Infrastructure
The Better Block movement demonstrates without any public sector assistance the vitality that could be brought to struggling neighborhoods in cities such as Dallas, San Antonio, and Norfolk, Virginia.
With train travel regaining popularity and high-speed passenger rail projects or improvements under construction in California, Michigan, and the Northeast Corridor, another era of railroad station construction is dawning. Nearly every station project includes intercity train service, and rail hubs once again are seen as magnets for real estate activity and opportunity.
Members of ULI’s Public Development and Infrastructure Council discuss ways to make infrastructure improvements, facilitate public development projects, and create synergies in the private sector.
In her new book, urban designer Julie Campoli judiciously weaves photography, text, and mapping to define the essential characteristics of 12 compact, low-carbon prototypes in central city locations. Made for Walking: Density and Neighborhood Formcommunicates with ease on several levels for the benefit of a broad reading audience.
Work will begin this summer to transform an abandoned 2.7-mile (4.4 km) stretch of elevated railway in Chicago into the Bloomingdale Trail, the city’s only pedestrian greenway and bike path running east to west, which ultimately will connect pedestrians and cyclists to trails that stretch all the way to the Indiana state line.
Housing will be the biggest challenge for the coming wave of aging baby boomers, said speakers at a recent Atlantic forum in Washington, D.C.. With neither adequate zoning nor a sufficient stock of “age-appropriate” housing, America is not prepared for the predicted surge in the number of senior citizens, panelists said.
This summer, Chicago is planning to roll out a small-sounding but seismic policy shift: From now on, in the design guidelines for every effort from major streetscape projects to minor roadside electrical work, transportation work must defer to a new “default modal hierarchy.” The pedestrian comes first.
Homes near public transit retained their value better during the recession than their counterparts in auto-dependent areas, according to a recent study. What’s impressive is the extent of it: In five metropolitan areas, residential property values performed 42 percent better on average.
San Diego is the site of one of the most ambitious and expensive public-works projects in history—a $583 million expansion and renovation of the venerable but overloaded San Ysidro Land Port of Entry.
Anthony Foxx, mayor of Charlotte, N.C., has been nominated to be the next secretary for the U.S. Department of Transportation. Mayor Foxx and a team of public officials from his administration participated in the 2010-2011 class of public leaders serving as fellows for the ULI Rose Center for Public Leadership program.