Category: Housing
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Guide to Vienna: Part 1 – Why I Love Vienna
Welcome to Vienna! My in-laws recently travelled to Vienna, Austria, and asked me to give them some advice and a few tips for their visit. My short list of points of interest quickly grew to several pages and included a brief, opinionated, somewhat political, description of Vienna in its Austrian context. Here is a slightly…
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A Perspective on Neighborhood Change: Crown Heights
For the last supper we each ordered our own plate, five sides for $8.50. I ordered double kabocha squash because it’s my very favorite, accompanied with okra, collards, and chickpea stew. He chose a platter of mock meats. Imhotep’s, a Jamaican vegan spot on Nostrand in Crown Heights. It was our go-to for a hearty…
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Helpful Tips for NYC Renters
I have occasionally been asked for advice from people who are moving to New York City for the first time and looking for apartments, so I thought I would share my advice (which I have accrued from renting here for almost twenty years). Feel free to share your lessons learned too! I refuse to…
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Planning Dogmata: Affordable Housing
It occurred to me recently that “affordable housing” qualifies as dogma, since I have yet to meet a planner who does not accept it unquestioningly. I am assuming this has a lot to do with how well we are paid, and possibly living conditions in grad school when we are being indoctrinated. This came…
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Homes for Artists
In New York, gentrification has often occurred due to creative professionals and artists moving into neighborhoods that have been neglected by real estate interests and making them attractive due to their sweat investments and cultural programming of the area. Usually this results in more affluent populations moving in and displacing the long-time residents. This…
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Economics and Affordable Housing
Do urban planners know enough about urban economics? Just mentioning economics is often enough to cause most eyes to glaze over. Why should planners’ eyes be any different? One reason that urban planners don’t tend to study economics too much may be that economics is currently depicted as a conservative mode of thinking, while…