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Urbanism

The Unbreakable Contradiction in Our View of Housing

  • Politics
March 15, 2016June 8, 2018
Author: Howard Ahmanson

Daniel Kay Hertz, a young urbanist from Chicago, [his website is https://danielkayhertz.com] has written the most succinct expression yet of why the whole issue of housing is a dilemma for Americans.  It got a fair bit of notice, and was reproduced […]

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Where in Southern California Could We Fit New Suburbs?

  • California
December 10, 2014July 5, 2018
Author: Howard Ahmanson

People like Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox have argued, to some extent rightly, that the majority of Americans prefer a suburban environment; and even the younger Millennial generation, willing to live in more urban places during their single and cohabiting years, […]

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If We Treated Food the Way We Treated Housing

  • Economics
November 18, 2014July 17, 2018
Author: Howard Ahmanson

Josh Barro, an economics columnist at the New York Times who used to be at Forbes, has written an interesting column on what the food marketplace would be like if we owned lifetime resaleable futures in our food instead of […]

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The Residential College Experience and New Urbanism

  • Culture
October 7, 2014July 3, 2018
Author: Howard Ahmanson

Matthew Gerken, in Philanthropy Daily, has a nice essay entitled “Why We Love College.”  For all the problems with the American university experience – they’re not preparing the kids for jobs! – they’re not preparing the kids for anything but […]

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No, “New Urbanism” and “Smart Growth” are Not the Same

  • Politics
August 26, 2014July 5, 2018
Author: Howard Ahmanson

There are two political movements in urban development that have a lot of overlap but are not the same.  ‘New Urbanism’ advocates the legalization and building of communities resembling the 19th century American town, with a fair number of single […]

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What Kevin Starr Doesn’t Get About Small Towns

  • Culture
July 9, 2014June 8, 2018
Author: Howard Ahmanson

I have been enjoying Kevin Starr’s volume in his cultural history series, Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963.  It is a period of which I have some living memory, and I have heard of, or met, in […]

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Declining Hubs: A Good Location for Experimenting with High Speed Rail

  • California
May 17, 2014July 5, 2018
Author: Howard Ahmanson

I stumbled recently on a page in Therichest.com listing seven airports in America that are declining in their status as hubs, and it is interesting that they seem to be concentrated in one region: the area between the Great Plains […]

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Why The Dream Declined

  • Economics
April 7, 2013December 9, 2021
Author: Howard Ahmanson

The best single post on the decline of affordable housing that I have seen on one of my favorite sites, newgeography.com, is this by Roger Selbert.  He most succinctly explains the reasons why the American dream of subsidized home ownership [discussed […]

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Changing my mind about single family homes

  • California
April 5, 2013August 18, 2018
Author: Howard Ahmanson

I used to believe that social justice required that a region be overbuilt [or at least over-entitled at law] in high-density housing and other locally undesirable land uses.  Now, thanks to Joel Kotkin’s influence, I believe that social justice requires […]

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A New Federal Department of Cities?

  • Politics
February 17, 2013July 3, 2018
Author: Howard Ahmanson

Oh good grief.  Don’t we already have a Department of Housing and Urban Development, Mr. Florida?  As C. Northcote Parkinson pointed out more than 50 years ago in Parkinson’s Law, only dictatorships have a cabinet larger than approximately 20.  It […]

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