No one’s home: Newark and builder at odds over housing project
Quality, in-depth report from Sunday’s Star Ledger about a total train wreck in the construction of a public housing project on Elizabeth Ave. The money and time wasted in the pursuit of these failed housing units would be tragic in and of itself, not accounting [...]
The New Urbanism and the Communitarian Trap (PDF)
Great piece from the Harvard Design Magazine, Winter/Spring 1997, Number 1. New Urbanism is the model that many US cities are attempting to adopt to make sense of their post-industrial communities.
While dipping a toe into the ocean of material about urban design, I was surprised at [...]
Downtown Newark’s rental market on the rise
Lest we forget about some of Newark’s success stories in all the kerfuffle over zombies, NY Daily News provides some more positive press on Newark’s real estate market.
Sitting two blocks from the Prudential Center and at the southern edge of Military Park, Eleven80 is five to ten minute [...]
Suburbs a Mile Too Far for Some
A tipster sent in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal story on the New Urbanism phenomenon. The article cites demographic changes and rising energy costs as the culprit for the shift in housing preference away from drive-in suburbs—a model that’s been in place since World War II—to cities and walkable communities. [...]
Is America’s suburban dream collapsing into a nightmare?
This piece in from a tipster about the changing American landscape. While I found it a bit reactionary about the upward tick in crime in some suburban communities as a result of subprime-related vacancies, the trends outlined by urban planning professor Christopher Leinberger seemed to reflect some [...]
Newark blueprint has lofty ambitions
The plan introduces zoning changes that allow the city to convert the underused second- and third-floor retail/commercial space downtown to residential units—the lack of which now contributes to that “dead” feeling after dark.
Public affairs expert Roland Anglin emphasizes the need for the city to market itself well and get a [...]
An innocent man detained
Of all the things I worry about living in Newark, having my home invaded by FBI agents doesn’t often make the top of the list. Crazy story.
A technology systems manager for a Hoboken insurance firm was asleep in his Newark home earlier this month when a SWAT team of FBI agents [...]
This American Life #355: The Giant Pool of Money
Poignant story from This American Life about how the credit and housing crisis occurred, sharing the stories from home-owners on the brink of financial ruin to CDO multi-millionaire brokers who lived like “b-level celebrities” during the high-times of the housing bubble.
The subprime housing crisis roiling the economy [...]