urbanSTL

^^ yup, applies for older americans too:

What Does 'Livable' Mean to Older Americans?
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighb ... cans/8968/

Older people who are car-dependent don't tend to plan for the time that they might be unable to drive. If they live in a place where driving is central to life, as many Americans do, they can end up unable to reach stores, health care services, and their social networks. "One in five people over 65 don’t drive," says Lynott. "We outlive our driving years by on average a decade. We all have to educate people about realities of aging."

^^ So if americans tend to be unable to drive for on average 10 years at the end of life, shouldn't there be huge walkable communities poping up in urban areas to accommodate them? Shouldn't people start thinking about moving to these types of places in their 50s-60s so they can settle in before they get frail? I feel like there is a very large business opportunity here since we all know that nobody really wants to end up in a retirement home.

Also, an interesting article on the stresses of running a startup in San Francisco. I wonder if startups in our region have it easier because of the lower cost:

No Exit: Surviving a Modern Day Gold Rush
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/no-exit/

At the moment Boomtrain, as the startup was called, technically had something like negative dollars, because it owed the state of New York a $30,000 fine after its payroll company had been six weeks late in telling them about a $400 unemployment-insurance bill for one of their remote engineers. Boomtrain also had no revenue, though that was hardly a hurdle to raising investment capital in Silicon Valley. Somewhat more problematically, it didn’t have a single customer, though there were several pilots in the wings. Almost inadvertently, Nick and Chris had found themselves building a business of enormous complexity—a personalization engine, based on machine-learning algorithms—and they were in over their heads.

Nick and Chris no longer cared about “killing it.” They were too honest and too tired for that language and that posturing. At this point they just wanted to survive. They had about a month to raise $1 million or they would no longer be able to make payroll.

Also, an interesting article on the stresses of running a startup in San Francisco. I wonder if startups in our region have it easier because of the lower cost:

Based on the article i definitely have a better understanding of why the biggest complaint of startups in st. louis is the lack of access to capital. Those guys drove all over the bay area seeking venture funds and were lucky to scrape together a few who responded to their product. Plus the investors want regular reports of progress. For early stage companies its clear San Fran is one of the easiest places to make it work.

The real question is once you've established yourself especially post IPO why would you ever want to stay in such a hostile environment with engineers constantly being poached by competitors and salaries and cost of living spiraling out of control.

How an obese town lost a million pounds

Oklahoma City is a midsized town that had a big problem: It was among the most obese towns in America. Mayor Mick Cornett realized that, to make his city a great place to work and live, it had to become healthier too. In this charming talk, he walks us through the interlocking changes that helped OKC drop a collective million pounds

Will Liberal Cities Leave The Rest Of America Behind?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/30/opini ... inion&_r=0

"A wave of newly elected mayors from New York to Seattle has taken office committed to deploying the power of city government and aggressive wage and tax policies to attack inequality and revive social and economic mobility.

These outspoken mayors have generated a growing optimism on the Democratic left that local officials can restore support for government activism. Mayors and city councils, in this view, can lead the drive to improve the prospects and living conditions of those in the bottom third of the income distribution....

Meyerson’s list of mayors charting the new liberalism includes (but is not limited to) Pittsburgh’s Bill Peduto, Minneapolis’s Betsy Hodges, Seattle’s Ed Murray, Boston’s Martin Walsh, Santa Fe’s Javier Gonzales and, of course, New York City’s Bill de Blasio....

There is no question that demographic diversity and a solid stratum of high net worth taxpayers in key cities provide fertile ground for liberal politics. The larger question is whether the current left-leaning urban agenda is restricted to small elite of well-off municipalities with substantial resources. If so, the cities equipped to finance major enhancements will leave their less well-off counterparts sinking ever deeper in the hole."

Water Wheel to clean up Baltimore's Inner Harbor
http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/ne ... l?page=all

"The organization is installing a solar- and water-powered wheel to collect trash at the base of the Jones Falls, between Pier VI and Harbor East. The wheel, capable of removing 50,000 pounds of trash per day, will bring the Waterfront Partnership closer to its goal of making the harbor clean enough for recreational use by 2020."

