While the impetus for State Senator Scott Wiener’s proposed SB 827, which would allow apartment construction near transit lines was addressing housing affordability, the measure should also be a cornerstone of our efforts to tackle climate change. City Observatory…
What City Observatory did this week 1. Cities as selection environments. It’s an article of faith in the economic development business that cheaper is better, or at least more competitive. The claim is that businesses will always gravitate toward and…
Narrow streets, a mix of large houses and tiny apartments, interspersed with shops and businesses in close walking distance. It’s the most desirable neighborhood in the city, and we’ve made it illegal to build any more like it. Editor’s note:…
What does Fruitvale tell us about gentrification and displacement? Gentrification solved, or at least prevented. That was the celebratory headline announcing a recent study from UCLA’s Latino Politics and Policy Initiative, looking at changes in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood. Fruitvale, a…
Being cheaper may not be an advantage at all in a dynamic, knowledge based economy It’s axiomatic in the world of local economic development that the sure-fire way to stimulate growth is to make it as cheap and easy as…