Here is your Friday wrap-up, with a list of things to look at and investigate this weekend! The Rumsey Map Collection: It is a massive private collection of historical map archives which is completely open for public viewing (online). The neatest thing about the archives is that you can search for historic maps […]
Author Archives | alexsommer
How to end the NYC housing emergency (Part 2)
New York City clearly has a housing emergency. The dire shortage of housing has created a market which overwhelmingly benefits existing landlords and property owners, by exacerbating demand at the expense of renters. As discussed in an earlier post, New York City averages a 3.12% rental vacancy rate, which is well below a minimum 5% […]
2013 NYC hotel industry report
Tourism is a-booming in New York City. Starting with Mayor Giuliani’s quality of life push and continued with Mayor Bloomberg’s soft-spot for the service-sector, tourism has never been bigger. In 2012, New York City broke its all-time visitor record with more than 52 million visitors, up 44% since 2002. The city also houses almost 600 […]
Yet Another Chart on Income Inequality
Not to compete with recent information from Mother Jones, Huffington Post, Reuters, the NY Times, and many others, I too pulled some US census data to look at how incomes have changed over the last 45 years. It was pretty easy to find and the census bureau had already broken the population into easily comparable segments (quintiles). […]
Why Planners should know about Behavioral Economics
Let’s face it. People are crazy. They make ridiculous decisions, often based on personal biases and inexplicable desires. This irrationality leads to odd results, like building NASA’s mission control 1,000 miles from its launch site, founding a Central American civilization in the middle of a lake, or refusing to purchase a great house because it doesn’t have […]
New App for Historic Landmarks
Attention all historic preservation buffs and design nerds: the mapper, app developer, and fellow blogger Spatiality has just released the updated Landmarks: New York app for iPhone last week. In honor of the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s 40th Anniversary this year, Spatiality collaborated with the New York Landmarks Conservancy, to make some pretty awesome updates […]
Beijing’s Happy Magic Water Cube
It’s no secret that cities who host the Olympics often find it difficult to maintain or reinvent their once-in-a-lifetime sporting facilities. Even though I grew up as a competitive swimmer, I still find it pretty difficult to imagine an Olympic swimming pool booked with year-round competitions and packed with throngs of avid fans overflowing in […]
Forget About Green Jobs; Just Green the Economy
First things first, let’s stop talking about green jobs. There is no such thing. It can mean too many things. I like indicators… mmhhmmm. Do you want to know why I think they are hot? Because they measure the impacts of things. And if they are good indicators, they are based on measurable facts. Do […]
How to end the NYC housing emergency (Part 1)
New York City has a housing emergency. If you have ever lived in the city, you know that rents are so high there is even a political party dedicated to making it more affordable! But this emergency is nothing new. In 1962 the Local Emergency Housing Rent Control Act was enacted to protect New York State’s residents from… […]
What’s next for urban planners?
As discussed in two recent blogposts, Fringe Planning and Community, the planning profession is at a distinct crossroads. Our short history of little more than 150 years has resulted in only a couple of major paradigm shifts: the grand City Beautiful designs, Modernism’s clean-slate, and oft-reactionary Participatory movement. Mired in politicization and NIMBYism, sustainability and resiliency planning […]
