Auto Asphyxiation
George Will recently accused Obama’s token Republican, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, of being the “Secretary of Behavior Modification.” Rather than making our transportation systems …
Granola Works
My former hometown of Portland, Oregon, is proud of its international reputation for sustain- ability and land-use and transportation planning. But lately the city government …
The Real Threat to America’s Infrastructure
The 2007 collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis led to a great hue and cry about the need to repair the nation’s infrastructure. Within …
Medium and Message
The death of the Rocky Mountain News and the print version of the Seattle PostIntelligencer have led to lots of handwringing about the future of …
Truly Universal
The day before Super Tuesday economist Paul Krugman dropped a bomb on the Obama campaign. Obama’s health care plan, which would cover about half the …
Opposite of Panacea
In a recent letter to The Wall Street Journal, a planning professor at Ohio State University blamed urban sprawl for the demise of the after- …
Bring Back the Smoke-Filled Room
I don’t watch reality shows and I haven’t seen any of the presidential debates. But I repeat myself. Listening to inside-the-beltway friends talk about the …
Planners Beware
Thinktank books tend to rumble through the mind, even when you agree with them. A scholar with verified ideas excavates evidence to support them and …
Always Gay Terrorists. Always.
Lots of people are mad at Wal-Mart. The AFL-CIO charges that Wal-Mart is using its lobbying power to derail security improvements at U.s. ports. “Wal- …
The TIF That is Eating Portland
In November 1998, Metro – the regional government for my hometown of Portland, Oregon – asked voters to increase their property taxes so Metro could …