Even Walmart is turning to good urban design:

What It’s Like To Be A Walmart Architect

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3025934/sli ... -architect

I visited one of the first two Walmart stores to open in Washington, D.C., and discovered a Walmart unlike almost any other in the United States. It was a thoughtfully designed store with a spacious vestibule, parking hidden underground, and--wonder of wonders--windows. You can stand inside that store at the corner of Georgia and Missouri Avenues NW and actually see the color of the sky. I’ve been reporting on the big box retailer for a decade, and that Washington, D.C., store was so distinctive that it inspired a thought no Walmart ever has: Who designed this space?

How Tolls Could Help Prevent a U.S. Transportation Crisis

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commut ... isis/9051/

one element of Obama's plan seems likely to endure. That's an idea to let states place tolls on their free interstate highways. Right now, states can only toll an interstate highway to pay for the construction of new lanes. The new plan would let states create tolls to pay for maintenance of a crumbling highway they have no plans to expand at all. (Three states already have such permission through a federal pilot program — Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia — but none has acted on it.)

The idea has a little something for everyone. It shifts power to the states, which conservatives tend to like. It makes drivers pay for road use more directly than the gas tax does, which economists like; in fact, the free-market Reason Foundation recently proposed a similar plan. And it lets politicians avoid the unpopular move of raising the gas tax during an election year, which every party likes. For the record, the C.B.O. recommends a 10 to 15 cent per gallon hike.

Critically, the idea as proposed by the White House allows toll revenue to go toward transit projects in the same corridor

Short piece on how multi-family starts nationally are booming while single-family home construction is in the slow lane:
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news ... l?page=all

We're at the highest percentage of multi-family starts versus single-family since 1974. I think this trend definitely helps Saint Louis City relative to the County and exurbs; we'll see how long it lasts.

Interesting factoid mentioned here that overall a three-family apartment unit creates about the same number of jobs (1) as a single family over the course of a year.... so extrapolating that, something like the West Pine Lofts project creates about the same amount of jobs as 70 single family homes.

Another thing that I think many other cities have a step up over us is that they have a larger foreign born or immigrant population. This results in more business connections with foreign countries and more direct investment from abroad.

Chinese Developers Step Up
Chinese Real Estate Developers Take the Lead on New York Projects

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/reale ... ts.html?hp

New Population Estimates Highlight Nation's Fastest-Growing Cities
http://www.governing.com/news/headlines ... ities.html

In all, cities with populations exceeding 100,000 collectively added an estimated 857,000 residents between July 2012 and July 2013, accounting for an increase of about 1 percent. By comparison, all other areas of the country recorded population growth of only 0.6 percent over the same time period.

Sprawltastic Houston Is Densifying and the Courts Can’t Stop It
http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/ashby-h ... ers-sprawl

Though Houston is not quite as unplanned as its reputation — it doesn’t have zoning, but it does have a number of other planning rules — the city’s generations-long pattern of growing outward without densifying the core is starting to reverse itself.

The Streetcar-Minus-Streetcar Plan Worked for D.C.
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/05/ ... dc/371830/

In Washington, announcing a streetcar system seems to have brought on all the effects of building one.

Politico has an interesting article on the interplay between transit lines, density, and political leanings. It takes a look at how the new Silver Line in Northern Va is all but certain to further accelerate the already changing composition of Loudon County, a once firmly reliable GOP stronghold that is turning blue.

An analysis done by software engineer David Troy estimates that when density surpasses roughly 800 people per square mile, counties tend to flip from Republican to Democratic....

Admittedly, there’s a chicken-and-egg question here. Do densely populated places lure people with a more Democratic sensibility? Or, as places become more densely populated, do people themselves start to lean leftward? The numbers suggest it’s probably a bit of both.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... z33ULPJJxn