Archinect - News

Biden economic plan embraces 2030 challenge

2020-07-10T15:48:00-04:00

As Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden moves to set out a concrete policy regime to counter that of President Donald Trump, the Biden campaign's "Unity Task Force" coordinated with supporters of former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has announced a slew of progressive policy aims, including a plan to begin decarbonizing the building sector.

Previously published on Archinect: Architecture 2030's Ed Mazria outlines an environmentally-responsible plan for the architecture and design industries

Under the recently published recommendations from the task force, a potential Biden administration would move to guarantee that all new buildings achieve net-zero green house gas emissions by 2030, one of the key goals of the proposed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-backed Green New Deal framework.

Previously on Archinect: "Illustrating the massive scale of America's decarbonization challenge." Courtesy of McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology.

A section of the task force recommendation...

Atlanta's State Farm Arena to become Georgia's largest voting center

2020-07-01T17:54:00-04:00

Atlanta's State Farm Arena, home of the Atlanta Hawks professional basketball team, is being converted into a massive polling site to help the state of Georgia make voting more accessible to its residents.

CNN reports that the 17,000-seat arena will open as a polling center for the forthcoming August 11 runoff election and for the November election starting on November 3rd, when early voting begins. Aside from offering generous voting facilities for these elections, the stadium's 1,500 parking spots will also be made available for use by residents while they vote.

The arena was originally designed by Arquitectonica in 1998 and was renovated in 2018 by HOK.

The move comes as convention centers and sporting arenas around the country increasingly take on flexible uses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and other significant events.

Will Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg's new infrastructure plan strike gold with voters?

2020-01-15T13:45:00-05:00

In light of the recent Democratic debates, many candidates have shared their goals and intentions towards sustainability, housing, and infrastructure plans. Last year presidential candidate hopefuls like Andrew Yang shared his sustainability plan back in August 2019. Candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders shared their plans for affordable housing and their responses to the Green New Deal during the summer of 2019. With the list of candidates gradually withdrawing from the races, American voters are looking to those left in the race to provide plans and policies they can stand behind.

Recently, Democratic presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg, announced his national "Vision Zero" plan. According to his site, the infrastructure plan aims to achieve: "Opportunity, equity, and empowerment [...] My administration will invest over $1 trillion in working with states, cities, and other local governments to build the sustainable infrastructure of the 21st century."

Buttigieg p...

AIA publishes architecture industry guide highlighting 2020 US presidential candidate positions

2019-12-09T13:11:00-05:00

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has published a comprehensive voter guide for the 2020 United States Presidential election targeted toward members of the architecture community.

The guide, according to the AIA website, collects the policy positions and proposals for "all candidates who seek a major party nomination," and is "based on their campaign platforms and, where applicable, previous votes/work on the issue at hand." The organization makes clear, however, that "AIA makes no candidate recommendation with these profiles. We are not endorsing a candidate. The information provided below is for your consideration as you make your own determination on the candidates."

The guide hones in on six policy areas—climate change, housing, resilience, school safety, student loan debt, and taxes on business—and collects a mix of policy proposals, news reports, and legislative writings to explain each candidate's position.

See the following link for the guide: 2020 US presidential ...

How will Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang plan for a sustainable future?

2019-08-26T20:00:00-04:00

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has introduced a five-step plan to address climate change and to help mitigate its effects in the built environment.

To start, Yang lays out the problem of climate change in personal economic terms: "Why have we so far barely made a dent in what we need to do in order to combat this crisis? When 78% of our fellow Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, it's hard to mobilize people to care about the massive problem of climate change. Many think, 'I can't pay my bills. The penguins will have to wait.' It's impossible to think about the future if you can't feed your kids today. We need to get the economic boot off of the throats of our fellow Americans so everyone can get their heads up and start facing this threat head-on."

Yang's first step to his five-pronged plan is to establish a better net-zero standard for new buildings that would take effect by 2025. To do this, he addresses the need to pull away from fossil fuels while also pay...

Bernie Sanders unveils $16 trillion Green New Deal plan

2019-08-22T19:30:00-04:00

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has unveiled a transformative Green New Deal climate action plan that aims to eliminate fossil fuel use in the United States entirely by 2050.

Labeling the increasingly apparent effects of climate change “a national emergency,” Sanders seeks to direct a “$16.3 trillion public investment toward these efforts, in line with the mobilization of resources made during the New Deal and WWII, but with an explicit choice to include black, indigenous and other minority communities who were systematically excluded in the past.”

The Sanders plan would completely decarbonize the country’s electrical grid and transportation systems with 100% renewable electricity by 2030, according to The New York Times, with full decarbonization for the American economy by 2050. That effort includes removing some $15 billion in annual subsidies for the fossil fuel industries, forcing fossil fuel companies to “pay for their pollution,” and “scaling back military sp...

A democratic presidential candidate is pitching to save "dead malls"

2019-07-09T13:31:00-04:00

Entrepreneur and presidential hopeful Andrew Yang has a new policy proposal that promises to set him apart in the crowded Democratic field. He hopes to address an issue affecting the economic vitality of communities all across the country. Yang wants to save the malls. According to his campaign, some 300 malls will fold over the next 4 years, a number in line with an estimate by Credit Suisse that one-quarter of all malls will close by 2022.

In the U.S., the presidential race has already begun with potential candidates showcasing their intended policies and platforms to the American people. Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has created a growing following due to his stance on universal base income and approaching politics with "human-centered capitalism." In learning this, it is no wonder Yang has turned his efforts towards saving dying malls as a means to revive the economy of local communities.

Yang's goal is to implement the American Mall Act. According to a recent CityLab piece by Kriston Capps, the plan is to "devote $6 billion to find new purposes for these dying retail complexes." Yang made this announcement on July 4th weekend in a video as a response to Palmetto State voters and their experience of the retail apocalypse. In his video, Yang expresses the reality of mall upkeep and points out, "it's a massive challenge to try t...

Elizabeth Warren unveils sensible affordable housing plan

2019-07-08T15:45:00-04:00

2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has unveiled a modest affordable housing plan that would work to improve existing development mechanisms in an effort to increase the supply of affordable housing across the country.

Arguing that "government at all levels hasn’t done enough to tackle our housing problems over the past few decades," Warren recently reintroduced her 2018 American Housing and Economic Mobility Act in the United States Senate. The act, which forms the basis for Warren's affordable housing plan, falls somewhat short of some of the more structurally-oriented housing proposals put forth by competing presidential candidates, including New Jersey senator Cory Booker, but aims to improve the existing system nonetheless.

First and foremost, Warren is pushing to increase the supply of affordable housing nationwide by embracing some of the principles of the Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY) movement by compelling cities to change their zoning codes to make it ea...

Cory Booker's housing plan targets structural issues

2019-06-14T17:51:00-04:00

2020 Democratic presidential contender Cory Booker has unveiled an ambitious housing and homelessness prevention plan.

With his plan, the current junior senator from New Jersey and former Newark mayor takes a multi-faceted approach that aims to address many of the structural issues that underpin the country's housing affordability crisis.

To help rent-burdened Americans better afford their existing housing, for example, the candidate proposes a so-called "renters credit" that would cap rental costs at "30 percent of income for working and middle-class Americans." The plan will refund money to renters whose housing costs exceed 30 percent of their before-tax income. In a Medium post announcing the plan, Booker writes, "According to researchers at Columbia University, the impact would be sweeping: the credit would benefit more than 57 million people, including nearly 17 million children, and lift 9.4 million Americans out of poverty. The median credit for a benefitting family would ...