If you, like a majority of Americans, think that any proposal to suspend the gas tax is a bad idea — bad for the environment, bad for our infrastructure, bad for our dependence on foreign oil, and bad for our wallets— you’ll be interested to see an online petition that was sent to us today: … Continued
The losers: You, me, and infrastructure A terrible idea that failed Bob Dole 12 years ago, gained second life as a recent John McCain economic proposal, and then became (perhaps surprisingly) a recent centerpiece of Hillary Clinton’s platform, is leading the daily news from the campaign trail as Americans feel tightening pressure from rising gas … Continued
Walking in the ditch to Pleasant View Elementary School in Franklin, Wisconsin on an incomplete street, left, and a complete street that is safe and accessible for all users, right. updated 5/3/08: Photo source of left photo added at bottom. If you’ve been feeling pinched at the pump lately and tried cutting down on gas … Continued
Chart on housing prices against gas prices from the CEO’s for Cities report, Driven to the Brink (2001 recession shaded) If you look back over the last two weeks at what we’ve been pointing to in the news and circulating on the blog, there was a clear trend emerging: Rising gas prices and escalating transportation … Continued
To the old conventional wisdom for real estate, …you have been replaced: You may have already read about WalkScore when we covered it last year, or seen the widget in our sidebar here on the blog. (SGA office = Walk Score 100!) It’s been a good year for Matt Lerner and the other Seattle developers … Continued
Author James Howard Kunstler looks at the trends we’ve been discussing for the last week — home prices in suburbs with long commutes depreciating — as well as some that we haven’t talked much about, like escalating food prices and the debilitating effect that high fuel prices are having on airline and retail industries, and … Continued
American Public Radio’s Marketplace this morning featured a very brief snippet on Growing Cooler and how the economic downturn and rising energy costs have altered the dynamics of the housing market. As the similar story on NPR showed earlier this week, markets with short commutes or in close proximity to transit and the core of … Continued
Gov. Parris Glendening, left, and Gov. Christine Todd Whitman with their award from Partners for Livable Communities. The Partners for Livable Communities recognized former Governors Christine Todd Whitman and Parris Glendening a few weeks ago for their work in creating the Governors’ Institute on Community Design. The PLC presented them with a Bridge Builders award … Continued
High gas prices are squeezing the housing market on the fringes of metro regions. It can be scary to turn on CNBC or CNNMoney these days. Watch for just a minute or two, and you’re likely to hear that not only is the housing market in trouble, but we might not be able to see … Continued
Last week, we mentioned the release of a new tool from the Center for Neighborhood Technology that measures the true cost of housing affordability, by also considering the transportation costs of each area. (Note: the Washington Post had a good story about the index here.) A few other outlets have done their own local test … Continued