Would $12,000 Convince You To Move Closer To Work?
A program in Washington, D.C. is bribing people to move from the suburbs to downtown. Is it money wisely spent?
Popularity: 1% [?]
urbanism.org
Urban news [almost] daily.Archive for Real Estate
A Walker’s Guide to Home Buying
Jennifer and Andrew Greenberg didn’t fall in love at first sight with the 1950s ranch house they just bought in Portland, Ore. But they did feel that way about the neighborhood. They saw people out walking and noticed how close the house was to coffee shops and wooded paths. So they chose the home that needed more work over a comparably priced but more upscale option in another area. “When it came down to it, we weren’t willing to compromise on walkability,” says Ms. Greenberg, a 37-year-old event planner.
Popularity: 55% [?]
Live on a hill? You’re streets ahead: How the name of your road affects your house price
House buyers are being urged to head for the hills – if they have enough money.
While most people looking for a home are swayed by the number of bedrooms or whether the children will get into the local school, a study reveals they should be looking at the first line of the address.
Researchers have worked out the average price of Britain’s 858,000 residential streets, and sorted them according to their names.
Popularity: 52% [?]
‘This town has been sold to Tesco’
Imagine living in a Tesco house, sending your child to a Tesco school, swimming in a Tesco pool and, of course, shopping at the local Tesco superstore. According to the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe), the government’s adviser on architecture and design, this collective monopoly is not an imaginary dystopia. “Tesco Towns” on this model are already being planned across the UK, from Inverness in Scotland to Seaton in Devon.
Popularity: 87% [?]
Taller Buildings, Cheaper Homes
Why in the world should there be a “proper density”? A good case can be made that cities succeed by offering a diverse menu of neighborhoods that cater to a wide range of tastes. Some people love Greenwich Village, and that’s great, but I was perfectly happy growing up in a 25-story tower, and I don’t see anything wrong with that, either.
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If you love cities, then you should want more people to be able to enjoy them, and that means embracing, not eschewing, densities over 200 units per acre.
Popularity: 49% [?]
Don’t Plan On It
The forces shaping our cities today are not municipal agencies but private organizations such as park conservancies, downtown associations, historic-preservation societies, arts councils, advocacy groups, and urban universities. Entrepreneurship also plays an important role. In projects large and small, real estate developers have replaced city planners and bureaucrats as the chief players on the urban scene, restoring neighborhoods, attracting residents to downtowns, helping to create the amenities that keep them there.
Popularity: 36% [?]
Mr. Ratner’s Neighborhood
Manipulative developers, shrill protesters, and a sixteen-tower glass-and-steel monster marching inexorably forward. What the battle for the soul of Brooklyn looks like—from right next door.
Popularity: 66% [?]
When skyscrapers signal a downturn
Skyscrapers, then, are the physical embodiment of “irrational exuberance” in the markets. The rule is that if there’s enough money sloshing around to pay for one, then don’t be surprised if, by the time the purple ribbon’s cut, the scissors have to be on hire purchase.
Popularity: 33% [?]
Slumburbia
Drive along foreclosure alley, through new planned communities that look like tile-roofed versions of a 21st century ghost town, and you see what happens when people gamble with houses instead of casino chips.
Dirty flags advertise rock-bottom discounts on empty starter mansions. On the ground, foreclosure signs are tagged with gang graffiti. Empty lots are untended, cratered with mud puddles from the winter storms that have hammered California’s San Joaquin Valley.
Nobody is home in the cities of the future.
Popularity: 24% [?]
Who Has the Right to Shape the City?
Hamburg has been trying to woo the much-coveted “creative class” for years in a bid to secure its future. Now the city has become the front line in a bitter conflict over gentrification, with artists squatting buildings in protest against investment plans and members of the far-left scene attacking private property — and even police.
Popularity: 34% [?]