Please feel free to view my Capstone: Bridging the Transportation Finance Gap: Planning Beyond Boundaries for a Connected 21st Century Please also feel free to view my Senior Honors Thesis: (Re)New Your City, New York City: Transporting Transformation Hubs New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is constantly running trains, but it is also constantly running […]
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Engaging the Community by Giving EVERYONE A Voice
People too often feel unworthy and powerless in the process of neighborhood change. Why? Because planners leave the community outreach until the end, after the plans have already been agreed upon. Traditional community workshops leave the community on their heels; it’s a reactionary process that often leads to disagreement and NIMBY (Not In My Back […]
Enabling Communities to Build Their Own Plazas
All over the country more and more cities are catching on to the idea that public space can be created quickly and cheaply; expensive master plans are becoming a thing of the past. Typically a community partner—a business improvement district or non-profit community organization—can apply through the municipality to transform an excessive roadway into […]
Brooklyn’s 1938 “Redline” Map
During the middle of the 20th-century, America’s urban cores were being gutted through fiscal attrition: tax dollars were being sent, for the first time, out and away from cities to subsidize suburban expansion. At the same time, private financial institutions were pulling their funding away from urban home-buyers, business owners and those wishing to refinance […]
Gentrification in the Plateau, Montreal’s most famous neighborhood
By Alyssa Campbell The Plateau-Mont-Royal is arguably Montreal’s most famous neighborhood. Ranked by many publications as one of North America’s “best neighborhoods,” the Plateau has built a reputation for being a hip area with trendy bars, shopping, restaurants and cafes. Yet four decades ago life in the neighborhood was quite the opposite, on the precipice of […]
The Other Brownsville
When I searched the New York Times website recently for “Brownsville” (the one in Brooklyn, not the one in Texas), the first few search results were as follows: 16-Year-Old Is Fatally Shot on His Way Home from a Party in Brownsville New York City’s Optimistic Tone Feels Out of Reach in Brownsville Brownsville, Brooklyn, Is […]
Moose are Dying Off
Mankind is often self-involved and indulgent. It becomes apparent when we talk about the perils of climate change, too; we are primarily concerned about how these changes will impact our economies, our cities, and our way of living. However there are thousands of other species of plants, insects, and animals who are at far greater […]
Cutting pensions is the only way to save Cities
Or so James Spiotto would have you think. Spiotto, a partner with Chapman & Cutler who specializes in bankruptcies and workout deals, is recommending the formation of state-mandated Public Pension Funding Authorities. The New York Times delicately explained the role of these new authorities in that they “would offer independent, quasi-judicial powers to sort out the […]
Sydney Sings!
There is a pretty amazing film project documenting an unusual choir in Sydney being done by a friend of mine, Albert Lecoanet. His wife, Liz, is directing a choir of volunteers from all walks of life: Rather than having a choir made up of ‘just’ homeless people, or ‘just’ employees or ‘just’ school boys’, this […]
More About Detroit Bankruptcy
Guardian, UK News papers and blogosphere published many articles on the plight of Detroit and what led to its decline. Following are few articles I picked to share with those who are still searching for information and answers. Hundred and eighty-two year old Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit area. It […]
