new urbanism

A property owner has proposedbuilding a slender, 28-story mixed office/retail/hotel building at the corner of Congress & 8th, on the site of the Hickory Street Bar & Grill and the Bosche-Hogg building.

  The building will retain the facade of the Bosch-Hogg building.  

Sometimes, it just takes a pair curious curators — and one symbolic swallow — to give Austin an intriguing art happenings and installations that will sprout across a spot of downtown Austin beginning next week.

Rachel Cook and Claire Ruud teamed up to organize the multi-part project called ‘One Swallow Doesn’t Make a Summer’ that will occupy sites around the Second Street District and Republic Square Park.

Urban Returns.

I started Austin Contrarian to write about Austin land-use issues.

 Land-use fights are bloodsport in this town; I enjoy writing about them and will continue to do so.  

But over the last three years, I've branched out.

 I'm now as likely to write about urban economics, demographics, New Urbanism or some other topic that has nothing to do with Austin in particular.

 Lately, I've been writing about these other things more frequently because development has dried up in Austin.

Urban Returns.

I started Austin Contrarian to write about Austin land-use issues.

 Land-use fights are bloodsport in this town; I enjoy writing about them and will continue to do so.  

So after reading a long set of complaints on the hydeparkaustin yahoo group(*) about the city not adequately enforcing code regarding to unrelated occupants in 'McMansions' in Hyde Park, I posted the following to their group, which was bland enough to make it through the moderator gauntlet:

Allow me to present the SNAustin.org mayoral forum, with these humdingers:

1. This video shows you successful VMU projects and how nice their open spaces are and then says we need rules to make sure VMU developments provide enough open space.

Wouldn't it be smarter to show some that didn't provide enough open space, if any such existed? Maybe they couldn't find any, because I can't think of any that do that bad a job.

There is a lot to like about Mueller.

 The streets are laid out in a grid with short, walkable blocks.  Homes address the street.  Garages are relegated to rear alleys.

A reminder that NIMBYism really has nothing to do with homeowners' preferences for one kind of development over another.  It's all about managing threats to property values: 

A reminder that NIMBYism really has nothing to do with homeowners' preferences for one kind of development over another.  It's all about managing threats to property values: 

(Sorry for the funky look below -- but Typepad changed the blog template on me without my choice and I haven't figured out how to restore my defaults yet.)