GRE today

[Blaidd Drwg]

What do you want this degree to do for you?

I'll use Atlanta as an example because that's where I live and have seen the shifts in development planning actually pay dividends in quality of life. I don't necessarily want to make a career in Atlanta, just examples.

My main goal is to get a job working in the field leading projects like Atlanta's Beltline (http://beltline.org/) and re-development of urban areas like has been done in several parts of Atlanta like Inman Park over the last few years. It's basically a New Urbanist approach to planning on a neighborhood scale within a city/region rather than the old sprawl-at-all-costs based approach. The economic ROI has been proven to be much higher for this type of investment in a city than simply building more roads. It's also shown to increase the satisfaction of residents and encourage people to move back into the city.

You looking to work in the private or in the public sector?

Hint: there is a Right answer to this question if you want to "do good work" versus do big planning.

[Shapecharge]

Hey Alfred if it's possible to have a discussion without it turning into a crazy IGx stylee madhouse I have to say I'm a bit stunned by your post above. It's seems nearly incomprehensible to me that you can reconcile your logical, factual, applied-science midset that is the foundation of your civil engineering education with the wishful thinking, pie-in-the-sky social engineering that is the hallmark of new urbanism.

They have some weird ideals that banning cars and putting a cafe on every corner are the keys to utopia, but implementing a few of their land use ideas can completely change the look and feel of an area.

Think more National Complete Streets Coalition and mixed use dense zoning in city centers than the crazier aspects of New Urbanism.

I have to profess to being a bit out of touch when it comes to leading-edge planning theory. Do you have any preferred references on the National Complete Streets Coalition?

[Turdacious]

In the realm of street design, engineers are the licensed professionals charged with safe and efficient operation of the transportation system. It is extremely difficult, and perhaps inappropriate, for elected officials to tread into the territory of prescriptive street design. We have learned that engineers are inherently problem solvers, with the notable exception of engineers with excessively large ears, and the best way to change their focus is to change the definition of the problem. With the complete streets concept, we are working to change the paradigm from “moving cars quickly” to “providing safe mobility for all modes.”

http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/compl ... del-policy

[Pinky]

What I've seen from urban planners focuses too much on the actual planning of ideal land use and transportation and too little on the basic incentives residents of an area face. Walkable streets and condos with cafes on the ground floor aren't going to make up for differences in taxes and basic services between the city center and the burbs.

[Turdacious]

What I've seen from urban planners focuses too much on the actual planning of ideal land use and transportation and too little on the basic incentives residents of an area face. Walkable streets and condos with cafes on the ground floor aren't going to make up for differences in taxes and basic services between the city center and the burbs.

Institute a hipster tax-- solves a lot of problems.

[Blaidd Drwg]

What I've seen from urban planners focuses too much on the actual planning of ideal land use and transportation and too little on the basic incentives residents of an area face. Walkable streets and condos with cafes on the ground floor aren't going to make up for differences in taxes and basic services between the city center and the burbs.

The reality is planners and bureaucrats in general have very little sway in those arenas but DO have a lot of built in authority to manipulate the form of the built environment. We are really good at the fringe and the frosting. We don't do real centralized planning in the US, it may be a good thing, it's resource intensive for sure.

[Pinky]

What I've seen from urban planners focuses too much on the actual planning of ideal land use and transportation and too little on the basic incentives residents of an area face. Walkable streets and condos with cafes on the ground floor aren't going to make up for differences in taxes and basic services between the city center and the burbs.

The reality is planners and bureaucrats in general have very little sway in those arenas but DO have a lot of built in authority to manipulate the form of the built environment. We don't do real centralized planning in the US, it may be a good thing, it's resource intensive for sure.

This is why I usually just roll my eyes when I hear talk of turning busy streets through urban neighborhoods into places where children can play. When I hear local politicians talk about development, especially my local politicians, I start yelling.

[johno]

School quality (in the broadest sense) is an important factor to attract families.
Shiny railcars or trolleys from home to Starbucks & Crossfit can't overcome that.
Nor will bike/walk friendly roads.

So we're back to the Hipster Tax.

[Shapecharge]

Yelling about what?

[johno]

PS - My retarded town, with more $$$ than sense, is trying to create a "Village" concept right in the middle of its most crime-ridden, ethnically striven area.
Where the Green River Killer used to troll for victims.

[Blaidd Drwg]

To be fair....manipulating the street grid is one of the most successful types of planning that we do in this country. People think about streets and then bitch about traffic because they have absolutely no ability to comprehend how much worse it could be and how much real good public realm planning goes on.

i don't want to touch the "you din't build that" vein but really....well designed public realm planning is massive boon that is constantly undervalued and over-leveraged at the same time.

Hipster tax is conceptually the most wrong headed idea, the only places that have hipsters are places that are already cruising along the raggedy apex of the gentrification process. Sounds like y'all are advocating wealth redistribution by taxing success.

[Blaidd Drwg]

bitch all you want about the Village concept, re-urbanization is at the heart of the bank metrics for loaning money on development projects, no lending= no projects.

[johno]

We'll see how that Village works out. I predict disaster. What's your prediction?

[Blaidd Drwg]

We'll see how that Village works out. I predict disaster. What's your prediction?

I'll admit I know of about 4 or 5 of these ongoing in WA. which one is it?

[johno]

Tukwila

[Shapecharge]

bitch all you want about the Village concept, re-urbanization is at the heart of the bank metrics for loaning money on development projects, no lending= no projects.

I agree with this but more simply put...higher density multifamily projects are the only thing that developers are getting money for. Most anything else is requiring a lot more equity that developers don't have.

