A prominent figure in the history of urban planning in New York City has passed away as The New York Times is reporting the death of architect Paul Willen at his home in Vermont on February 2nd. Willen was a staple in the city’s high-stakes world of Manhattan development schemes after his... View full entry
Miami is now number one on a list of the most expensive areas to own a home in the United States according to statistics published in the industry blog The Real Deal. The city surpassed New York and Los Angeles in the February edition of RealtyHop’s Housing Affordability Index on the wings of a... View full entry
The Nevada Housing Division announced Wednesday that $300.7 million will go to the development of affordable housing projects in the state. The money makes up 87% of Nevada’s 2021 tax-exempt bonding authority and is the highest amount earmarked for state-led affordable housing developments since the inception of the state’s tax-exempt private activity bond (PAB) program, according to Department of Business and Industry Director Terry Reynolds. — 8 News Now
The program aims to facilitate public and private sector collaboration in financing eligible affordable housing projects. There are currently 14 below-market-rate projects under construction located in Reno, Las Vegas, and North Las Vegas that will bring 2,898 residences by early 2024, with nine... View full entry
Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Friday a sweeping plan to deploy teams of police officers and social workers into New York City’s subway, pledging to remove homeless people who shelter on trains and platforms, some of whom have contributed to escalating violence in the system. — The New York Times
According to the new plan, the police will have a direct mandate to enforce rules against lying down, sleeping, occupying more than one seat, littering, aggressive behavior towards riders, smoking, and open drug use. In addition, mental health professionals with the power to order involuntary... View full entry
Toronto’s Quayside project is back online, almost two years after Sidewalk Labs’ plans to develop the site were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The new development will instead be delivered by a consortium led by developers Dream Unlimited and Great Gulf Group, featuring buildings by... View full entry
The cost to build California’s ambitious but long delayed high-speed rail line has once again risen, with rail officials now estimating it could take up to $105 billion to finish the line from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
The project’s price tag has steadily risen since voters first approved nearly $10 billion in bond money for it in 2008, when the total cost was pegged at $40 billion.
— KOVR Sacramento
The additional need for money stems from necessary sound barrier upgrades and repositioning of the train away from the Central Valley’s Cesar E. Chavez National Monument, according to project officials. The state is confident it can raise the necessary funds from the new federal infrastructure... View full entry
Those looking to spend their lives in the wonderful world of Disney may soon see their high hopes fulfilled after the 99-year-old entertainment giant announced a slate of new master-planned communities that will begin to take shape in its namesake’s one-time Southern California home. Each... View full entry
Big changes to the Big Apple’s alfresco restaurant scene are on the table — including a plan to get rid of its popular, but controversial, outdoor dining sheds.
The head of the city Department of Transportation’s Open Restaurants Program told a City Council committee on Tuesday that the makeshift structures won’t be allowed to remain standing after the COVID-19 pandemic eases.
— New York Post
The makeshift structures will be allowed to remain in place until July, according to Department of Transportation’s Open Restaurants Program director Julie Schipper, who said a more thorough application process would be enacted that would do away with “these full houses … in the... View full entry
A consortium in California has announced its ambition to construct a network of solar panels over a segment of the state’s canal system. The project, named Project Nexus, will build on research by a UC Merced environmental engineering graduate, which we originally reported on back in May... View full entry
By 2025, commuters near the Paris suburb of Creteil should have a new way to get to work: the French capital’s first-ever public transit gondola. The new aerial tramway, which cleared its pre-construction feasibility studies this week, will be called Cable A, and will link several outlying but populous neighborhoods in Paris’ southeastern suburbs to the terminus of Metro line 8. — Bloomberg CityLab
Cable A will travel a distance of 2.8 miles with five stations along its route. It was first proposed in 2008 as a cheaper and more practical alternative to conventional transit lines, which would require extensive engineering at the site. The gondola only needs space for the pillars that... View full entry
In an effort to encourage New Yorkers to get back on subways, buses, and trains -- particularly following the sharp decline in ridership due to the pandemic -- the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced a pilot fare program that is "more affordable, more flexible and more fair." — NBC New York
The fare capping pilot will feature free, unlimited rides after 12 OMNY taps, New York’s contactless fare payment system that will replace the MetroCard on the New York City subway in 2023. Under this program, no OMNY user would pay more than $33 per week, which is the current price of a... View full entry
An online space called Virtual Bradford is set to be completed this summer that would provide a high-resolution 3D online “brick-for-brick” digital twin of Bradford, England’s city center. The project is a collaboration between the University of Bradford and the Bradford Council. It is... View full entry
Writing about Twin Parks in 1973, The Times’s former architecture critic, Paul Goldberger, speculated that the project might “turn out to be important in the history of housing design.” [...] design, however compassionate, can mean only so much against the obstacles that make up the housing problem today.”
The calculus is the same half a century later. But the South Bronx isn’t. Gradually, it has been remade. Progress isn’t impossible, it’s a process.
— The New York Times
Both observed South Bronx developments, 1490 Southern Boulevard and a transformation of the Lambert Houses, are seen as examples of high-quality and effective public housing that offers residents more than just desultory amenities. The Times critic broke down the new-ish developments by... View full entry
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has included hefty spending on infrastructure projects in its annual budget, looking to spur growth and improve its popularity just ahead of key state elections. The budget also includes a proposed 30% tax on income from cryptocurrencies. — ABC News
India also introduced a new digital rupee (after previously attempting a ban on cryptocurrencies) and plans to declare data centers and large energy storage systems as infrastructure in an effort to increase access to institutional funding. Hopes are that the investment in building projects will... View full entry
In her recent Executive Budget address, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the state will inject nearly $3 billion towards infrastructure projects that “promote equity, connectivity, and multi-modal transportation opportunities for communities all across New York State.” This move... View full entry
