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  #201  
Old Posted Aug 21, 2010, 5:51 AM
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Copy the email and share it with us. You can omit everything but that stat if you are worried about privacy.

A screen capture would be better.
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  #202  
Old Posted Aug 21, 2010, 7:14 AM
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The stat means nothing without context. What does "walking distance" mean?
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  #203  
Old Posted Aug 21, 2010, 4:27 PM
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Taking that into consideration, I have no idea why its so difficult to a) explain the context of walking distance and b) provide stats from an email sent from Valley Metro.
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  #204  
Old Posted Aug 21, 2010, 6:10 PM
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http://morrisoninstitute.asu.edu/for...transportation


Quote:
With a Phoenix metro area consisting of approximately 4 million people, ridership numbers for Valley Metro, the provider of public transportation in the area, remain relatively low. Valley Metro has a daily weekday ridership of about 250,000.

According to a 2004 Valley Metro study of non-riders, the primary reason (among 40% of those surveyed) given for not using public transit was “a perceived need for a personal vehicle for their travel needs.” However, 17% of those surveyed cited a lack of bus service, another 17% cited an inconvenient bus schedule and 11% cited a “dislike in the amount of time required” as reasons for not using mass transit.

One of the conclusions of the study was that “the negative impressions of the Valley’s transit system is related to the perceived inadequacy of the service available.” The study shows why car ridership is preferred to public transit use.

An expansion of bus service would likely lead to increased ridership numbers for Valley Metro. An increase in the frequency of buses would make getting around much easier. The addition of express bus routes would cut travel times and make public transit more convenient for riders. The light rail has proven that Valley residents are willing to use mass transit. However, the current light-rail line is limited in scope. By increasing bus service, public transportation in the Phoenix Metro area will become more responsive and accessible.
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  #205  
Old Posted Aug 21, 2010, 6:48 PM
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That article (did you read it?) is relied on public perception much more than actual availability (and what the hell does a college junior know about anything anyway?). It offers no statistics concerning how accessible public transit is to residents, even if the majority of them prefer to use their cars.

Again: I wouldn't be surprised if at least 25% of the Valley is poorly served by Valley Metro. Greater Phoenix spraws embarassingly. Mike claimed that "over half" of the Valley isn't "within walking distance" of public transit. The burden of proof lies on him to define what he means by walking distance, as well as providing tangible proof to back up the claim that "over half" of the metro's residents don't have access to Valley Metro's services (busses, light rail, neighborhood circulators, etc).

I really don't understand why this is so hard to comprehend? Phoenix sucks, but lets at least be factual about the situation.
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  #206  
Old Posted Aug 21, 2010, 6:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M II A II R II K View Post
The stat uses a 1/4 mile walking distance, which is considered the norm for access to transit.

1.7 million greater Phoenix residents out of a metro population of over 4 million are within a 1/4 mile walking distance of a bus route.

NOTE: This includes all bus routes. Many Phoenix bus routes operates very limited sevice, meaning that the population that lives within walking distance of full service transit service is even lower.

I don't know why you guys get so upset when you know the USA is not known for providing quality public transit in most cities. So I don't know why stats like this are so shocking and upsetting to you guys.
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  #207  
Old Posted Aug 21, 2010, 7:00 PM
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I've read the article three times now. Where are you getting any stats from that which aren't based on public perception?
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  #208  
Old Posted Oct 6, 2010, 10:15 PM
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Portland Metro's Competitiveness Problem


09/29/2010

By Wendell Cox

Read More: http://www.newgeography.com/content/...m=feed&utm_cam

Quote:
Portland Metro's president, David Bragdon, recently resigned to take a position with New York’s Bloomberg administration. Bragdon was nearing the end of his second elected term and ineligible for another term. Metro is the three county (Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties) planning agency that oversees Portland's land use planning and transportation policies, among the most stringent and pro-transit in the nation. Metro's jurisdiction includes most of the bi-state (Washington and Oregon) Portland area metropolitan area, which also includes the core municipality of Portland and the core Multnomah County.

