do byzantine things like this instead of just charging a basic tax per litre of fuel to account for environmental costs (or even mileage * weight^4 for wear and tear) in a consistent way continues to frustrate me.

When accounting for

A poll comparing proposals for the new <n>Christ's College Library</n>. The <n>Traditional</n> design by <n>Create Streets</n> was preferred over the <n>Modernist</n> proposal by <n>Wright & Wright Architects</n>.

Yet again, the public have such clear preferences for buildings with proportion, enclosure, variety, material richness and human scale rhythm. These principles are not “classical styles”, they are courtesy to the street, to those who pass by & to our common home & civic life….

A rendering of the proposed <n>California Forever</n> community in Solano County, California.

1/ Housing is the defining issue of our time.

As California's average home prices approach $1 million, @CSElmendorf and Ed Glaeser, America's leading urban economists, call on California to stop the vetocracy and

BUILD. MORE. HOMES. 🇺🇸

From today's @latimes:

The housing theory of everything - Works in Progress Magazine

Illustration by <n>Kade Byrand</n> for the <n>Works in Progress</n> article, <n>The Housing Theory of Everything</n>.

When housing supply goes down, rents go up.

An infographic by <n>John Burn-Murdoch</n> for the <n>Financial Times</n> on the effects of new housing supply.

This is a good illustration of a general principle:

As you build new high-end apartments, people move up, freeing up supply of lower-tier apartments.

Building luxury housing thus lowers downmarket rents. You don't need to build 'affordable housing' to make housing affordable.

A policy proposal discussing NYC transit projects like the <n>Second Avenue Subway</n>, citing <n>Arpit Gupta</n>.

Vital City | Learning from Jersey City

A worker tends to landscaping at <n>Newport</n> in Jersey City. Photo by <n>Spencer Platt</n> for <n>Vital City</n>.