Reinventing America's Cities: The Time is Now

HE country has fallen on hard times, but those of us who love cities know we have been living in the dark ages for a while now. We know that turning things around will take more than just pouring money into shovel-ready projects, regardless of how they might boost the economy. Windmills won’t do it either. We long for a bold urban vision.

In Staten Island, Harnessing the Wind

STAND for a moment by the shores of Arthur Kill, on the southwestern coast of Staten Island, and look past the choppy waves at the fuel storage tanks of Sewaren, N.J.

Harnessing the Sun, with Help from Cities

PALM DESERT, Calif. — Rick Clark’s garage is loaded with fast toys for playing in the sun. He has a buggy for racing on sand dunes, two sleek power boats for pulling water skiers, and a new favorite: 48 solar panels that send his energy meter whirring backward.

NY Court deals landlords huge setback

This is such good news... I'm looking forward to seeing some major speculators declare bankruptcy in the next year or two......

Judges say Tishman Speyer must keep units rent regulated as long as they get tax breaks, derailing building owners' plans to deregulate units to pay off their mortgages.

Tishman Speyer Properties and other owners of rent-regulated buildings suffered an enormous blow Thursday when the Appellate Division of New York’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled buildings receiving certain tax benefits could not deregulate apartments.

Joining the Car Pool, in the Internet Age

ALMOST two years ago, Marc Alston began to look around for a way to share the 50-mile daily commute between his home in Wappingers Falls and his job in White Plains. He found the solution on the Internet through a Web site that allows commuters — or people who want to share a ride anywhere — to find others going their way.

Bike... Walk... Public Transportation... Carpool

The data table link in this article shows that 3.6% of NYC residents work from home as of 2005, ranking 20th among US cities. Given that 54.6% take public transportation to work, and 9.4% walk to work, 0.5% bike to work, this leaves 31.9% of NYC workers who take a car to work. Of these, it's not clear what percent car pool. I recall reading that it was about 8% (but the writer didn't say if this is the percent of all commuters or the percent of people who travel by car). So it's either 8% of all commuters or 25% of all commuters... a big difference.

Either way, there's room for improvement, and with the advent of more social networking sites, it is likely to keep growing.

New Yorkers are top transit users

It's no surprise that NYC tops the list of top transit using cities. 54.6% of NYC residents take public transportation to work every day. 4 out of the top 5 transit using cities are in the northeast corridor.