Simmering Paris, Classism in LA, Jo-Burg Greenspace, Rebirth and more
Hayley Richardson | Thu, Nov 29th, 2007 | Category: Commentary | Tags: commentary, hayley richardson, headlines, paris, fema, why cities grow, beijing facelift, new study blasts immigrants
“A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies, which promotes limiting immigration, argues that the current levels hurt the country. Foreign-born adults have less education than native-born citizens and raise the rates of poverty, welfare use and lack of medical insurance, says Steven Camarota, the center’s director of research. Critics say the study overlooks immigrant contributions. Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning and demography at the University of Southern California, says immigrants help the economy by working and buying homes.”
“The violence peaked Monday night and echoed riots that raged through impoverished suburbs nationwide for three weeks in 2005. The unrest showed that anger still simmers in the housing projects where many Arabs, blacks and other minorities live, often isolated from mainstream society.
Successive governments have struggled with the question of how to integrate minority youths from poor neighborhoods. Heavy state investment has done little to improve housing and create jobs in the depressed projects that ring Paris.”
Johannesburg Wins Accolades for Park Space
“CITY Parks walked away with eight awards, four of them gold, at the Liveable Communities (LivCom) Awards held in London on 26 November. And in the whole city category it shared second place with Arriyadh City, the capital of Saudi Arabia, receiving a bronze medal. In total, 23 cities competed.”
“The first batch of inner city face-lift projects began in Beijing yesterday, covering 9,635 households in Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chongwen, and Xuanwu districts. The projects are the largest in scale in Beijing since 1949, aimed at restoring both the physical appearance and environmental quality of historic neighborhoods.”
Streetcars: The Next Big Thing
“Several new streetcar lines are on track to arrive in the DC-metro area, planned by municipalities hoping to return their commercial corridors to the pedestrian- and tourist-friendly places they were before the automobile began to dominate the scene.Urban areas around the country are doing likewise, hoping to ride trolleys toward the dual ends of traffic reduction and tourist promotion.”
LA Classist Congestion Pricing
“The LA Times article “Lightening Traffic and Wallets” announces the opening of the South Bay Expressway in Chula Vista, a private toll road that will charge drivers to use it. The County is already selling the use of carpool lanes to solo drivers on a portion of Highway 15 and is considering expanding the policy to include more highway as well as on-ramps. They are calling it “congestion pricing”. This article is a must read for anyone who doubts the direction our leaders are taking us. They can’t or won’t solve the mass transit problem; they can’t or won’t solve the congestion problem; they can’t or won’t stop irresponsible development; but what they can do is insure that people with money will be able to drive and park in our city.”
“The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency said it intends to close trailer camps run for hurricane evacuees by the end of May. FEMA officials said the closures are meant to encourage and assist residents from the trailer camps set up after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, to more permanent housing before the next hurricane season.”
“After decades of decline, many U.S. cities are showing signs of rebirth. This three-part series examines a little of what happened to pull people and development away from cities, what’s attracting them back, how shrewd private investors are spotting trends, and what institutional investment and redevelopment projects have done to bring some cities back to life. (Read Part 2, “Local knowledge key for small investors in urban areas,” and Part 3, “Redevelopment and institutional investment in shrunken cities.")
