Category: Zoning
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(In)formality (In)justice
As many New Yorkers know, the rent is too damn high. The neighborhoods of New York have always been dynamic and ever-changing, and today, this continues to be true, but perhaps, on a level unforeseen in recent memory. Many are being priced out of our neighborhoods that they’ve lived in, sometimes for generations. So I asked Jimmy…
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Are we closer to utopia?
Last century, architects and urban planners had to deal with the fact that vehicles were rapidly increasing their presence in cities. To solve the relationship between cars and pedestrians, some proposed to separate them. A relevant example of these urban planners was Clarence Perry, who developed a concept in the early 1900’s called the “Neighborhood Unit”…
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Arsenal
So I recently discovered by way of the Guggenheim that there is going to be a new book published by Actar entitled, The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion, out next spring (2014) on the subtle tactics and tools humans have used to shape their territories. Often this means excluding unwanted residents and visitors. The…
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Monday, yet again…
Last week was awful. So I found it particularly challenging to come up with a topic for today. I am hoping at least one of these shorter topics might be of interest depending on your desire to think about last week or not… The West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion has apparently sparked some controversy…
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More on Mumbai Floor Area Regulations
The post from September 2nd on Mumbai’s floor area regulations which was largely based on Alain Bertaud’s (AB) report very succinctly identified major issues that limit supply of housing in Mumbai. A contrasting viewpoint was recently presented by Shirish B. Patel in a national daily newspaper in India. This post complements the earlier post and…
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Are Mumbai’s floor area regulations restricting its development? Some lessons from New York City.
Mumbai is undergoing a crisis in optimal allocation of its restricted land resources to improve the health, safety, and quality of life of its 12 million residents. In a paper titled “Mumbai FAR/FSI Conundrum, The perfect storm: the four factors restricting the construction of new floor space in Mumbai”, Alain Bertaud examines the existing housing…