Category Archives: Politics and Society

The Different Cities We Inhabit

Posted on 2013/05/20 by

I do not know many people who live in Boston proper. I know about a hundred who live in the Greater Boston area, but only a small minority lives in the city proper, as is of course true in general. … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal/Admin, Politics and Society, Providence, Urbanism | Leave a comment

Infrastructure and Democracy

Posted on 2013/05/07 by

Two stories, one recent and one older, have made me think about the undemocratic way the US builds infrastructure. The older story is California HSR’s cost overrun coming from scope creep; the biggest overruns were in the Bay Area, where … Continue reading →

Posted in High-Speed Rail, Incompetence, New York, Politics and Society, Regional Rail, Transportation | 44 Comments

Immigration Choice

Posted on 2012/09/23 by

Houston booster and blogger Tory Gattis has a theory of what he calls opportunity urbanism, i.e. a focus on upward mobility as the primary goal of urban policy. Responding to a post of his on The Urbanophile, in which the … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal/Admin, Politics and Society | 11 Comments

The Recession Won’t Last Forever

Posted on 2012/07/03 by

The article about New York State’s decision to discontinue studying high-speed rail between New York and Buffalo is by itself not terribly surprising. Although Andrew Cuomo likes flashy public works projects, of which HSR is one, he is consistently pro-road … Continue reading →

Posted in High-Speed Rail, Incompetence, New York, Politics and Society, Shoddy Studies | 34 Comments

Core Connectors and In-Between Neighborhoods

Posted on 2012/06/27 by

In some American cities, new or proposed transit lines are either core connectors, i.e. city-center circulator streetcars built for development purposes, or far-flung commuter rail extensions with few urban stops. Both are present in Providence, with the South County extension … Continue reading →

Posted in Incompetence, Politics and Society, Providence, Transportation, Urban Transit, Urbanism | 35 Comments

Netroots Nation and How the 99% Talk Hurts Consensus

Posted on 2012/06/10 by

For the first time since 2006, I went to Netroots Nation, as it’s held in Providence. There was one panel about public transportation, entitled “Saving Public Transportation,” whose speakers included Larry Hanley, who dominated the discussion; a moderator; and three … Continue reading →

Posted in Consensus, Labor, Politics and Society, Transportation, Urban Transit | 20 Comments

Quick Note: 77 Cents on the Dollar

Posted on 2012/06/05 by

The headline numbers for how much federal spending each state gets per federal tax dollar it sends to Washington come from the Tax Foundation and are almost a decade out of date. However, using IRS numbers for tax receipts per … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and Society, Providence | 7 Comments

Spreading Population Around

Posted on 2012/06/04 by

There was a series of hate marches and anti-immigrant riots in Israel last week, continuing intermittently to today; at heart was incitement against Sudanese and Eritrean refugees, who the government labels infiltrators and work migrants. Politicians from the center rightward … Continue reading →

Posted in Israel, Politics and Society, Urbanism | 11 Comments

The Cost of Heavy Freight Trains

Posted on 2012/05/06 by

Over at Pennsylvania HSR, Samuel Walker reminds us that the dominance of coal for US freight traffic slows down passenger trains, and this has a social cost in addition to the direct costs of coal mining and burning. But another … Continue reading →

Posted in Environmental Issues, Freight, High-Speed Rail, Politics and Society, Regional Rail, Transportation | 83 Comments

The Growing and the Forgotten

Posted on 2012/03/20 by

Joel Kotkin’s attack on Santorum for his politics rural resentment drew a puzzled response from Cap’n Transit. Although both Kotkin and Santorum are opposed to the kind of urbanism the Cap’n and I promote, their approaches are the exact opposites … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and Society, Urbanism | 17 Comments