Industry Insight
These posts include my insight on the meaning and significance of recent events and changes in how we live, work, learn and shop. You can read by topic or key word, as shown at right.
More Numbers on Downtown Seattle
Currently: 55% of pre-pandemic office use, 76% of hotel use, and 90% of tourists. Encouraging, but hope won't be enough. City government will have to...
A Milestone Becomes A Migraine
Read this long but hilarious transcript and you'll realize just what an "iPhone Moment" this is, and how Microsoft's new software has gone badly off...
Overcoming Siloed Thinking
Affordable housing, TOD, MXD, etc are not separate concepts. Start with walkable/ bikable "place" as a chassis for all of the above. https://www.pps.org/article/toward-place-governance-civic-infrastructure-placemaking
Let ‘Em Go?
In the 1950s and 1960s, cities annexed unincorporated areas to grab the taxes. Now a number of conservative counties in eastern Oregon have held advisory...
Do Individual Cities Have Too Much Power?
This conference on regional planning raises the question, "Does it work?" The California housing crisis and court cases using the state's "Builders Remedy" law will...
The Difference Between Affordable and Affording Housing
Someone likened inclusionary zoning to giving away the heels of a loaf of bread when there is a bread shortage, while at $200,000 or more...