January 2009
Transforming the market for development location
One of the most popular tags on the blogging site of my organization, NRDC, is “market transformation.” I’m a believer. Not everything we need for sustainable development can be accomplished through policy initiatives (the current feeding frenzy at the trough…
-
CDCs Must Recognize Changing Conditions
It was announced this week that new home sales dropped 15 percent in December. This follows a year of similar news. Earlier in the week everyone was pleasantly surprised by sales of existing homes, but in general sales in that…
-
Fighting Wage Theft
Monday brought the announcement of a record 70,000-plus jobs lost worldwide, from drug companies to automakers and everything in between. Meanwhile each year millions of Americans who still have jobs are having their wages stolen from them, an under-recognized epidemic…
A Stimulus Package We Can Believe In
Author and columnist Tom Friedman described the nation’s current predicament as when Roy Scheider’s character from Jaws gets his first glimpse at the shark, goes to the captain’s cabin and declares: “We’re going to need a bigger boat.” Policy makers…
-
A Sobering Economic Roundup
It was quite a day today: American Express Earnings Drop 79 Percent Sprint Nextel to Cut 8,000 Positions Caterpillar to Cut 20,000 Jobs Home Depot to Cut 7,000 Jobs And the grand finale: 62,000 Jobs Are Cut by U.S. and…
-
Television: The Drug of the Public Realm
I have been constantly astounded since I moved back to the city last summer at the extent to which television has penetrated our public spaces. I don’t mean out in parks or on the streets, (although our children certainly have…
-
My Berlin Wall Moment
It took me a couple of days after the extraordinary evening of President-elect Obama’s victory on November 4 for the impact to really sink in. The election was an unprecedented opportunity on so many levels, and made me realize that…
The Inauguration: View from a Chicago Diner
At the risk of sounding clich, hope was in the air as thick as the smell of grilling bacon and the steam from oatmeal and grits in a small diner on Chicago’s west side crowded with customers watching the inauguration…
Watching History On The Big Screen
So much of this country’s history has been watched on television—lunar landing, Beatles on Sullivan, Dwight Clark’s “The Catch” from Joe Montana in the 1982 NFC Championship Game (had to throw that in)—that I didn’t feel bad in the least…
To The New First Family: Welcome To My Hometown
What an exciting time to be a DC resident. In this historic and wonderful week, the Obamas are moving not only to a new job but also to a new home. I’ve written before about how the real city of…
-
This Land Is Your Land
What was the best event at the inaugural celebration? Watching Barack Obama take the oath of office, of course, but the next best moment was watching Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen lead the nation in singing This Land is Your…
-
Are You An Advocate?
“Isn’t it true, Dr. Squires, that you are an advocate?” As an occasional expert for plaintiffs in fair housing lawsuits this is a question I almost always get during depositions. The implication, of course, is that as an advocate I…
-
Foreclosure Mitigation, Abandoned Properties, What’s Missing?
At an upcoming housing summit in New Jersey, there are promising presentations for anyone who sees the grave danger associated with the foreclosure crisis and the subsequent effects on neighborhoods, but does it go far enough? While the conference will…
Parks For Revitalization
The image in this post, which photographer Bill Lim has made available to us through the wonder of the Creative Commons, is of the beautiful Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial water sculpture in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Gardens. As we…
-
Keep Single Family Homes in Mind
I enjoyed looking at the examples of smart growth in NRDC’s new online feature, Picturing Smart Growth. Thanks to Kaid Benfield for bringing this great resource to everyone’s attention! I was pleased to see three of the examples, in Miami,…
All Aboard, America
The weekend before Barack Obama and Joe Biden take the oath of office, I can’t help but remark on the seeming missed opportunity for these two change agents as they make their symbolic whistle stop tour on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor…
Visions for Transforming America
President-elect Obama will take office next week vowing to fight climate change, tackle oil dependency and revive the U.S. economy. NRDC believes that smart growth and transit are a big part of the solution. As New York Times columnist David…
-
It’s a Dirty Job…
For the first 38 minutes, it almost sounded like the Senators pitied him. The Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs spent nearly 40 minutes of the two-hour confirmation hearing warning President-elect Obama’s HUD secretary nominee Shaun Donovan that…
-
Tough Economy, Slashed Services
Planner and Rooflines blogger David Holtzman pointed to the potential effects of diminished funding for fire companies as the economy continues to slide, and sadly, this is not the only area where we are likely to see reductions in municipal…
Obama’s Challenge: Encourage Social Movements and Other Lessons From FDR and the Great Depression
As Obama prepared his economic recovery plan, he read Jonathan Alter’s The Defining Moment, (Simon and Shuster, 2006) about FDRs rise to the presidency and his first 100 days. Although Alters engrossing and readable book was not intended to give…
National Housing Institute
