Category Archives: Land Use

Don’t Miss Strong Towns Speaking Tour Coming to PA Cities

Strong Towns is one of my favorite blogs on cities and land use politics, so I’m excited to see that Charles Marohn is doing a speaking tour through PA. Here’s an important post Marohn did on the Ponzi scheme of … More after the jump

Posted in Land Use

No More Park-n-Rides for the Pittsburgh Metro

I’m a big fan of rail transit, but too often you see local governments squander the valuable land around train stops on Park-n-Rides instead of dense housing and commercial development. When governments invest in rail, the land around the stations becomes more valuable. … More after the jump

Posted in Land Use, The Economy, Transportation

Philly Needs More Pro-Growth Land Use Advocacy, Less Arson From Building Trades Union

Philaphilia is one of my favorite blogs (maybe my most favorite blog!), and one of the things you notice as a Philaphilia reader is that NIMBY groups manage to get a whole lot of development projects shut down in Philly. … More after the jump

Posted in Land Use, The Economy, Transportation

PA Transportation Bill Should Aim to Grow Taxi Market

One thing that I would like to see discussed in the 2013 state transportation bill is taxi reform. More, better and cheaper taxis would be a great way to help ease some of the growth fears in PA’s cities. If … More after the jump

Posted in Land Use, The Economy, Transportation

Pittsburgh Getting a Skyscraper That Can “Breathe”

No political point to make about this, just a really cool building.

Posted in Land Use

Land Tax Would Cushion the Blow of AVI

Sandy Smith is making great points about AVI and land taxes: For now, revenue neutrality is the right strategy to follow, especially after upset residents and Council members lambasted Nutter’s early attempts to generate more revenue from the new tax … More after the jump

Posted in Budget/Taxes/Spending, Land Use

Barry Schoch: Bike/Ped Funding Safe

This Jon Schmitz article is so dense with transportation news, it could power like 4 blog posts. I’ll pull two items of interest to this blog and send you over to the P-G . First, bike/ped funding is safe. Washington … More after the jump

Posted in Land Use, Transportation

Split Between Corbett and House GOP on Transit Funding

Jon Schmitz says Tom Corbett’s PennDOT Secretary Barry Schoch has been telling the smart growthers that the Corbett administration has no intention of doing separate funding bills for transit and auto infrastructure: Mr. Schoch also said the governor’s plan will … More after the jump

Posted in Budget/Taxes/Spending, Land Use, Transportation

Hail Isaiah Thompson! AxisPhilly Delivers the Assessment Explainer You Need

I was getting ready to complain about the poor explanation quality in the items on the property reassessment news out of Philly today, when Isaiah Thompson went and wrote precisely the explainer people needed to see. You can’t just throw … More after the jump

Posted in Budget/Taxes/Spending, Land Use

The Affordable Housing Coalition We Need

One thing I wish more people understood is that affordable housing politics is not a fight between “greedy developers” and renters.  Properly understood, the political economy looks like this: developers + renters + construction workers on Team Build More Housing, and incumbent landowners on Team … More after the jump

Posted in Land Use, The Economy