...in my humble opinion, there are scant few good urban planning blogs, so I wanted to create an enlightening, provocative, and entertaining forum for planning-focused issues in my hometown of Buffalo, NY.
The fresh angle is this: the city doesn't need to add another high-priced manager and yet another layer of bureaucracy. We can get much better management of downtown transportation/parking assets if we better utilize the resources we've already got. Private companies routinely reorganize management structures to adapt to changing conditions, so why can't the city?
Does America have a transportation strategy? We'll speak with David Goldberg of the group Transportation for America to find out what realtors, civic leaders, urban planners and non-profit organizations are doing to tackle the problem of how we get around.
And we'll speak with John Campbell about one of the most exciting revitalization projects happening in North America, the Toronto Waterfront. The Waterfront works across a broad sector of public and private organizations to create parks, public spaces and cultural institutions along Toronto's shore aimed at reducing sprawl and developing sustainable communities.
There has been a nationwide shift toward de-construction (led by companies like Planet Reuse and Buffalo Reuse, the surgical taking-apart of homes to salvage the building materials for reuse, but often the building materials used in these developments aren’t of good enough quality to warrant salvaging.
The body of a woman was found inside an abandoned house at 830 Fillmore Ave. this morning, authorities said. A Rural Metro Ambulance crew arrived at the structure at about 9:30 am after a call was placed from a pay phone at 880 Fillmore alerting officials of the situation. Police were summoned by Rural Metro after the body was found at the house. Officers are investigating the circumstances of the death.Yes, the house made the news. A scan of Lexis/Nexis this evening, a full week after the woman's body was found, nothing more - absent is the woman's name and the cause of death. This block of Fillmore Avenue, between Sycamore and Broadway, is by any available metric - which isn't saying much - the avenue's most stable block. On Wednesday afternoon when another friend accompanied me to the scene we noticed that the sidewalks and steps at 830 Fillmore had just been shoveled and black plastic trash bag curtains had been hung in the living room windows. There was no crime tape, just a sun faded building permit tacked to the inside window frame was all we could see. After snapping the pic, we quickly left.
The suburban lifestyle is losing popularity, and in-town living is in vogue like never before... but as older building stock continues to be demolished and replaced with "vinyl victorians" in down-on-their-luck neighborhoods all over the city, one wonders when it will finally be okay for Buffalo to be itself again.I'll be adding additional places to my vinyl collection this year. Seems like they keeping popping each time we demolish places that can't be replaced.
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.See My Vinyl Collection for additional inspiration.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
The key is preparation, city officials said. Compiling a list of recent sales of comparable properties can be helpful in the challenge process. Many homeowners who previously succeeded in winning reductions also supplied photographs of properties to document certain interior or exterior conditions. read the rest
We’re targeting the worst. We’re convinced those structures must go. There’s really no choice. - Mayor Byron Brown
