January 2009
Disasters in Tough Times
The other day the brakes went out on a fire truck as it drove down a steep side street in a Boston neighborhood. The truck careened across a busy street and smashed into an apartment building, killing one of the…
The Great Detroit Charrette?
Thirty percent of Detroit proper is now vacant land. This was the news a few weeks back from The Detroit Free Press, the paper that announced last month that it would reduce daily delivery circulation to just three days a…
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Yes, Virginia, There Is A City Planner
Sometimes, the road more traveled by makes all the difference. It’s not news that there is significant buzz around planning circles around Transit Oriented Development, housing close to town, and more welcoming streetscapes. But do we know how the suburban…
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Will 2009 Be the Year of No Credit for College Tuition or a Green Economy?
As forecasters offer their new year’s predictions of a struggling economy, it is past time to be asking how a federal bailout of our financial institutions can equal no relief for consumers in accessing credit. The front page of the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday, December 28, 2008 ran the following opening sentence: Jim and Cindy Ranallo’s home equity line of credit went from $44,000 to zip, zero, nada in one month…and with it the money for their son’s education. This article by Kara Spak brings home how the financial crisis is striking households throughout the country. In the Ranallo’s case, it was Chase freezing their credit just weeks before college tuition was due. But as Spak notes: The Ranallos’ situation is a familiar one for hundreds of thousands of Americans who have found their home equity credit lines frozen or reduced this year. Their struggle to send their children to college also is familiar to parents patching funds together for higher education, constantly worried they will come up short. Chase froze 200,000 home equity lines this year, a bank spokesman said. more
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Considering the Townhouse
Driving along I-95 from Virginia to New England, I noticed how many townhouse-style developments have cropped up where apartment complexes would have been built a decade ago. Here is an example of the demand for housing shifting in a small…
National Housing Institute