- Bragdon was on to something. Metro's three county area suffers growing competitive difficulties, even in contrast to the larger metropolitan area (which includes Clark and Skamania counties in Washington, along with Yamhill and Columbia counties in Oregon). This is despite the fact that one of the most important objectives of Metro's land use and transportation policies is to strengthen the urban core and to discourage suburbanization (a phenomenon urban planning theologians call "sprawl").

- Jobs have simply not been created in Portland's core. Since 2001, downtown employment has declined by 3,000 jobs, according to the Portland Business Alliance. In Multnomah County, Portland's urban core and close-by surrounding communities, 20,000 jobs were lost between 2001 and 2009. Even during the prosperous years of 2000 to 2006, Multnomah County lost jobs. Suburban Washington and Clackamas counties gained jobs, but their contribution fell 12,000 jobs short of making up for Multnomah County's loss. The real story has been Clark County (the county seat is Vancouver), across the I-5 Interstate Bridge in neighboring Washington and outside Metro's jurisdiction.

- Not only are companies not creating jobs in the three county area, but people are choosing to locate in other parts of the metropolitan area. Between 2000 and 2009, the three counties – roughly 75% of the region’s total population in 2000 – attracted just one-half of net domestic migration into the metropolitan area. Washington's suburban Clark County, across the Interstate Bridge, added a net 48,000 by domestic migration and has accounted for 40% of the metropolitan area's figure all by itself.

- Portland's unintended decentralization has even damaged the much promoted, and subsidized, public transit agencies. Despite Portland's pro-transit policies, the three county transit work trip market share fell from 9.7% in 1980, before the first light rail line was opened, to 7.4% in 2000, after two light rail lines had opened. Two more light rail lines and 9 years later, (2009) the three county transit work trip market share had fallen to 7.4%, despite the boost of higher gasoline prices.

- Why have Portland's policies that are designed to help the core failed to draw jobs and people? People who move to the Portland area from other parts of the nation are probably drawn by the lower house prices in Clark County, where less stringent land use regulation has kept houses more affordable. New housing in Clark County is also built on average sized lots, rather than the much smaller lots that have been required by Metro's land use policies. House prices are also lower in the exurban counties outside Metro's jurisdiction.

- As Metro has forced urban densities up in the three county area and failed to provide sufficient new roadway capacity, traffic congestion has become much worse. A long segment of Interstate 5 in north Portland seems in a perpetual peak hour gridlock unusual for a medium sized metropolitan area, which is obvious from Google traffic maps that show average conditions by time and day of week.



Clark County generated 13,000 net new jobs between 2001 and 2009






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  #209  
Old Posted Oct 6, 2010, 11:02 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
The stat uses a 1/4 mile walking distance, which is considered the norm for access to transit.

1.7 million greater Phoenix residents out of a metro population of over 4 million are within a 1/4 mile walking distance of a bus route.

NOTE: This includes all bus routes. Many Phoenix bus routes operates very limited sevice, meaning that the population that lives within walking distance of full service transit service is even lower.

I don't know why you guys get so upset when you know the USA is not known for providing quality public transit in most cities. So I don't know why stats like this are so shocking and upsetting to you guys.
So Phoenix is now representative of "most" cities?
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  #210  
Old Posted Oct 7, 2010, 12:49 AM
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I wonder how he thinks further stretching out of infrastructure to support low density populations will help ensure a better future for Americans? The further out they sprawl, the more feet of roads, sewers, water lines, electric/phone/utilities lines, etc, they have to build per person. They are essentially supply lines to the suburbs and they become less and less feasible, the further out they stretch. Publicly funded tax subsidies will have to increase at exponential rates to cover the maintenance costs of these infrastructure lines. Our country is already struggling to maintain the ever sprawling network of roads and infrastructure in suburbia today. Just imagine if a majority of the next 100 million people to live in this country opt for suburban over denser urban locations. How does he account for these problems with his theory, I wonder? My guess is he simply ignores these problems, pretending they don't exist at all.
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  #211  
Old Posted Oct 7, 2010, 1:16 AM
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While these statistics are puzzling, there are likely explanations that don't involve the hackneyed propaganda glamorizing autopia and attempting to mischaracterize the city for partisan purposes.

