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Southie Edison plant project underscores region’s transit woes

The old Boston Edison power plant in South Boston is the latest example of the projects that are reshaping Greater Boston — big developments packed with housing just a short commute to downtown.

But with nearly 1,600 housing units, the 15-acre redevelopment also underscores a growing concern that the building boom will overwhelm city streets and mass transit.

Redgate and Hilco Redevelopment Partners estimate that their 2.1-million-square-foot mix of residential, retail, and office space would generate an additional 10,000 vehicle trips a day in that corner of South Boston once it is completed, likely more than a decade from now.

The developers also anticipate many new residents will rely on public transit, as they plan to have only about 700 parking spaces allocated for housing — fewer than one space for every two units.

“The buses are absolutely jam-packed every day,” said Donna Brown, executive director of the South Boston Neighborhood Development Corp. “Where do you put more transportation options? They have to come up with that answer.”

The latest in a series of "walkshops," Envision Cambridge presents a walking tour of Central Square and Riverside. How has this area changed over time and how is it evolving today? How have urban planning decisions affected the development and mobility options along this corridor? The tour will explore how policies and planning have shaped Massachusetts Avenue and the surrounding areas, with particular emphasis on urban form, housing, and mobility.

Participants will meet at 5:30 p.m. at Carl Barron Plaza (the open space on the southeast corner of Mass Ave and Propect Street). Members of the Envision Cambridge consultant team and Community Development Department staff will lead the tour. The walk will be approximately 1 mile and 1.5 hours.

Please register to reserve your spot in the walkshop 

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/06/the-problem-with-how-we-measure-affordable-housing/531378/

"German house prices in 2012 represented a 10 percent decrease in real terms compared to thirty years ago. That is a particularly astounding performance compared to the UK, where real prices rose by more than 230 percent in the same period. "

https://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2014/02/02/in-worlds-best-run-economy-home-prices-just-keep-falling-because-thats-what-home-prices-are-supposed-to-do/#3a9260906ad0

"No one warns you that everything is more concentrated in a tiny house, that the natural life cycle of objects accelerates..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/realestate/what-no-one-ever-tells-you-about-tiny-homes.html?mc=aud_dev&mcid=fb-nytimes&mccr=JuneMC910&mcdt=2017-06&subid=JuneMC910&ad-keywords=AudDevGate

Considering this pattern of urban design, what is the position of pedestrians and cyclists in a global sharing economy where Uber (the mobile app officially launched in 2011) serves 570 cities across the world? As we approach a future of autonomous, driverless, electric cars and buses, the conditions of walkable mobility will need to rely on smart mutations of existing roads and highways. These spaces are becoming obsolete in the cyborg city, where artificial intelligence and natural human flows (such as pedestrian movements) intensively interact.

https://intermittentcity.wordpress.com/2017/06/22/walking-in-times-of-uber-cities/

Affordable urban living for millennial families with children has the potential to become one of the largest market demands in the near future. 

http://www.moderncities.com/article/2017-jun-the-next-baby-boom-urban-millennials-with-children-

In 2017, for the first time, Deutsche Bank has included a ranking of the quality of life in 47 cities around the world. The ranking is based on eight sub-indexes compiled by crowd-sourced information database Numbeo, which create a broad picture of what it is like to live in different cities.

The indexes are: Purchasing Power, Safety, Health Care, Cost of Living, Property Price to Income Ratio, Traffic Commute Time, Pollution, and Climate.

Broadly speaking, the cities that rank highly are in the northern hemisphere in developed western economies, although several cities from nations like South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand make the list, with one even at the very top.

Check it out below:

http://www.businessinsider.com/world-cities-with-best-quality-of-life-deutsche-bank-mapping-the-worlds-prices-index-2017-5

Chinese railcar-maker CRRC on Jun. 2 unveiled a new product called Autonomous Rail Transit (ART) in Zhuzhou, Hunan province, and the bus-rail combo rapid transit system is expected to speed up city’s public transportation.

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0602/c90000-9223523.html