[Blaidd Drwg]

Tukwila

:)

Oh Dear. Yeah, that's one's a dog right there.

Ladies and Gentlemen......When J, suggested his town has more money than sense, I should have known...there is only one town in WW with any money at all. Tukwila is RICH BIiiiiieeetch.....That concept will fail because it seeks to solve a problem that does not really exist. Tukwila is not a city, it's a Mall.

the canon of professional ethics prevents me from saying more.

[Blaidd Drwg]

bitch all you want about the Village concept, re-urbanization is at the heart of the bank metrics for loaning money on development projects, no lending= no projects.

I agree with this but more simply put...higher density multifamily projects are the only thing that developers are getting money for. Most anything else is requiring a lot more equity that developers don't have.

you lucky bastard...we' only just starting to get housing back on line around here.

[Alfred_E._Neuman]

We'll see how that Village works out. I predict disaster. What's your prediction?

It's work OK in the few places it's been tried in Atlanta. First step every time was to clean the neighborhood up and get rid of the rif raf.

When I was in college I lived in an area just west of Little 5 Points called Inman Park. Fucking war zone. You simply didn't go another block further towards downtown on Edgewood Ave. if you were white. Now that neighborhood is on the far side of gentrification. They bulldozed an entire street of crack houses and let a developer build condos/townhomes and single family residential. Restaurants and businesses followed the new residents in. Now it's one of the most in-demand in town neighborhoods. They just opened the Beltline from there all the way to Piedmont Park so you can literally run through town faster than you can drive. And the gentrification is now following Edgewood Ave. farther into downtown.

I think the main thing missing from the re-gentrification efforts is an eye toward real jobs. All you have are basically service jobs with dining and retail, where you need some serious blue work and businesses to anchor long term stability. That's not something you can really plan for at the local level. We need an overhaul of our national manufacturing base to get those jobs back. And that's one of the things that should be rrrreeeeeaaalllll fucking high on the President's list of shit to do next term. We need to remember how to make things in this country.

[johno]

Tukwila

:)

Oh Dear. Yeah, that's one's a dog right there.

Ladies and Gentlemen......When J, suggested his town has more money than sense, I should have known...there is only one town in WW with any money at all. Tukwila is RICH BIiiiiieeetch.....

I knew it. We agree on some things.

[Shapecharge]

We're beating it down though. We had a mulitfamily project that made total sense from every development perspective fail twice--simply because it was thought that we had enough.

[Blaidd Drwg]

AEN,

you're hitting on one of the central fallacies about that sort of smart growth planning, it only works well if there is already a there, there.

Johno is talking about a fully functioning suburbanmallsprawlvirus they are trying to remake into a residential feel urban village. The only lynchpin to secure the whole deal is a huge TOD hub, and even then, it serves mostly retail workers not residents. They have a tough row to hoe.

OTOH, reclaiming strip mall highways and or re-gentrifying a suburb from the early 1900's is comparatively easy because there is a a reason for town to be there.

The holy grail is Jobs...if you have actual jobs, or a reason for people to live somewhere, you can pretty much grid the streets, do cursory Euclidean zoning and and let er buck.

[Alfred_E._Neuman]

bitch all you want about the Village concept, re-urbanization is at the heart of the bank metrics for loaning money on development projects, no lending= no projects.

I agree with this but more simply put...higher density multifamily projects are the only thing that developers are getting money for. Most anything else is requiring a lot more equity that developers don't have.

you lucky bastard...we' only just starting to get housing back on line around here.

WW was overbuilt and over the top expensive when we were out there 2006-08. A 900sf house from the 20's with very little updates was going for north of $250k in Bellingham then. When the shit hit the fan that gravy train came to a screeching halt. I don't know how far that market fell but I can't imagine many houses are moving with current occupants a few dozen thousand $ upside down.

[Blaidd Drwg]

WW is actually under built for much of the PSR market but when you were there, the prices were at the top of a second peak..this is back to Pinky's bailiwick, loose lending policies and the creation of a housing bubble.

when you think of the cost of a home in that market a fair comparison you might run is not just what other homes are selling for in the area or in similar job markets, but what the cost of construction would be if you subtracted the land value and built it new.

I think you'd find 250k is not a bad deal for many of those houses that you felt were out of control expensive.

[Alfred_E._Neuman]

AEN,

you're hitting on one of the central fallacies about that sort of smart growth planning, it only works well if there is already a there, there.

Johno is talking about a fully functioning suburbanmallsprawlvirus they are trying to remake into a residential feel urban village. The only lynchpin to secure the whole deal is a huge TOD hub, and even then, it serves Mosley retail workers not residents. They have a tough row to hoe.

OTOH, reclaiming strip mall highways and or re-gentrifying a suburb from the early 1900's is comparatively easy because there is a a reason for town to be there.

The holy grail is Jobs...if you have actual jobs, or a reason for people to live somewhere, you can pretty much grid the streets, do cursory Euclidean zoning and and let er buck.

They tried that stupid shit here with the Mall Of GA. Built a HYUGE mall out in the middle of nowhere north of Atlanta and dolled it up to look like Small Town USA, complete with "mixed use" areas with condos and what not. Fake as Disney World. You seriously had to drive an hour north of downtown to get to this monstrosity. Nobody in their right mind would want to visit the thing, much less live there. And any retail job you could get at the mall sure as shit wouldn't let you live there.

Compare that with the Atlantic Station project in downtown (http://www.atlanticstation.com/) and you're distinction becomes even more clear. Taking a run down section of downtown and letting a developer build houses, townhomes, retail, etc. and easy jaunt from the jobs that already exist.