For example, what is literally driving the zeitgeist in the United States right now? The Great Recession. I wonder why Cox doesn't readily mention that when pointing out a few thousand-job loss between 2001 and 2009--surely the prolonged employment downturn is part of that picture? And if the suburban counties grew their commercial sectors rapidly in the last decade, and it's fair to say that happened outside Portland proper, wouldn't that account for why there are still more jobs there today than in 2001?

Anway, Cox goes after a straw man with his deceptive cherry-picking of statistics. Nobody ever claimed Portland was an economic superpower. Forumers know downtown Portland is not terribly big or tall just from photo threads--was there some confusion among the made men of the petroleum-pimps, Cox and Kotkin? Are they confused? Or delusional perhaps?
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  #212  
Old Posted Oct 7, 2010, 4:27 AM
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Cox fails to recognize two huge factors in Portland's growth patterns.

1. I don't know the specifics, but basically Downtown Portland had an lid on total parking spaces until fairly recently. Typically, even a fairly transit/density-friendly plan will allow some increases in parking, for example one space per every four workers. Portland's result was that developers simply didn't build offices.

2. Washington state has no income tax. Portland-area residents flock to Clark County because they can live with no income tax and spend on the Oregon side with no sales tax. I don't respect this, but a lof of people do it.

Further, while Washington has lighter growth management than than Oregon, particularly in Clark County, it does have growth management, and it's been growing explosively. It's done much of it in a dense-suburbia way...Clark County has a lot of 10/acre townhouses with carports. Maybe Cox really likes that.
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  #213  
Old Posted Oct 9, 2010, 12:28 AM
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The World's Fastest-Growing Cities


10.07.10

By Joel Kotkin

Read More: http://www.forbes.com/2010/10/07/cit...mepagelighttop

Quote:
The urban powerhouses of the next decade aren't behemoths like New York or Mumbai, but smaller cities like Chongqing, China; Santiago, Chile; and Austin, Texas.

- Our list of the cities of the future does not focus on established global centers like New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong or Tokyo , which have dominated urban rankings for a generation. We have also passed over cities that have achieved prominence in the past 20 years such as Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Beijing, Delhi, Sydney, Toronto, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.

- Nor does our list include the massive, largely dysfunctional megacities--Mumbai, Mexico City, Dhaka, Bangladesh--that are among planet's most populous today. Bigger often does not mean better.

- Chongqing sits in the world's most important new region for important cities: interior China. These interior Chinese cities, notes architect Adam Mayer, offer a healthy alternative to coastal megacities such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzen and Guangzhou, which suffer from congestion, high prices and increasingly wide class disparities.

- China's bold urban diversification strategy hinges both on forging new transportation links and nurturing businesses in these interior cities. For example, in Chengdu, capital of the Sichuan province, new plane, road and rail connections are tying the city to both coastal China and the rest of the world. And the city is abuzz with new construction, including an increasing concentration of high-tech firms such as Dell and Cisco.

- The growth of India and China also creates opportunity for other emerging players, particularly in Southeast Asia by creating markets for goods and services as well as investment capital. Potential hot spots include places like Hanoi, Vietnam, which is attracting greater interest from Japanese, American and European multi-national firms upset with China's often bullying trade practices and rising costs. Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur--with its rising financial sector--also displays considerable promise.

- Latin America, too, has a plethora of huge and growing cities, but it's hard to nominate the likes of Mexico City or Sao Paulo as likely hot spots for future sustainable growth. The best economic prospects in this region lie in more modestly sized cities like Santiago, the capital of resource-rich Chile, and even Campinas, Brazil, a growing smaller city--with 3 million residents--that lies outside the congested Sao Paolo region.

