American Dream

A lot of news about light rail in the Twin Cities:

Time gets tight for light rail: Fixes, tests put squeeze on June debut, but officials say they'll make it

Tracking down light-rail flaws and fixes is taking time

Met Council's Bell is energized for the challenge


I have interacting a lot with new urbanists/transit proponents of late, and am beginning to formulate a theory for what motivates people to push an obviously failed ideology: new urbanism is nothing other than an attempt to turn the suburbs into a "city," but without the inconvenient poor people you find in cities today. it is about providing an "urban" lifestyle, but restricted to wealthier people.

Why do I believe this? First of all, most new urbanists I have dealt with in the Twin Cities live in the suburbs. Secondly, notice how so many the new urbanist transit projects are suburb oriented? Here in Minneapolis, we have the Northstar commuter rail, the Hiawatha light rail project, and most of the transit project are suburban--where they can do little good.

The purpose seems clear if you think of it: provide a nice, subsidized urban lifestyle in the suburbs.

TollroadsNews editor Peter Samuel has managed to track down a copy of the Federal Highway Administration's critique of EPA's anti-highway study (see my May 8 post). You can read this memo, which notes numerous data and methodological problems, on the Tollroads News web page.

About a week after the Preserving the American Dream conference in Portland, the Oregonian ran an op ed "responding" to the conference by guest speaker (and smart-growth advocate) Earl Blumenauer claiming that our "statistics and analyses" were "flawed or erroneous." Two weeks later, the paper ran my response in which I argued that Representative Blumenauer's version of the American dream would actually deny that dream to many low- and middle-income people.

Suburban Development Benefits Wildlife

Interesting article by Jane Shaw from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) - a free-market environmentalist think tank based in Montana

It's crunch time for Houston's light rail

An early review of light rail in Houston - so far lots of crashes and a lack of "mixed-use" development along the line that is "stupefying...really bizarre" according to one expert.

Please feel free to pop on over to the Taxpayers League of Minnesota website to read our "transit facts of the day," which we published regularly during our recent bus strike. Taxpayers League of Minnesota

The March issue of Inc. magazine shook up the New Urbanists by ranking San Jose, Portland, and other smart-growth urban areas among the "ten worst metro areas to do business." While other magazines have ranked Portland and San Jose highly by asking such questions as "can you get a good cup of coffee" and "can you get the Sunday New York Times," Inc. magazine asked, "Where is the job growth?" You can download Inc.'s report and read more urban articles by and interviews with the author, Joel Kotkin.

Shortly after the Preserving the American Dream conference, Portland opened a new light-rail line. Now some people are complaining that new businesses on the line have too much (and too prominent) parking. Businesses who are unwilling to sacrifice their customer's needs to planner's ideals, suggests Oregonian writer Randy Gragg, are somehow taking "advantage of light rail but unwilling to stretch a little further to make it work."

Western cities are the new urban model, says Joel Kotkin. Writing in the Arizona Republic, Kotkin notes that the American dream of homeownership and mobility is really a universal aspiration.