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Revolutionizing Civic Planning: Community_inPUT – A Blockchain-Powered Pilot Study

The evolving landscape of civil planning and community engagement is witnessing a paradigm shift, particularly through the innovative use of blockchain technology. Community_inPUT, an ambitious pilot study, stands at the forefront of this revolution by leveraging blockchain to transform civic planning processes. The implementation of… Read More »Revolutionizing Civic Planning: Community_inPUT – A Blockchain-Powered Pilot Study

Exploring Web3 Technologies in Urban Planning: A Paradigm Shift Towards Decentralization and Engagement

The digital landscape is evolving rapidly, and with it, emerging technologies like Web3 are redefining the way we interact with and plan for our communities. At the heart of this evolution lies the concept of a decentralized internet—a Web3 technology—that operates on a network free… Read More »Exploring Web3 Technologies in Urban Planning: A Paradigm Shift Towards Decentralization and Engagement

Fiscal Weakness of Managed Retreat: Inequities and Local Disincentives

Climate change poses a significant threat to numerous regions in the United States, rendering them increasingly uninhabitable due to rising sea levels, flooding, wildfires, and more. As a response to this challenge, managed retreat has emerged as a strategy to relocate affected households, neighborhoods, and even communities away from harm’s way. Although managed retreat can involve a number of processes, the use of buyouts––the voluntary purchasing of private properties using public funds (which is intended to spur the relocation of at-risk households to lower risk locations), is a critical (and in many places, virtually the only) tool in a policy maker’s toolbox.

While physically moving people out of harm’s way makes intuitive sense, the real world applications of managed retreat-related buyouts are highly complex, emotional, and fraught with weighty fiscal and equity implications. Here we explore some basic financial considerations of managed retreat, shedding light on the challenges faced by affected municipalities and fundamental flaws in the system as a whole.

Methodology and Findings for the ‘California Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program: Evaluating the Use of Cap-and-Trade Funds to Promote Climate Mitigation and Adaptation.’

Tom Daniels, Crossways ProfessorDept. of City and Regional PlanningUniversity of Pennsylvania IntroductionThe research project on the California Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation (SALC) program combined the broader exploration of how the SALC might serve as a national model—both to preserve farmland from conversion to development and… Read More »Methodology and Findings for the ‘California Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program: Evaluating the Use of Cap-and-Trade Funds to Promote Climate Mitigation and Adaptation.’

A Radical Vision of Equality: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Economic Plan to Eliminate Poverty

There are few figures in 20th century American history more roundly beloved than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr – and, as an unfortunate consequence, few whose legacies have faced more colossal efforts at appropriation. This is ironic, since of course in his own lifetime Dr King was among the most polarizing figures in American politics. This transformation has been facilitated in no small part by the snipping of his most broadly agreeable remarks and views and a great deal of ignorance about Dr King’s sophisticated – but more controversial – economic views. 

Economics were fundamental to Dr King’s career, and the ultimate goal of his economic thought was the elimination of poverty. It was to this end that King promoted the Freedom Budget of All Americans, which had as its goal the “determination that in this, the richest and most productive society ever known to man, the scourge of poverty can and must be abolished—not in some distant future, not in this generation, but within the next ten years!” King endorsed the budget and threw the support of the Southern Christian Leadership Council behind it.

Mississippi: The Tangled Web of History, Class, Race, and Water

It’s too easy for a northeastern US observer to have an overbearing and infuriating attitude regarding Mississippi. Unfortunately, Mississippi has a laundry list––or a butcher’s bill if you like, of past sins that stick in the craw of humanists and the respecters of justice alike.

That said, no one is innocent. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. observed (after getting hit with a brick in Chicago), “As long as the struggle was down in Alabama and Mississippi, they could look afar and think about it and say how terrible people are. When they discovered brotherhood had to be a reality in Chicago and that brotherhood extended to next door, then those latent hostilities came out.”

So, we ought to look at the current problems in Jackson, Mississippi, bloodlessly and try to keep emotions out (I’m not saying it’s easy). What happens when a group surrenders political power but economic power remains the preserve of the privileged? Perhaps, it will turn out that political power is often no power at all. Instead, it takes politics and economics for political economy like two elements forming a chemical compound producing different behaviors.

Zoning Has Been Weaponized

Low-density housing typically refers to residential areas occupied primarily by single-family homes or buildings with a limited number of dwellings. There is no set definition, but one characteristic of such an area is that the inhabitants start complaining about any housing development that is too… Read More »Zoning Has Been Weaponized

This Tax Makes All Other Taxes Redundant

On a lazy Sunday morning I managed to get my son Miran (9) and his friend Tinus (10), who lives next door to us, to play a game of Monopoly. They were not very enthusiastic at first; they find the game boring and predictable. The player who can build houses first quickly gets ahead in the game. Especially if he reinvests the money he earns in new houses. For the others, it’s hard to catch up. The winner accumulates piles of money, the other players are broke and frustrated. There’s hardly any strategy involved. It’s just a matter of being lucky or unlucky.

The current housing market in the Netherlands looks a lot like a Monopoly game. If you bought a house at the right time, your wealth is growing. If you don’t own a house yet, it is almost impossible to get in on this wealth growth.

Free Newark Now!

Along with New York City, Newark, New Jersey, possesses one of the best locational advantages of any city in the United States. Founded in 1666 by Connecticut Puritans, the town grew by leaps and bounds; the Industrial Revolution sparked a meteoric increase in population and a multi-sector industrial and commercial base. First, canals and then railroads converged into the city. With a population of 8000 in 1820, people poured in, swelling the city’s population to 367,000 by 1910. 

The civic confidence of Newark was such that city leaders in government and business thought it was time to go big. In the era of bold public development, the Meadowlands of New Jersey (known as Newark Meadows) consisted of 46 square miles of what today we would call wetlands but then were called “wastelands.” 4300 acres lay inside the city limits of Newark, and plans were executed and funded by the city to build a port from the “reclaimed” land.