- Other leading cities all over the world may also be in the early stages of fading from predominance. In the United States, according to analysis by the California Lutheran University forecast, Los Angeles and Chicago, America's second and third cities, respectively, have fallen behind not only fast-comers like Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, but even historically dominant New York in such key indicators as job generation and population growth.
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  #214  
Old Posted Nov 5, 2010, 2:16 PM
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New Index Estimates New House Cost Impact of Land Regulation


11/01/2010

By Wendell Cox

Read More: http://www.newgeography.com/content/...edburner&utm_m

PDF Report: http://demographia.com/dri-full.pdf

Quote:
In recent decades, an unprecedented variation has developed in the price of new tract housing on the fringe of US metropolitan markets. Nearly all of this difference is in costs other than site preparation and construction, which indicates rising land and regulation costs.

- More restrictive land use regulation is variously referred to as "smart growth," "growth management" and other terms. More restrictive land use regulation is estimated to have added from nearly $30,000 (in Minneapolis-St. Paul) to more than $220,000 (In San Diego) to the price of a new home.

- For decades, construction costs of tract house on the urban fringe in the United States have represented 80% or more of the advertised house price. The balance of 20% or less has been for land and regulation costs and will be referred to as the "land and regulation cost ratio." In metropolitan markets with less restrictive land use regulation, the historic 20% or less land price ratio remains in place. The Demographia Residential Land & Regulation Cost Index assumes a 20% expected land and regulation ratio.

- The greater increase in house prices and escalation of land costs above the historic 20% land and regulation cost ratio has occurred in metropolitan markets burdened by more restrictive land use regulations. Urban growth boundaries, limits on the number of houses that can be built, large lot zoning and excessive development impact fees and the like are regulation strategies that increase the cost of land for building houses.

- More restrictive land use land use regulation also creates obstacles to people buying houses, requiring them to devote more money to housing than necessary and increases their vulnerability to losses in the event of a financial downturn. This exposes mortgage lenders to increased risks of loan defaults. Finally, more restrictive land use regulation makes residential land development more dependent on politics, with the potential for greater influence through campaign contributions.







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  #215  
Old Posted Nov 5, 2010, 3:14 PM
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There are many housing options other than "typical SFR."

Furthermore, protecting farms and forests is important. Far more than taking a lassez faire approach to growth so that people can waste land.

Wendell Cox tells the masses what they want to hear of course.

Thankfully, growth management has done well with voters in my area and numerous others.
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  #216  
Old Posted Nov 5, 2010, 4:44 PM
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so we'll make the suburbs more like a city, and then maybe build new suburbs
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  #217  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2010, 8:45 PM
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Wendell Cox's Voodoo Economics


6 November 2010

By Bill Fulton

Read More: http://www.cp-dr.com/node/2810

PDF: http://www.demographia.com/dri-method.pdf

Quote:
So, yet again Wendell Cox – a leader of the anti-anti-sprawl crowd -- has trotted out an impressive-looking quantitative report that purports to prove that certain metropolitan regions have high home prices because of "more restrictive land use regulation". In his New Geography piece last week, which linked to a report on his web site, Cox seemed to attribute virtually all the variation in home price around the country to land use regulations – just as he has done in the past. But – as usual – Cox’s analysis is based on the assumption that sprawl is the natural state of affairs and any deviation from sprawl must therefore be caused by regulation.

He does extensive quantitative analysis to prove that all difference in home price is due to regulation. But it’s not too surprising that he reaches that conclusion, considering that his analysis assumes that any difference must be due to regulation. And even Cox himself apparently recognizes that he can’t quite make an airtight connection. As he said in the New Geography piece: "Nearly all of this difference is in costs other than site preparation and construction, which indicates rising land and regulation costs."

Note the language: Indicates, not proves. And that’s not the only defect in his methodology. There are lots more assumptions piled on top of assumptions – some contradictory -- that make the numbers come out the way he wants them to. To summarize Cox’s latest analysis, he compared home prices in 11 metropolitan areas. Home prices in six metropolitan areas that he categorizes as having "less restrictive land use regulation" (Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Raleigh-Durham, and St. Louis) are lower than home prices in five metros he characterizes as having "more restrictive land use regulation" (Minneapolis-St. Paul, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, and Portland).

Not too surprising on the face of it, but let’s unpack Cox’s methodology, most of which is contained in a separate document.

