Urban Planning
Report: Real Estate Interests Spent $5.5M on Transport Lobbying in 2009
In the debate over how -- and whether -- to set measurable performance standards for determining where federal transportation money gets spent, real estate developers are a quiet but powerful player. In a report released today, the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) tracked the broad reach of land-use interests and found more than 100 groups spending $5.5 million on transport lobbying last year.
March 11, 2010
U.S. DOT Cagey on Funding New Transport Bill as Senators Seek Solutions
Senators began searching today for new strategies to connect local planners with an ever-dwindling pot of federal infrastructure dollars, even as a senior U.S. DOT aide declined to say whether the White House's upcoming principles for the next long-term transportation bill would include funding specifics.
March 11, 2010
New House Jobs Bill Dominated by Direct Aid to Cities
Soon after the Senate signed off yesterday on a $150 billion package of tax extenders and unemployment benefits that was promoted as a job-creation measure -- a bill that lacked dedicated new funding for transportation -- Democrats on the House education and labor committee were releasing their own jobs legislation.
March 11, 2010
Report: Obama’s 2011 Budget Leaves Cities in a Fiscal Hole of $16B-Plus
The White House's proposed budget for 2011 would direct $2.8 billion to its biggest-ticket urban aid programs, even as American city governments face estimated budget shortfalls of at least $19 billion next year, according to a report released today by the nonpartisan Drum Major Institute (DMI).
February 25, 2010
New Analysis: Major Cities Still Shortchanged by Transportation Stimulus
The Obama administration's awarding of $1.5 billion in competitive transportation stimulus grants on Wednesday sparked elation in cities such as Kansas City and New Orleans. But those celebrations were more than just anecdotal evidence of the so-called TIGER program's urban impact, according to a new analysis from the Brookings Institution's Rob Puentes.
February 19, 2010
EPA and HUD Make Big Investments in Sustainable Development
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are making significant progress on their joint effort, with the U.S. DOT, to connect cleaner transportation options with affordable housing and denser urban development.
February 8, 2010
A Modest Proposal: Ask Developers to Help Pay For Better Transport
At today's debate on conservative support for transit, developer Chris Leinberger had a modest proposal for lawmakers who are desperately seeking new transportation financing strategies in an era of diminishing gas tax returns: Ask real-estate developers to pay for projects that will increase their profits.
February 2, 2010
The Urbanist Case Against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), an advocacy group working to reform local development practices, is seizing on House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank's (D-MA) recent call for a new system of housing finance to replace government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
January 29, 2010
Obama Previews His New Budget’s Urban Policy Moves
When it comes to re-centering the Washington bureaucracy to better accommodate cities' needs, the first year of the Obama administration has brought its share of progress (a three-agency partnership set to spend $150 million on sustainable development) and hiccups (a White House urban affairs office with lots of talk but little action).
January 22, 2010
What if America’s Urban Economies Were National Ones?
The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report this week with some dire conclusions for the nation's cities: Even the payroll growth that many prognosticators anticipate this year won't make a dent in double-digit urban unemployment. Half of the 363 biggest metro areas won't return to their pre-recession jobs levels until 2013 or beyond.
January 21, 2010