First, he asserts that more restrictive regulation raises home prices and disrupts normal market functioning in a variety of ways. There’s obviously a lot of truth in that.

Second, he identifies six specific regulatory approaches that, he claims, are characteristic of "more restrictive land use regulation policies with potential to increase land costs and house prices". These are:

1. Urban containment (urban growth boundaries, urban service districts, restrictions on physically developable land, infill quotas.)

2. Large-lot zoning in urban fringe & rural areas.

3. Geographical growth steering

4. Housing building moratoria or limits

5. High development fees & exactions

6. Mandatory regional or county planning.

Where did he get this list? Well, in some cases he got them from the 2000 HUD report The Cost of Sprawl. In other cases he references himself, a la Mike Davis. But he doesn’t differentiate among these policies; he simply asserts that they all fall into the category of restrictive regulation. Never mind, for example, that he lumps together UGBs (which encourage higher density) and large-lot zoning (which encourage lower density). He also asserts that no matter what the policies are called – for example, smart growth or growth management -- they are basically all the same.
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  #218  
Old Posted Nov 9, 2010, 6:57 PM
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Greetings From Recoveryland: Ten Places to Watch Coming Out of the Recession


11/08/2010

By Joel Kotkin

Read More: http://www.newgeography.com/content/...ource=feedburn

Quote:
Like a massive tornado, the Great Recession up-ended the topography of America. But even as vast parts of the country were laid low, some cities withstood the storm and could emerge even stronger and shinier than before. So, where exactly are these Oz-like destinations along the road to recovery? If you said Kansas, you’re not far off. Try Oklahoma. Or Texas. Or Iowa. Not only did the economic twister of the last two years largely spare Tornado Alley, it actually may have helped improve the landscape.

- Unlike the Sun Belt states and cities along the East and West coasts, these locales not only grew during the boom of the mid-2000s, they suffered least in the Great Recession. The fact that they are mostly in red states should give the newly ascendant GOP comfort as it tries to deliver on its election-year promise to right the economy. That isn’t to say all the blue states will remain weather-beaten.

- Wall Street, heady with cheap money, has sparked a return to opulence. And the strong demand for high-tech products and services will likely keep places like Boston, San Francisco, and San Diego from devolving into fancy versions of Detroit.

- For sheer economic promise, no place beats Texas. Though the Lone Star State’s growth slowed during the recession, it didn’t suffer nearly as dramatically as the rest of the country. Businesses have been flocking to Texas for a generation, and that trend is unlikely to slow soon. Texas now has more Fortune 500 companies—58—than any other state, including longtime corporate powerhouse New York.

- Although Massachusetts and California are lauded as the places “where the brains are,” neither ranked high in the growth of tech jobs over the past decade. More important is where the brains are headed. A lot of them are going to North Carolina, Virginia, and Utah. The population of Raleigh-Durham grew faster than any major U.S. metropolitan area during the recession, and the city ranked third on our list in terms of job growth over the last decade. To the north, in Virginia, lies another Silicon Valley wannabe, stretching across Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax counties. And then there’s Salt Lake City and its environs, buoyed by the arrival of such big names as Adobe, Twitter, and Electronic Arts.

- The Greater Salt Lake region, which follows the Wasatch Mountains from Provo to Ogden, has much to attract tech companies: short commutes, decent public schools, spectacular nearby recreation, and, perhaps most important, affordable housing. Roughly 75 percent of households in Salt Lake can afford a median-priced house, as compared with 45 percent in Silicon Valley and roughly half that in New York City and San Francisco.



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  #219  
Old Posted Nov 9, 2010, 8:19 PM
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^^^^The notion that Texas has escaped the depression is taken as orthodoxy especially amongst the right wing red meat zombie crowd

However as usual the truth is out there:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...exas-two-step/


Don't be a zombie it is hazardous for your health:
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  #220  
Old Posted Nov 9, 2010, 8:25 PM
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Also, places that haven't dropped yet can sometimes be the places at the most risk.

A million factors will contibute to any city's health going forward. Here's one big one: If your housing prices have remained stable, it'll now be harder for people and businesses to move to your city, and easier for people and businesses to move away.
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